During church today I was feeling extremely uncomfortable with continued back pain that seems to get worse when you are stuck sitting on hard chairs for part of the three hour block. It seemed to be unusually bad this week and I was contemplating going home to my very hot heating pad and just reading the RS lesson on my own. I decided I would try to make it as long as I could until I could no longer bear the pain. I believe that the Lord helped me because the pain seemed to ease up considerably. I left RS feeling spiritually uplifted and prompted to share my thoughts with all of you and Peter. Anyway our lesson was from Teachings of Presidents of the Church: George Albert Smith: Chapter 9: Open Your Soul to the Lord in Prayer. I am not going to share the whole lesson with you but encourage you to all read it on your own.
A number of years ago … I heard of [a] nine-year-old boy, an orphan, who was hurried off to the hospital, where examination indicated that he had to be operated upon without delay. He had been living with friends who had given him a home. His father and mother, (when they were alive) had taught him to pray; thus, when he came to the hospital, the thing he wanted was to have the Lord help him.
The doctors had decided to hold a consultation. When he was wheeled into the operating room, he looked around and saw the nurses and the doctors who had consulted on his case. He knew that it was serious, and he said to one of them, as they were preparing to give him the anesthetic: “Doctor, before you begin to operate, won’t you please pray for me?”
The doctor, with seeming embarrassment, offered his excuses and said, “I can’t pray for you.” Then the boy asked the other doctors, with the same result.
Finally, something very remarkable happened; this little fellow said, “If you can’t pray for me, will you please wait while I pray for myself?”
They removed the sheet, and he knelt on the operating table, bowed his head and said, “Heavenly Father, I am only an orphan boy. I am awful sick. Won’t you please make me well? Bless these men who are going to operate that they will do it right. If you will make me well, I will try to grow up to be a good man. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for making me well.”
When he got through praying, he lay down. The doctors’ and the nurses’ eyes were filled with tears. Then he said, “I am ready.”
The operation was performed. The little fellow was taken back to his room, and in a few days they took him from the hospital, well on the way to complete recovery.
Some days after that, a man who had heard of the incident went to the office of one of the surgeons and said, “Tell me about the operation you performed a few days ago—the operation on a little boy.”
The surgeon said, “I have operated on several little boys.”
The man added, “This little boy wanted someone to pray for him.”
The doctor said very seriously, “There was such a case, but I don’t know but that it is too sacred a thing for me to talk about.”
The man said, “Doctor, if you will tell me, I will treat it with respect; I would like to hear it.”
Then the doctor told the story about as I have retold it here, and added: “I have operated on hundreds of people, men and women who thought they had faith to be healed; but never until I stood over that little boy have I felt the presence of God as I felt it then. That boy opened the windows of heaven and talked to his Heavenly Father as one would talk to another face to face. I want to say to you that I am a better man for having had this experience of standing and hearing a little boy talk to his Father in heaven as if he were present.”
5
[See
suggestion 2
on page 100.]
Let us so live that every night when we kneel to pray and every morning when we bow before the Lord in thanksgiving, there will be in us the power to open the heavens so that God will hear and answer our prayers that we will know that we are approved of Him."
He also said:
"The Lord...has explained to us how we may receive blessings through prayer. There are many people in the world who do not realize the real benefits of prayer. Prayer is a power. It has an influence that comparatively few people seem to understand. How many are there in this Church who do not know that they have the right, the absolute right, to pray to there Father in heaven, and ask Him to take from their distress and lead them to contentment and happiness?"
I just want you all to know that I believe that even though Heavenly Father may seem far away at times he is actually close. He will always listen and touch those who are in need of it. I love you all and hope that you have all been spiritually uplifted in someway this week.
