Fixing Connections

This will be a short post, but it's my blog so I can do what I want.

Darling and I got home a little late from dinner last night with our Monday Night Dinner Group. (I don't have a post about them, but I should! It's always a joy for us to be able to join them for dinner at IHOP.)

As she sat on the couch, Darling tried the television, and it didn't work. We pressed most of the buttons on the remote and nothing came up on our television screen. Internet was working. We had electricity. The DirecTV box just wasn't displaying a picture on our Samsung. There was a little red light glowing on the DirecTV box.

Did we forget to pay the bill or something?

Darling called the DirecTV service people. As she listened to the elevator music on the speaker phone, I pondered the problem.

Well, I thought, it is sort of a computer, and if my computer goes awry I do a reboot. Sometimes that's all it needs. That's the technical response anyway.

Just as I unplugged the power to the DirecTV box a person answered the phone.

Her name was Jo, and she was very sweet. She asked what the problem was, and Darling described the total lack of picture. As she did so, I restored power to the box and the DirecTV displayed a message saying it was doing something with its settings.

"Okay," said Jo, "we just have to wait, so I guess we'll just visit." What a sweetheart.

Darling, of course, asked if Jo had any prayer requests. The line went so quiet I thought maybe Jo was offended, but that's the risk you have to take sometimes.

"I'm sorry," said Jo. "What did you just ask me?"

Darling answered her. "If you have any prayer requests. Anything I can pray for you about?" You can tell that prayer is Darling's heart and it comes across the phone line as well.

Jo started to cry a little. "Yes," she said, choked up, "I could really use some prayer for my son."

Now Darling is in her element. "Oh, I so understand. We have five children of our own, and they always need prayer. What's your son's name?" I might not have asked that, thinking it too personal.

The answer came softly and I could hear Jo trying to stop crying. "Mitch," she whispered.

Jo tried to get control of her emotions and asked what the television was doing now. Since it was still doing something with the settings, Jo informed us that it would soon start a blinking row of lights and we needed to tell her when that started.

Darling asked if she could pray for Jo and Mitch while they waited. Then she did so.

James 5:16 says that "the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." I don't claim to be righteous and neither does Darling, but there is something about fervent, humble prayer brought before God. Darling can step into His throne room, bow before Him and claim her right to speak to Him as a blood-bought child of the God Most High.

Prayer is awesome.

Our cable connection was working fine by the time the prayer was over.

When Darling finished praying, Jo was quiet for a few seconds. "Thank you," she said. "You have no idea how much I needed that."

We didn't know how much she needed it, but God did. That divine appointment had nothing to do with fixing a broken cable connection. It was all about fixing a different broken connection.