I crossed off her name from my list.
Scratching in yesterday’s date next to her name, I felt the pressure of tears behind my eyes. A faithful saint who fought brain cancer for several years finally went to be with Jesus yesterday. I haven’t seen her since we bumped into one another at a friend’s wedding over a decade ago. I first heard of her brain tumor after my mom had been diagnosed with her own brain tumor. The difference was that my mom’s wasn’t malignant. I have prayed daily for Mary for over two years. I realized this morning that my last prayer for her was yesterday, and I missed her in the moments of quiet this morning. I prayed for her family instead. I couldn’t understand at first why I grieved so for someone that’s not part of my regular life. But prayer has the power to tether your heart to another whether they know it or not. When you pray for someone, you become invested in their life, even from afar.
My prayer list has changed quite a lot over the past year. It’s a real list, handwritten—a page of regular copy paper folded in half and taped to the inside cover of my Bible. I pray through it every morning and thumb through it in my memory when I can’t sleep at night. The structure keeps me focused, helps me fight against making grocery lists or having imaginary conversations with people I’m supposed to be praying for. The list keeps me honest. If I tell you I’ll pray for you, your name goes on the list. Otherwise, I’m guaranteed to forget.
Crossing things from the list doesn’t seem to happen often, but when I reflect over the course of a year, I can see the Lord at work in ways I would have missed if not for the record keeping that comes with the list.
Just this year, I have had the pleasure of crossing off requests for repentance and faith while also grieving the lines of ink that run through names of several church members who died. With joy I crossed off the name of one imprisoned for the gospel that was physically freed recently. With similar joy, I prayed for one still imprisoned for poor decisions who has been spiritually freed through the gospel. I’ve prayed for years for a young missionary family in training that will be leaving to go to an unreached people group on the other side of the globe in just a few weeks. I moved a pastor’s family from the ministry column to the suffering column. I wrote down the date of my son’s profession of faith next to his name with bold ink and a splotchy tearstain. I added several more names to the column for unbelievers.
A list isn’t always necessary, and it isn’t commanded Scripture. But it can help you obey the mandates about prayer that are biblical. Paul exhorts us in Colossians 4:2, “Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.” Devotion to prayer begins with making regular time for it. Staying alert in prayer requires vigilance and gratitude. And this is where the list can really help. I thought at first that Paul was using alert in the way I struggle with the word early in the morning when my brain is full of the cobwebs of sleep. And the list does help in that regard! But really, he meant watchfulness. Like giving your attention to prayer, being aware of your need to present your requests to God, recognizing that it’s vital to your life as a believer. It’s an active word, not passive. In the way that we must discipline ourselves for godliness, prayer requires practice and a vigilant heart. Distractions, iPhones, grocery lists, and fatigue are always waiting on the other side of vigilance.
The list helps me stay vigilant in the fight for daily prayer, but it also helps me to pray with gratitude. Thankfulness isn’t one my gifts, I’m sorry to say. When I’ve prayed for the Lord to teach me gratitude, I often wonder what in the world the answer to that prayer would look like. But honestly, prayer is the answer to that prayer. Prayer reminds me that I do not have to control everything, that I don’t have to worry about everyone on my list, that I can trust God with the names inked across the scrappy piece of paper taped to the inside of my Bible. Prayer reveals my helplessness in the best way. Prayer is a huge sigh of relief that lifts my eyes to the power of the God I pray to. Prayer reminds me that God is sovereignly working in all things, that He loves His people more than I do, and that He will accomplish His purposes in His time in His way. Gratitude wells up in me when I can pray for all these names and broken stories and know that God can redeem anyone and any story.
Prayer reminds me that God is sovereignly working in all things, that He loves His people more than I do, and that He will accomplish His purposes in His time in His way. Share on XWhen names linger long on my list, I am sometimes tempted to give up. They’ll never believe, they’ll never grow in faith, they’ll never be healed in the way I want them to. But the little horizontal lines sprinkled throughout the list are really little stones of remembrance. Little Ebenezers. Little reminders that the names are people God has healed, some of physical illness, some of spiritual deadness. Sometimes he’s used the lack of physical healing to lead to spiritual healing. Sometimes the lack of physical healing in one He uses to bring about saving faith in another. We don’t know how His mind works or why He seems silent sometimes. But asking for Him to be glorified in the life of each printed name teaches me to trust Him. Over the years, I’ve acquired stacks of half pages with smatterings of crossed-off names. They go inside my journals, and occasionally, I stumble across one. Some of the names appear still yet on my current list. Others are witnesses of God’s past faithfulness. Every name scratched through reminds me that God is good and sovereign and faithful, even if His goodness is hard to grasp in the moment the pen runs through a name.
I grieved to scratch through Mary’s name. Were those years of prayers wasted? Not at all. Mary is with Christ, fully healed, whole, and full of joy. Someday I’ll look back at this year’s list and see the line through her name. I’ll note the date which was both the last day she saw Christ dimly and the first time she saw Him fully. And I’ll remember that God taught me to trust Him with the people on my list. Sometimes with tears, sometimes with joy, always with hope.
Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.