“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears.
(Psalm 39.12
NRSV)
The man told his pastor what had happened to him many years before that caused such a deep sadness to hang over him. While serving his country overseas during the Second World War he was in charge of thirty-three men. They became trapped by enemy gunfire. With deep sorrow in his eyes, the man prayed desperately that God would get them out of that mess. It was not to be. He sent his men out two by two only to watch them get killed. In the early morning hours he was able to escape with six men, four who were seriously wounded. From that experience he felt that God was very far from him. His heart was filled with rage, bitterness, and guilt.
His pastor said, "Don't you know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lives in the eternal now, can enter that old painful memory and heal it so that it will no longer control you?" Together they prayed that Jesus would go back those twenty-eight years and walk through that day with him. "Please, Lord," the pastor prayed, "Draw out the hurt and the hate and the sorrow and set him free." He asked for peaceful sleep to be one of the evidences of his healing work.
The next week this man had a sparkle in his eyes and a brightness on his face. "Every night I have slept soundly and each morning I have awakened with a hymn on my mind," he proudly exclaimed. "And I am happy... happy for the first time in twenty-eight years." He was healed through the power of prayer.
Dear God, bring peace to my life, as I work to bring peace to others. Amen.