When we were growing up, my mom was the ‘spiritual leader’ in our home. She was a practicing Catholic and my dad, though raised in the Reformed church, attended church only occasionally. Our parents sacrificed greatly to send us to parochial school and saw to it that we went to church on Sundays, and completed all the milestones of the faith, i.e. holy communion, confirmation, etc. Ours was a happy family, with a large extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins galore, all much like us when it came to practicing or not practicing religion.
But there was one family close to us who was different. They weren’t really relatives, but our parents and theirs had been long time friends and our families spent a lot of time together. We called each other’s parents “Aunt and Uncle” and thought of their kids as our cousins. What made them different was that their lifestyle reflected something our family was not familiar with. They talked about Jesus like they knew Him personally, and most of their activities revolved around their church. They were fun to be around, yet soft-spoken and always kind.
As children, we played with these ‘cousins’ and have fun memories of things we did as kids. But in our teen years, we began to drift apart. They would invite my siblings and me to their youth group activities, but that didn’t seem near as much fun as the parties with our high school friends. Nevertheless, our parents remained close and visited together often.
There was one particular incident in my late teens when my own foolish choices concerning a serious relationship, left me an emotional wreck. This aunt came over to help my mom in her efforts to comfort me. I can’t remember her words, but I remember this dear aunt sitting on the floor next to me in my brokenness.
It was nearly ten years after that when my mom came to know Jesus Christ as her personal Savior. Of course, my mom’s dear friend, this aunt, was the first person she called with the news. And that was just the beginning. Shortly after that, my mom shared Christ with me and I received Him as my Savior. One by one, my dad and my siblings received Christ into their lives. It was a true miracle!
The point of this whole story is the faithfulness of God in answer to prayer. I didn’t realize it when we were growing up with this family, but I realize it now. They had been praying all those years for us. Their love for our family, wanting us to know the joy of true relationship with God and the assurance of eternal life in Christ, had been poured out in prayer from their hearts to God’s. And most surely, they had enlisted the prayers of their church family on our behalf, as well. How many times had our names been whispered into God’s ear? I can only imagine. And I am forever grateful.
If you are reading this and you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, it is because someone prayed for you and God answers those prayers in His time and His way. So don’t stop praying for your loved ones; don’t lose heart in spite of what you see. God hears and God answers.
Pursuing God's Fingerprints 