The Final Prayer
There once lived a man whose every prayer was answered. It had been that way as long as he could remember, ever since he was a small child whenever his mother had first taught him to pray. He naturally assumed that it was this way with everyone.
When he came to be in college his dormitory roommate commented to him one evening how he was worried about an upcoming exam.
"Why don't you just pray to do well?" the young man asked him.
"Believe me, I have been!" declared his roommate.
"Then what are you worried about?" asked the young man. It was on that day that he first learned that not just everybody has their every prayer answered.
And it was also the beginning of the end.
His roommate, naturally skeptical, nonetheless asked the young man to pray for him to do well on his exam, and when the time came he found to his amazement that the answers just came naturally to him.
Then the roommate's girlfriend heard about it and asked the young man to pray for her that she might gain employment at a certain prestigious business firm she had been hopelessly eyeing. To her amazement she came to receive an executive position with salary and benefits.
And as was bound to happen, the word soon spread and people the young man had never even met before were coming to him and asking them to pray for them or a loved one. And he being a kindly man did not refuse a single one of them.
But eventually the day came when the young man grew weary of facing new strangers each day and spending most of his life in prayer for others. So it came to be that late one night he retired to his room, wearily fell down on his knees, and in an impassioned fervor uttered the single most imploring prayer to ever pass his lips.
The next day the people were lined up clear outside the church to requisition the man for prayer. The first lady in line carried an infant in her arms, and she explained to the young man how the doctors had told her that, save a miracle, her baby was going to die. As the baby cried weakly and the young man placed his hands over it.
He looked up to heaven and said, "Dear Heavenly Father, may this child before me be ever so blessed on this beautiful day which you have made for your children, healed by your loving hand, so that it may grow up healthily into adulthood to cherish and serve you in good faith."
The congregation answered with a heartfelt, "Amen!"
No sooner had this happened when the child suddenly stopped its weeping.
And alas, it would never weep again. The congregation solemnly filtered out of the church while the mother wept in painful agony.
For the young man's final prayer had been answered.
© 2023 Randy Bone