Prayer--Lagoon, Backpacking and a Concert

Last Thursday was a day full of prayers of safety for my children. My first prayer of the day--when I rolled from my bed into a kneeling position on the floor (as is my customary way of leaving bed in the mornings) was a petition for protection. Our morning family prayer was the same. All throughout the day, it seemed I was pausing the bustle around us to send another child off on an adventure with a parting prayer. And, when Mike and I knelt together after midnight the prayer for those who had not yet returned was the same. 

It wasn't that any enormous thing was happening really: Goldie had gotten several cheap Lagoon tickets from her work. She and Daisy were taking Penny, Jesse and Anders. It would be driving, and parking, and a long day in the heat for sisters keeping a close watch on little brothers at a crowded amusement park (with no parents around to holler for someone to keep up, recognize when someone needed a break, or to reapply sunblock).

(At one point they sat on the swings and suddenly realized that their cousin Anna and Uncle Troy were sitting right in front of them. That was a fun surprise.)

(Lovely, Anders.)

Goldie, who, despite our encouragement, has purposely avoided freeway driving like death itself during her year and a half with a license, would be leaving Lagoon early, making her way home on the freeway, and then leaping on it again to drive herself and a friend to Salt Lake--navigating lane changes, exits, unfamiliar roads, parking, traffic, crowds, (and potentially questionable characters)--for a large concert. (One she wouldn't return from till nearly 1:00 a.m.)

And, on this same day, Abe was leaving with two friends for several days of backpacking in the Uintahs--with poor weather forecast and no cell phone reception. "What if there's an emergency?" I'd asked him the night before his departure (as he laid out sleeping bags and wool socks, peanut butter and granola bars).

"We'd just turn around I guess."

"But I mean like ... what if you broke your leg?"

"Well ... like all three of us broke our legs?" (Here he enacted a comical scene with one of them falling off a cliff and breaking their leg, followed by each of the others, in a series of misguided rescue attempts, falling off the same cliff ... and also breaking their legs.) "Because if just one of us broke our leg, we'd probably send one of the others for help."

(His answer was hardly satisfactory.)

In any case, it was prayers sent up all day. "Let angels chaperone and guard them." "Keep them safe driving." "Send a force field of light and protection to surround them." "Help them not got lost." "Keep them from injury." "Help them not to come to the attention of anyone who might harm them." "Watch over them." "Protect them from the weather." 

I love the story of George Q. Cannon and how he came, in an unexpected way, to serve a mission in the Hawaiian Islands (and to eventually see to the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon in that language). But never, until this past week, had I read this little account of the dream George had at the end of a week being stuck in the San Francisco Bay:

There were ten of us, of whom I was the youngest, wind-bound in the Bay of San Francisco, and we had been thus delayed for nearly a week near the Golden Gate in consequence of head winds. I dreamed one night that this party of brethren were heaving at the windlass, having a rope attached to it reaching forward to the anchor at the bow of the vessel. We were working with all our might endeavoring to raise the anchor, but seemingly we made but little progress. While thus engaged I thought the Prophet Joseph came from the after part of the vessel dressed in his temple clothes, and tapping me on the shoulder told me to go with him. I went, and he climbed on to the forecastle which was higher than the main deck and on a level with the bulwarks, and there he knelt down, also telling me to kneel down with him. He prayed according to the order of prayer which is revealed. After prayer, he arose upon his feet. "Now," said he, "George, take hold of that rope—the rope we had been pulling on with all our might. I took hold of it, and with the greatest ease and without the least effort, the anchor was raised." "Now," said he, "let this be a lesson to you; remember that great things can be accomplished through, the power of prayer and the exercise of faith in the right way."

Upon speaking of this experience later, he said:

My brethren and sisters, my young brethren and sisters ... Remember always, there is power in prayer greater than anything man can do. There is no power in monarchs, there is no power in armies, there is no power in legislation, nor in anybody nor anything else upon the earth that equals the power of God in prayer.

I've had my share of desperate prayers for miracles that have not come, questions that have gone unanswered, and the smallest and simplest of pleadings that, to my confusion, have been denied. I don't pretend to understand the whys behind all of those things. And yet, time and experience and choice has developed in me a strong certainty that there IS enormous power in prayer--in our choosing to pray to claim blessings and help. I have felt power surround me through prayer offered by others. I have felt my own prayers reach up and call down power and blessings on others. And I have felt some inexplicable certainty that something eternally significant happens--extending into God's place of timelessness, unlimited by our mortal timeframes and limited ideas of resolution or proof--when we pray for each other.

One time, when I was sending up a rather half-hearted and faithless prayer for some relation or other who needed help (because how much would my little prayer from a distance really matter), I heard very clearly these words in my mind: "If you had any idea how much your prayers for others helped them, you would be praying for them all of the time!"

And as our kids are increasingly leaving for adventures much longer and much larger than a trip to Lagoon, a concert, or even a backpacking trip; as they are increasingly moving beyond the protections of our home and our observation and presence--the protections that make me feel I have some measure of control--I am grateful that I will have the increased opportunity to learn to rely upon and surround them with the power available through prayer. (And I'm tearfully grateful to realize that I have likely had many opportunities, protections, guidance, and comfort come to me thanks to the prayers of my parents, Mike's parents, and others!)