The God Squad: Prayer is a powerful spiritual medicine

Question: I read your column every week. I admire your insight, wisdom, faith and love for God and all people. I feel I’m a person of strong faith and pray often throughout the day.

I’ve been praying for my sister since her first diagnosis of breast cancer 14 years ago. Now, the cancer is back for the third time, and I’m extremely scared for her. Both my sister and her husband are recently unemployed and have no health insurance. She also has family issues involving her grown children. She’s feeling overwhelmed and hopeless.

When she told me the cancer was back, she also said God was punishing her and that she doesn’t see the point in trying to fight the cancer with all the other things going on in her life. I don’t know what to say when she talks like this. What makes things even more difficult is that we live indifferent states. How can I help her? — N., via [email protected]

Answer: Many of us think prayer is only a form of divine petition — a request to God to change things for the better. There’s nothing wrong with this belief but it’s an incomplete understanding of the full, rich purposes of prayer. Prayers — all prayers — fall into one or another of four categories.

When I teach children about prayer, I mention four types of prayers: Thanks, Gimmie, Oops and Wow!

Thanks prayers are those we say to God in grateful appreciation for the blessings we’ve already received. Thanks prayers remind us that no matter how difficult our circumstances, our blessings always exceed our burdens.

A Gimmie prayer is a request for healing of some type for ourselves or those we love. We must always be humble in our petitions and willing to accept a failure of healing, which is neither a sign of God’s indifference nor a decree of doom for our sins.

The Oops prayer leads us to repent of our sins. By confessing our sins to God, we can hopefully summon up the courage to admit them to the people we’ve wounded by our unwitting cruelty.

A Wow! prayer is like a Thanks prayer, but we thank God for a gift given to the world, or to all humanity, and not just to us individually. A rainbow or a glorious sunset, the love of family and friends, the freedom of our great country, are all matters of awe and proper objects of a Wow! prayer.

My advice for you is to focus less on Gimmie prayers and more on the other three. Also, try to be comforted and try to comfort your sister in the knowledge that she’s not alone in her struggles. Your simple presence in her life, rather than some facile explanation of her illness, will surely be her greatest source of comfort.

One way to help your sister might be to spend the time you have speaking to her, remembering the good times you shared when she was well and when you were growing up together. Remembering positive moments is a way of balancing the reality of her suffering and pain. These memories are actually Thanks prayers for the best times and good spiritual medicine for the worst times.

Also, try to travel to your sister’s home as often as possible. Make her the food she loves, smile and laugh with her, and most of all, hug her and kiss her abundantly. Phone calls are good, but physical presence is even better. I know this might be a sacrifice for you but it’s a worthy, loving one.

Your question reminds me of a famous anonymous prayer composed by a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. I love this prayer, and it comes to you with my prayers for your sister on her difficult journey:

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve;

I was made weak, that I might learn to humbly obey.

I asked for health, that I might do greater things;

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy;

I was give poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men;

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need for God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life;

I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I am, among all, most richly blessed.

This poem is quoted on pages 180-81 of “When Life Hurts,” by Wayne Dosick.

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