"Shane! What happened? Let me see!"

The child backed up. "No! You'll hurt me!"

She pleaded with him again to no avail.

Finally, Debi wrestled him to the floor and carefully opened his fingers, expecting to see exposed bone and tendon. But the cut was just a scrape, the kind that bleeds a lot. After tending to the wound, Debi sent Shane back to his ball game.

Putting away the first aid kit, she marveled at her son's dramatics. Then she realized she'd done the same to God. After her husband walked out, she felt so hurt she wouldn't pray. God was saying, "Let me help," while Debi stood with fists clenched, saying, "No, you'll hurt me."

Right there in the kitchen, Debi sobbed out her pain, telling the Lord what he already knew, but what she needed to hear herself saying. Her own healing had begun.

When we are up to our necks in a mess and we can't pull ourselves out, that's when God can show his power.

I've taken weeks to work through some dilemmas, but especially in the midst of a crisis, all I had time for was a panicked "Lord!" That's all I could do in Pennsylvania when a speeding car spun out of control and began heading for us. The car barely missed us.

On another rainy afternoon near our home, a car did hit us, even as I yelped the same prayer. I don't know why God sometimes intervenes and other times he does not. I do know he is with us even in bad times.

The morning before my husband died, he told me, "Just remember, San. The Lord never promised us an easy road, but he did promise always to be with us on that road."

Aunt Adah was paralyzed for the last five years of her life and unable to speak for the last two years. My mother cared for her totally?bathing her, turning her, feeding her. She also challenged Aunt Adah to accept a special prayer ministry.

Each day, as Mother received word of a particular need, she'd pass it along to Aunt Adah and wait for the coded eye blinks that assured her my aunt understood. She often prayed for my children and me?especially when we flew in for a visit.

Once we'd arrive at my parents' home, we'd go to Aunt Adah's bed in the living room, kiss her forehead, and thank her for praying. How Aunt Adah's eyes would shine.

Since Aunt Adah died last year, I've often thought how her prayers surrounded us, and I've also wondered how they affected her. In the midst of pain, she possessed a graciousness and peace I wouldn't have expected. Surely her constant prayerfulness wrapped her in God's grace.

After my husband Don's brain cancer went into unexpected remission, I asked him if he thought all the prayers on his behalf had changed God's mind. He shook his head.

"Then why do we pray if our prayers can't change God's mind?" I asked.

He gave me one of his gentle, patient looks and said, "To show our submission to the Master."

I still remember that scene fourteen years after his death and am reminded we don't have to know the future when we pray. All we have to do is trust the One who does.

Even in loss, find something for which you can be thankful. After Don's death, I was determined that although ten-year-old Jay and eight-year-old Holly had lost their dad physically, they wouldn't lose me emotionally. So, every night as I tucked them into bed, I asked if they wanted to talk before we prayed together.

Sometimes Jay shared a special memory of his dad or asked a question about the funeral. But not Holly. Even after two weeks, she hadn't cried and kept all her questions inside. I began to ask my friends to pray for her to open up.

Soon after, as I tucked her in one night, she said, "I do wonder one thing. When we prayed, didn't God listen?"

With that question, she'd uttered the universal heart's cry.

I said a quick mental prayer and then began the hardest explanation I've ever given.

I reminded Holly of my Grandpa Ted, who'd died after his leg was severed in a Kentucky coal mine. He was twenty-two years old and left three children under the age of four. Then I said that God had given us sixteen extra months with Daddy, after the doctors said he would die within weeks. And Daddy could have died after his first battle with cancer, when she had been three years old.

Then, I asked Holly if she felt like praying. She nodded, then began, "Thank you, God, that Daddy died now instead of when I was little."

Since that night, I've often pondered why God doesn't always respond the way I've asked. I don't have an answer. All I know is that God cares and wants us to keep talking to him.