Christian Family Services Ministry

6-20-2022 – On Prayer

I want to share some of my experiences with prayer. I was born a twin, premature in the middle of World War II. I was deathly sick from the beginning and my future didn’t look promising. After overcoming some unbelievable hurdles, my health again took a critical turn. I had been in the hospital for nearly two weeks before my second birthday, when the doctor told my mother that I would not make it through the night.

After the doctor left, my mother began fervently praying and begging the Lord to spare my life. My mother had a unique saying about prayer: “Why would anyone think that prayer is a one-way street? How is it possible to take comfort in praying to a God who does not talk to you?”

When I was four, my parents divorced, and I was put in a series of foster homes, and “taken care of” by a host of abusive people. From time to time, I spent a few weeks with my mother and then made to go back to these places. During one of these interludes, under the care of my mother, I was six years old and I got in a rock fight with another child and got hit in the eye. My mother rushed me to the hospital. After the initial examination, the doctor told my mother that I would most likely lose the eye. My eye was bandaged, and I was sent home. Upon arrival, my mother asked me if I wanted to know if I would lose my eye or not. I assured her that I did. We knelt down and she told me to ask the Lord. This is the first time I prayed. I asked the Lord if I would lose the eye, and he said no. My mother asked me what He told me, and she confirmed that she received the same answer. That was the beginning of my prayer life.

I returned to my private hell, living with abusive foster parents. When I was nine, I did not want to live any longer. It was the summer of 1952, there was a terrible plague going around. Mid-afternoon, Mrs. Smith called my mother and told her to come and get me because I was running a high fever of 106 degrees. My mother told me she did not know what she was talking about, that she did not even know how to take a temperature. She came to see me and took my temperature; it was 107 degrees! My mother rushed me to the hospital. I still remember the gurney- someone pushing it quickly towards an elevator and a doctor on one side and nurse on the other giving me injections, as fast as they could. I passed out. My mother prayed. The diagnosis was polio. She prayed more. Later, much later I was going home, and I told her I would never go back to Mrs. Smith’s. She agreed and my family moved to Lawton. However, by this time the damage had been done. A host of psychologists was no help to me. I had an emotional block to learning, plus what is now referred to as ADD, and all types of acting out behaviors.

But prayer came back into my life. One day, my mother gave me a small (non- religious) book to read. It was written in 1911, a children’s book called Clematis. I identified with this little orphan. I started to consume books, staying up late at night, by the fireplace reading. It was during this time, my mother started the Devotional System I refer to elsewhere.

Late, one night in early September 1955, the phone rang. We were all getting ready to go to bed. Mother answered the phone and there was dead silence. We started to cry, she hung up the phone, and quietly said we will be going to Oklahoma City tomorrow, your father died.

Six weeks later, I was walking home from school (it was a 2 mile walk hot or cold, rain or snow). I was nearly home, crossing a field, when the Lord asked me a question, just as clear as day. “Do you want me to be your Father?” I said, yes. Thus began a unique journey that was to be a deciding factor in where my life would go, for the rest of my days. I was 12 years old.