Day 5
Sometimes a line from a song or poem plays over and over in my mind, like it’s on a loop. Today, it is a line from Ina Hughes’ poem “We Pray for Children.”
I’ve also heard the title changed, when presented to a more secular audience, to “We Take Responsibility for Children.” I understand the desire behind that change, and I love the call to responsibility. But I wonder if, in changing the word prayer, we miss something essential.
Because prayer, when it is truly lived out, is anything but passive.
For us at Faith in Practice, prayer is where the mission begins. It is what calls us to cross borders, to enter into the lives of people we may never have otherwise known, and to put our faith into practice through compassionate service. Prayer opens our hearts to see what is needed—and then moves us to respond.
Ah, but that refrain became louder as the first patients I got to be with were littles.
And in just that first hour of our day, those children we encountered made us belly laugh and brought us to tears. Our prayers became songs of rejoicing and groans from the deepest places of our souls.
When little Josephina came into our lab needing her ear cleaned, we learned that she had been living with pain in that ear for seven months.
Seven months.
A simple ear lavage produced a tiny granite pebble that had been lodged inside.
When it finally came free, she felt the relief immediately.
And so did we.
There was absolute elation. We were jumping, laughing, and celebrating with her. Something so small had caused so much pain for so long—and in one simple moment, the pain was gone.
But only minutes later, one of our gentle-hearted pediatricians came to find me. She was sobbing as she shared the story of a young mother who had carried her sweet little boy to us. His body was failing him, and there was nothing medically we could do.
Not long afterward, our other highly skilled pediatrician was caring for a boy with a rare and painful skin disease. The disease had already left him blind in one eye, and he will not have the chance to grow up.
I watched these two doctors pour themselves out with extraordinary compassion—not only for these precious boys, but for their families. They could not change the outcome. They could not take away every pain.
But they could be present.
They could listen. They could love. They could offer dignity and compassion in the midst of circumstances no parent should ever have to face.
And they could pray.
It was a holy moment.
Because this is what prayer looks like when it is put into practice.
It is not passive. It moves us. It breaks our hearts open. It makes us laugh with joy and groan with sorrow. It calls us to see, to serve, to love—and sometimes simply to stand beside someone when there is nothing else we can do.
And as I thought about those children today, I realized how much that same prayer reaches far beyond the pediatric clinic.
We pray for the women who will sit with our OB/Gyn doctors and finally receive care for conditions they may have lived with for far too long.
We pray for those who come to our orthopedic team and mobility clinic—people who cannot walk, or who walk with pain, and who have spent far too long believing that this is simply the way life has to be.
We pray for those who come to our pharmacy carrying illnesses that have gone untreated because the medicine they needed was simply beyond their reach.
We pray that the medications they receive will not just treat an illness for a few days, but give them the opportunity to feel well, to work, to care for their families, to return to the lives they want to live—to thrive once again.
And we pray for the women, the men, the children, the mothers, the fathers, the grandparents who will walk through every part of our clinic this week.
Every one of them arrives carrying a story.
Some will leave laughing.
Some will leave relieved.
Some will leave with medicine in their hands.
Some will leave with a diagnosis and a path forward.
And some will leave knowing that, for just a little while, someone saw them, heard them, cared for them, and prayed for them.
Today, as Ina Hughes’ poem so beautifully begins, we prayed for children.
But we are praying for so much more.
We are praying for healing.
For relief.
For hope.
For dignity.
For strength.
For mothers who need answers.
For children who need care.
For people who simply want to walk without pain.
For those who need medicine to feel like themselves again.
And perhaps that is the beautiful tension of Faith in Practice:
we pray, and then we put that prayer into practice.
We pray—and then we cross borders.
We pray—and then we show up.
We pray—and then we open the clinic doors.
We pray—and then we hold a child.
We pray—and then we listen to a mother.
We pray—and then we care for the woman who has been waiting for help.
We pray—and then we help someone take their first steps without pain.
We pray—and then we place needed medicine into the hands of someone who has gone without.
We pray—and sometimes we get to celebrate an answered prayer as something as simple as a tiny pebble falling from a little girl’s ear.
And sometimes, heartbreakingly, we pray when there is nothing medicine can do but love someone well.
That is what Faith in Practice means to me.
Prayer that has feet.
Prayer that crosses borders.
Prayer that gets its hands dirty.
Prayer that laughs.
Prayer that weeps.
Prayer that serves.
Prayer that loves.
And prayer that refuses to remain simply words.
So yes, we pray for children.
And we pray for their mothers, their fathers, their families, and for every person who walks through these doors carrying a burden we may never fully understand.
And then we do what we have been called to do.
We put our prayer into practice.
Julie Eberly Photographer and Blogger
