Only a Prayer Away

When people receive news they don't know what to do with, something remarkable happens: their highest instincts take over.

There is almost nothing anyone can do upon learning that someone they know and care about is seriously I'll.

No fixing it, no scheduling it away, no casserole big enough.

So they do the one thing that may be the most powerful thing of all.

They pray. They share prayers. They recruit others to pray.

Such was the case with me.

The news traveled farther than I ever would have sent it, spreading to cover my whole world — past and present.

Names I hadn't heard in years suddenly appeared on my screen, each one carrying a prayer.

People I knew only through business, people I'd have politely filed under "distant," turned out to be anything but.

People I thought were distant were only a prayer away.

Family, friends, colleagues — sending prayers, sharing them, enlisting reinforcements.

My family is spread across several cities, and in each one my name was spoken at Mass and lifted at healing vigils.

More than one religion joined the effort, which I suspect makes me one of the more ecumenically covered men in Georgia.

At some point there must have been thousands of people praying for me.

Thousands. I found myself both humbled and intrigued.

Nobody coordinated this. There was no committee, no sign-up sheet.

And yet everyone, everywhere, reached for the same thing.

Whether it was the whispered prayer of one person alone or the focus and intensity of hundreds gathered at a Catholic Mass, a force was unleashed on my behalf — and I got to feel it arrive.

For me? That's the part I keep circling back to. Me.

I own a forever gratitude to every person who took my situation and placed it in the hands of an all-loving God.

There's no thank-you note equal to that.

So this entry will have to do — and so will the rest of my life.