What Is A Prayer?

In this world of unsocial media madness we often see the request for prayers.  The reasons can be as varied as the people making the requests.

This week I was asked to pray for a family member, let's call her, Mary Lou, because that's her actual name.  She was having surgery.  So friends and family were asked to pray that all would go well.  I was happy to hear that all went well and Mary Lou would be fine.  

I was asked to pray for a family that were friends of friends on Facebook.  The mother, who shared the same disability as I do, Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), passed away.  I never met her, but I said a little prayer.

Sadly, our country was asked to pray for 7 Marines killed during a training mission.  I always send a little prayer to all our soldiers around the globe, but it is a shocker when some die so close to home. Saying a prayer seems too little for all they and their families give up for our country.

I said a little prayer for a friend going to college for the first time using her scooter.  She too has SMA, but it started later in life.  She is learning how to be herself in the world while her "physical" self is changing.  Happily, she did great.

These are just a small sample of special prayers.  I am always praying for my family, friends, and those not my friends.  Can't hurt right?

I was thinking about what a prayer is.  I came up with the idea that prayers really were the first form of e-mail (stay with me).  When we e-mail there is no physical "thing" you can hold.  The words we type on the computer or whatever device you chose are just little bits of magnetism on a machine being sent to another machine.

(Side note: While my prayer/email concept is creative it is not original.  The movie Bruce Almighty had a similar take on the idea.  I will give credit where credit is due.)

A prayer, similarly, is not a "thing" you can hold either.  The words we say or think are little bits of electricity in our brains.  

We send e-mails about all kinds of different subjects to friends, family, co-workers, businesses, etc.

We send our prayers to the God we believe in.

With e-mail we often get Spam, useless unwanted junk.

With prayers, God gets requests from sport athletes to help them play better.  I think God would have a Spam folder for these prayers.  Not that God doesn't like sports, but because I'm sure each member from each team is praying to play better than each other. The prayers cancel each other out.

We can send e-mail to anybody we want.

We can pray about anybody we want.

With the advancement of smartphones we can e-mail from anywhere these days.

We can prayer anywhere or anytime we want as well.  (Those who think there is no prayer in schools might want rethink that idea during finals.)

We live in a high-tech world now where we can connect to just about anybody from anywhere in the world.  That makes our world seem a little bit smaller everyday.

We've always had the ability to pray to God from anywhere in the world. That makes our small world a little bit brighter.