“Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.” Max Lucado
I told you all that I’ve been remembering my Rosey Corner stories because I just finished the narration for Love Comes Home, the only one of the Rosey Corner books that didn’t get an audio contract through the publisher. I don’t have it all edited yet, but I should have it done sometime next month. That book has made me appreciate how Aunt Hattie came to life in those stories and how strong in the faith she was. She could pray down a miracle, but Aunt Hattie knew through life experience that the Lord didn’t always answer prayers in the miraculous ways a person might think he should. But she trusted his answer whatever it was and never doubted that the Lord was right there holding her up through whatever happened.
That’s what she tells Victor in this scene from Angel Sister when he is trying to conquer his drinking addiction. Sunday seemed a good time to share Aunt Hattie insisting Victor pray for the Lord’s help to conquer his demons.
It was hard being sober. Forever sober. Victor had gone without drinking for days at a stretch before, but he’d always known where a bottle was hidden away to give the promise of relief if things got bad. Things always got bad. He didn’t have any bottles hidden away now. He’d broken them all. And he wasn’t going to buy any more. He wasn’t. No matter how much his hands shook. No matter how much it felt like the cooties were crawling around under his skin. No matter how the dreams tormented him. He wasn’t. He’d promised Nadine.
She’d prayed for him. For them. She believed he could quit. All he had to do was find a way to believe it too. And he did. Most of the time. He could quit because he loved Nadine more than life itself. He loved her more than booze. He loved his girls more than booze. And he was trying to love himself more than booze.
He was appealing to the Lord on that one. He whispered Nadine’s simple prayer a dozen times a day. “Lord, here am I. Help me.” So far he had. So far Victor had kept his feet from turning up the familiar path to the place in Rosey Corner where the bottles beckoned. But he still wanted it.
What he needed was for the Lord to take the wanting of it away from him. To erase it from his mind. That’s what he told Aunt Hattie on the third day when she brought a jug of lemonade by the shop. Because it was so hot, she claimed, but Victor figured Nadine had enlisted Aunt Hattie to help pray him through.
“Has you told the Lord that?” Aunt Hattie peered over at him as he chugged down the lemonade.
“What do you mean?” Victor frowned a little as he lowered the jar of lemonade and wiped the sweat off his face with a blue bandana. “Doesn’t he already know what I need? Better than me.”
“Ain’t no doubtin’ that. But that don’t mean he don’t want to hear us ask it.”
“I’m not too good at prayer words.” Victor stared down at the lemon slices floating in what was left of the lemonade. He wondered how many shirts she’d had to wash and iron to buy the lemon and sugar.
“You think the Lord don’t understand common talk? Just speak it out straight.”
Victor could feel her eyes boring into him. He looked up at her. “Now?”
“What better time than when you needs to? Ain’t nobody here but me and you and the Lord. So go ahead. He’s got his ear bent down towards us.”
“All right.” Victor stared up at the ceiling in his shop. It was black from the forge fire. Victor shifted uneasily on his feet and tried to think up what to say with both the Lord and Aunt Hattie listening. At last he pushed out, “Lord, help me stay sober.”
Aunt Hattie gave his arm a little shake. “That ain’t what you’s wantin’ to pray.”
Victor looked at her and then back up at the ceiling. Why was it so hard to lay himself open to the Lord? The Lord already knew him every inch. Inside and out. Even better than Aunt Hattie who had caught him when he was born. “Take this desire to hide in a bottle away from me.”
“Amen,” Aunt Hattie said. “That’s more like it.”
Victor looked down at his hands. His fingers were still trembling. “I don’t feel any different.”
“And you might never. That old thorn might always be pricking you.”
Victor frowned at Aunt Hattie. “Then what good did it do to pray the words?”
“My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. That’s what the good Lord told Paul about his thorn in the flesh. That’s what the good Lord told me when I told him I couldn’t make it without my Bo livin’ and breathin’. Whether he takes the want to away from you or not, his grace will turn your weakness into strength.”
“But what if I’m too weak?” He rubbed his finger down through the moisture on the outside of the lemonade jar. “What if it’s too hard?”
“Ain’t nothing too hard for the Lord. You hear me now.” She poked his chest with a bony finger. “We ain’t promised no easy ride through this life. Life ain’t easy. Ain’t never been since Adam and Eve was thrown out of the garden. Ain’t never gonna be. Leastways not for the most of us. Hard times come.”
And hard times did come in that story and the stories that followed, but through the hard times the Merritt family always had love and the Lord to get them through.
I hope you enjoyed a peek back at Aunt Hattie in Angel Sister. Could be I might share more about her prayers on other posts. My books seem to have some strong prayer warriors in them. Aunt Hattie in these Rosey Corner books. Louis in River to Redemption. And even Aunt Perdie in Along a Storied Trail knew how to pray in spite of her contrary nature.
Since I’m talking about Angel Sister in this post, I’ll do a giveaway. Just leave a comment on one of my posts between now and next Sunday, the 22nd, and I’ll throw your name in my giveaway hat for a drawing for an autographed copy of Angel Sister or one of the other Rosey Corner books, Small Town Girl or Love Comes Home. Even if you already have the book or books, you might know a friend or relative who would enjoy the story. It’s fun to gift a book.
Do you believe prayers make a difference? Do you want to share a time when that was true?
I’ll share one time with you when prayers made a big difference for me and that was when I was sitting with my mother during her final years while her memory was seeping away. She was often combative and unhappy because things were so strange for her. On those days, prayer would sometimes be what got us through.