"We are the answer to their prayers..and they are the answer to ours".

Remembering the least of these so we can worship our King through the acts of serving. 
Though prayer is the gift and the joy and the priviledge of every human being...there are prayers...and then...there are prayers .
We may imagine them as a note written..a message sent..a duty done. But what is prayer really?... It is a living thing with wings....It is the restless and eager hoof-stomping of a war horse...
It is the longing of one heart that passes through the lips..moves into the air where it joins the longing of other hearts in a Heaven bound tide....
It is a child that opens it's arms with excitement and expectancy.. who knows that the manifestation of that prayer will be a transcending..
beyond despair, and fear, and mediocrity..where God rewards our faith by allowing us to become the arms..and legs.. and voices of our own prayers.
Prayers with power, and with immediate evidence of having been heard. Prayers that remind us that our lives can be deeply purposeful..
but it's a choice we need to make.
Do we continue to live within the small.. safe.. comfortable borders we've drawn around our days..coming to the end..only to say we arrived with as little discomfort as possible?..
or do we choose..in the short time we have on this planet..to become involved in things that really truly cause the universe to shift..and cause the inhabitants of Heaven to jump to their feet with joyful relief and applaud.
These
 humans have begun to stir.. to wake, and to realize their potential for giving the weary travelers of this tired planet..a picture of hope, and courage and beauty and love.
These
humans are joining the ranks of other rebels, who accepted an invitation given long ago to be a part of a divine revolution.. against injustice and despair and death...where war is won..not with weapons of destruction..
but with weapons of peace..of comaraderie..and good food..and livestock..and baseball mitts.. and colored balloons.. and friendship.
And how wonderful and wise of God to not make any human being the savior of another..to not allow any debt to stand between people..
but to design instead, with every gift of love..a symbiotic relationship where both parties are surprised by the joy and the blessing bestowed upon each other with equal weight and significance.
Right now..there are those whose immediate needs are to be saved from empty bellies, and rape,..and disease, and an overt evil..that robs them of their basic human rights.
Their dreams are of a time when their childrens' cheeks will be full, and their eyes will be clear and their hands will hold soccer balls and books instead of sticks and rusty wheel rims.
And we as their spiritual siblings..what are our needs? How can they pray for us?
they can pray that we be saved from a covert evil..the false security of full bellies and the starvation that comes from empty hearts..and unlimited entertainment..
and the pursuit of physical comfort at the expense of mental health...and the media driven rape of our souls..and the fatal diseases of discontent and apathy.
In the truest sense of relationship..as we help meet the physical needs of our brothers and sisters..they in turn teach us about hope and courage and joy in the midst of desperate struggle.
Because in our heart of hearts we know that we are not immune..
that it isn't about them and us. It's about humankind and the tribulations and despair that can befall any of us in a single hurricane or flood,
or economic crash.. or incrementally over months and years of drought..when it's our crops that dry up and blow away..and our rivers that disappear and our children that have sunken cheeks and tired eyes..
and it will be their prayers that will uphold us, and their stories that will give us hope..
and their children that will teach us about joy in the midst of despair..and that we are brothers and sisters on this journey together..needing each other to survive.
Through organizations like World Vision and Our Response.. we can see our prayers answered..hold them in our hands..
through a child's drawing or a picture sent..and we can say..there is my prayer dancing...and there is my prayer singing.
and they can see pictures of us and say..there is my prayer laughing..and there are my prayers.. with a direction for their hearts and a divine purpose for their pocketbooks.
We will cease to see our prayers as words handed over in a tidy box..but instead as a pair of goats..or a chicken..
or a new Sunday dress..or a calf that will become a milk cow..or a dozen soccer balls..colorful and with the kind of bounce that no kid has seen before.
And the anonymous child in our prayer is no longer anonymous.. and now...has a name.
They are Beatrix..or Juna or Zipola..him with the really long eyelashes and the funny grin..her with the tucked chin and the shy smile.
It is about their suffering and ours...
as we alleviate theirs we begin to cure ours..
and the cure isn't found in futile attempts to alleviate circumstances beyond our control..
but in the realization that so much more of it is within our control than we ever allowed ourselves to dream.
To realize that we are the answer to their prayers..and they are the answer to ours.
Written by Barb Gillespie