Infans

At today's JPM, I had the privilege of praying with two people.

The first person, SQ, is somewhat new to the church. She joined the CG, but has only really been around for less than a month. So along the way, I had to explain some church stuff to her. Not even spiritual stuff. Just, you know, church things. Like what JPM was. But, I was really impressed that she was willing to come down. And also that she was willing to pray, even though I think she's not too comfortable praying out loud with people.

The second person, WT, is the one I want to talk more about though. She's kinda of a funny person. Like, she brings entertainment with her. Even though I suspect she doesn't like the idea that she brings entertainment with her. And she's always bickering with me. I don't know why, since she always loses. Even if she tries to bring up my poor Chinese skills.

And at JPM, there was one section where they were asking the congregation to pray for the people going to East Timor, a little later this month.

So anyway, WT decided to pray for me. It started off with being about the other trip, but then she started going on to praying about me going to Japan (which is still not quite upon me yet). So here's a short excerpt of what I can remember from the prayer.

WT: ...and Lord, I pray for Daniel here, that he's going to Japan. And Lord I pray that You will help him improve his Japanese, because his Japanese is not good enough for him to survive there, and he'll be all by himself so no one will be able to take care of him when he's sick...
Me: *laughs*
WT: Hey! Why you laughing! I'm praying for you ok!
Me: *laughs some more*
WT: Hey! *hits me*

I started laughing because it really sounded quite funny. Part of it I guess, is that my Japanese is not quite that bad. Ok, well it is, but to be unable to survive because of that is pushing it a bit far. And hearing the bit about having no one to take care of me if I fell sick just sounded so....child-like.

And that was when I realized how wonderful her prayer was. Before that, during an earlier prayer, I was thinking to myself as she was praying (which I really shouldn't have been doing, but well) that her prayers were very nice because they were so earnest. Her words may have been simple, and her grammar slightly off, but it was the sincerity of her prayer that really struck me.

So that is where the beauty of her prayer is. It was in being child-like before God. And her heartfelt prayer would have been more beautiful to God than the carefully-worded liturgy of a priest.

So to WT, thank you for the prayer. And I hope we can all learn to be as child-like as you are when you are praying to God.

Cheerio.