He had expected to spend the rest of his day rummaging through the cries of Cairo, tuning into the regularly scheduled afternoon prayer services, and finally clearing out his inbox that had filled itself that Sunday before. He breathed a sigh of relief: the end of Super bowl Season and one liner victory prayers.
Clicking into his Gmail account, an email popped up instantly. The subject line read: Jenny: South Africa

“Ah, Jenny. I know her well,” he thought, recalling her Warm Chestnut Brown Hair. Her Easy Smile.  “Jenny, my precious child…I love her dearly. But what could this prayer possibly be for?”

He opened it:

Dear God,

I don’t even really know how to address you these days: Mr. God? Sir? Anyway, I know I don’t come to you nearly enough but I need you right now. I really need you. There is a girl named Jenny in South Africa and she is very sick and we don’t know if she will make it through. Please God, find a way to be with her and her family during this difficult time. I’ve never been the first one to believe in your miracles but could you lend us all one right now?

Signed,

Searching for your Healing

Not long after the prayer’s arrival a second one came to join it. And then another. And still another. Multiplying by the Minute. Dozens to Hundreds. Hundreds to Thousands.

God sifted through the rapidly growing pile of prayers to see Jenny with his own eyes, finding her in a hospital bed; machines all around her to keep her breathing.

He shed a tear at this sight; he hated to see His Children hurting. He hated the ways in which the world that enveloped His Children could place them in such danger.

Looking down again at Jenny, he knew immediately that there was much to be done.

And so he set to work…

He began by tying prayers together to place around the necks of Jenny and her closest. Necklaces beaded with security, compassion, reason and faith. One for Jenny. One for her Mother. Her Father. Her Family. Her Friends. Her Community. But even with more than a dozen necklaces made there were still hundreds of prayers and they were only beginning to pour in more furiously. More proactively. Bigger. Louder. Stronger. Fiercer.

So God sat down and he took the thousands of remaining prayers into His Arms and he began to unravel them, one by one, into single threads. Delicate but Durable Threads. Fragile but Magnificent Threads. Absolutely striking when put in the light.

With a needle from his pocket God began to sew. Crying all the while. Lacing together a heap of prayers from the Bronx with hundreds of prayers from throughout Philadelphia. Intertwining the silent prayers said from subway cars with the frantic pleadings that had come in late that night. One by One.

Sewing… Stitching… Lacing… Weaving… Hours upon Hours, God worked and cried for Jenny.

And when he had finished, a quilt lay before him. A Patchwork of Prayers. Fine. Articulate. Intentional. Desperate in their asking, Stunning in their strength.

Several patches of Hope. A few patches of tears. Dozens of Patches of Love. Even more for Healing. Connected with God’s golden thread. Jenny’s Name Beaded All Over.

But he did not stop with just the quilt.

No, no, he did not stop there.

For He knew that their were armies of people on the ground below who were going to be quite relentless with their Jenny Prayers because they loved her so. Armies that Prayed to See Jenny Laugh, Smile & Speak Once Again. And so he began to add several pockets to the quilt to hold the prayers that would be coming soon to seek refuge throughout the night and well into the morning.

Finally, God took the quilt made from the Thousands of Single-Threaded Prayers and he placed it around Jenny in her hospital bed.

“My child,” he whispered into her ear. “I will not sleep until I see you well. The prayers will keep coming; know your self very, very loved. I will sit here by your bedside placing each of the prayers into the pockets. Fear not, Little One, no prayer is ever lost on me. No word spoken ever falls away from my ears.”

And he sat with Jenny, not moving from her bedside. He kept his hands outstretched so that the prayers could fall freely into his palms and guided them safely into the Shelter of Jenny’s Prayer Quilt.

Tucking and retucking the blanket all around her, God cried even still as he led prayers into the pockets and kissed Jenny’s forehead from time to time.

Please keep Jenny & her family in your prayers now more than ever before. Pull Through Beautiful Girl, you have an army of people pulling & praying for you.