The power of a praying grandma

My grandma was a Southern Baptist dynamo. She was so passionate about her family having a saving relationship with Jesus that the majority of them despised her for it! Sure, they loved her, but they thought she was a religious fanatic, and she made them very uncomfortable.  And they let her know it.

Grandma’s three daughters all pulled out of the Oklahoma dust-bowl Depression to put themselves through college. Each one married intellectual men–my mom married an engineer and my two aunts married professors (one of whom was rumored to be a card-carrying member of the Communist party). Grandma’s pleas of “are you saved?” rubbed every one of them the wrong way, but she didn’t care. As a kid, I was fascinated by the dynamics and secretly admired her refusal to be bullied out of what was widely viewed  by the family as an offensive and ridiculous stance. I loved my Grandma and never felt threatened by her faith.

Grandma, I am sure, prayed nearly as much as she preached, and years later, even though the others in my generation of the family seemed to embrace worldviews far different than hers, I was still seeking.

One night, during a particularly stressful Christmas break, I was sitting in a bar getting drunk as quickly as I could. My friends, all dolled up, were on the prowl for good-looking guys, but I wanted nothing of that. You see, my step-grandma (my dad’s step-mom) had just passed away, and days before Christmas, I had surgery to remove a large mass from my breast. As a nineteen year old, right before I went into surgery, I was required to sign a paper stating that the doctors could remove the breast if cancer was found. Although I was relieved to learn that the mass was benign, I was not in a good frame of mind.

So there I was, in a “19-year-olds-are-legal” bar, getting drunk and spiraling into cynicism and despair. I absent-mindedly watched as the band played song after song and the patrons (mostly female) danced in front of the musicians. When I noticed that they were swaying with their arms lifted up to the sky, I heard a voice in my ear, “Lifted hands are a sign of worship.”

I dropped my head and said, “I’m in hell.”

Days later, while alone at my parents’ home, Jesus visited me, and Grandma’s prayers were answered.

Don’t give up on your loved ones. Prayers over distance and time are powerful tools in the hand of God. You can be sure that He is working behind the scenes on behalf of a loved one–or a nation–if you don’t grow weary and give up. Stick with it. Don’t quit!

Dorothy