The Prayer That Changed My Life

Last year, Lauren posted about the Christmas Novena, a prayer that is part of the Catholic tradition and one that many Catholics say during the Christmas season. Its origin is found in St. Andrew (disciple of Jesus), but the prayer is directed towards God. The idea is to pray it 15 times a day, every day, from November 30 to December 24. According to tradition, it has never been known to fail...meaning that it's the sort of prayer that people offer up when they desperately want to receive a specific blessing.

After I read Lauren's post last year, my mother and I decided to each pray the Christmas Novena. We're ecumenical like that: a prayer to God is a prayer to God (and Mom was raised Catholic, although she's now Methodist). She was in month five (or six?) of chemotherapy for Triple Negative Breast Cancer (this type of breast cancer does not respond to any hormonal therapies and the only way to treat it is through chemo and radiation). In addition to the chemotherapy, Mom had also had two mastectomies and a skin graft. I was not ready for my mother to die (and I'm still not ready), and while she was "ready" to die in the spiritual sense, she certainly wanted (and still wants to) live for a few more years. So, Mom and I agreed to each pray the Novena and ask God that she would be cured of cancer.

And yes, the Novena "worked", in the sense that two days after we started praying, Mom's oncologist told her that she was responding so well to treatment that he was stopping the chemo, and would order six weeks of radiation, after which his hope and expectation was that the cancer would go into remission. A year later, she is still "NED" (No Evidence of Disease), which means that the cancer is not showing up on any scans. For that alone, I am praising God, because I have hope that my mother will live long enough for my children to remember her.

However, something else miraculous happened as a result of that time of dedicated prayer: my relationship with God, my relationship with the church, and my sense of calling were also renewed. Up until that point, I had spent two years angry at God and angry at the church because of my experience in my first appointment. I still went to church, but it was more out of obligation and habit than a deep desire to connect with God and other Christians. We attended worship most weeks, but that was it. I prayed before each meal, but otherwise didn't really talk to God. I had absolutely no desire to ever be a pastor again, and while I was applying to lots of chaplain jobs (and was working as a chaplain on an as-needed basis), my turning to chaplaincy was more out of a sense of resignation than a real sense of calling. In so many ways, I was spiritually and emotionally bankrupt.

Through the discipline of praying 15 times a day, my heart began to be softened towards God. In the first week of December, Randy (my pastor) sent an e-mail to a few of us who had seminary/pastoral experience, and offered up a preaching opportunity for the first Sunday in January. I felt a nudging in my soul to jump at it, so I did, committing myself to preach for the first time in 18 months. In front of 200+ people. As I began preparing for that experience, I had no choice but to turn to God for inspiration, strength, and wisdom. As a result, God brought me to my knees one morning, and my relationship with God was restored. In essence, I "forgave" God for everything that had happened over the past two years (yes, I realize that it's somewhat theologically backwards to forgive the creator of the universe whose human manifestation was perfect and sinless, but it's the best way for me to describe what happened), and I asked God to forgive me for my lack of faith and obedience. It was an awesome moment, much like the reunion of two friends who were on the "outs", but who realized that they couldn't and didn't want to live without each other.

Things just kept snowballing from there. I began to sense God calling me back to the church, and back into pastoral ministry. When I preached in January, the joy and fulfillment I felt in that experience (and the positive feedback I received from my sermon) reminded me of how much I love preaching the Word. I began getting more involved at Oak Grove, including being part of the Church Council and the Finance committee (Randy put me on both when I affiliated with the church as a clergy member). Randy's sermons began making me cry because God would speak through them to remind me of Whose I am and who I am. Actually, they still make me cry: we're up to 13 times in the past year. One of the greatest gifts that Oak Grove and Randy have given me is the ability to hear God's voice over all the others, and the confidence and freedom to do whatever it is that God is calling me to do.

When I look at the Patti that I see in November 2011, she is so vastly different than the Patti from November 2010. I've fallen back in love with God, and back in love with the people of God (meaning the church). I've rediscovered my calling to be a pastor, and God has shown me the gifts that He's given me that I had forgotten about...and some that I never knew I had. Where before my heart was covered in a protective layer of stone (so as to prevent myself from being hurt again), it has now broken free of that stone and as a result, I have become so much more willing to open myself up and to reach out to people with the love of God. I am now much more willing to take leaps of faith, resting solely on the promise that as I follow God's will, God will be with me, no matter what happens. That promise will be what will carry me through the next six months, as I prepare to make the biggest leap of faith in my 35 years of life: to go off family leave, to request a full-time pastoral appointment, and to go back to serving as a pastor, knowing that most likely, I will once again wind up being hurt and disappointed by the church. However, I know being a pastor is what God has called me to be, and where (in the words of John Stott), "my gifts will be most exploited".  I simply can't be anything else but a pastor.

And all that happened as a result of a prayer that I prayed 15 times a day for three weeks. It's proof that when we open our hearts to God through prayer, we risk being transformed as well. True, the Novena "worked", in the sense that Mom is disease-free and back to her normal self. However, I got cured from my own spiritual and emotional maladies, and that miracle never ceases to amaze me.

I will be praying the Novena again this year. I'm not going to share the specifics of my request (I'm still figuring them out myself), but it will involve Oak Grove...and something so amazing happening there that God's power and presence will be the only way to explain what transpires.

I invite you to join me in praying the Christmas Novena, for whatever miracle you might need to happen in your life or church right now. However, be prepared. This is a powerful prayer and God is an amazing God. Your life might wind up being transformed, just like mine has been.

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
in which the Son of God was born of the Most pure Virgin Mary
at midnight in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.
In that hour, vouchsafe, o my God!
to hear my prayer and grant my desires,
through the merits of our Savior Jesus Christ
and of His Blessed Mother.
Amen.