In a late South Georgia fall, I walked my friend to her vehicle. Feeling broken and helpless over a family situation, Jan came to encourage me. She had been with me most of the day.
“Please send me that little prayer again.” I said. “You know, the one that helped you so much when Pat died.”
Jan reached into her vehicle for a pen and a scratch piece of paper. She jotted:
Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me
Make haste to help me
Rescue me and save me
Do your will in my life
She placed the piece of paper into my hand, gave me a hug, and then drove away. My eyes scanned the words with no punctuation. They seemed so fitting for all I felt that I clipped it onto my refrigerator door.
Jan was born and raised in Kokomo, Indiana. That’s quite a distance from our family farm situated in the depths of Dixie. Yet, on this modest plot, the generations before mine held fast to the power of prayer.
Jan came to my hometown as an educator. When we met in 2003, through a lay ministry training course, she was semi-retired and more than twenty years my senior. Not long thereafter, her son, Patrick, suffered a tragic death. I'd never met him or any of Jan’s children. They all lived out of state. And I felt terribly sad for Jan but didn’t know how to help.
So in an email, I simply wrote, “I don’t know what you’re going through. But you’re in my prayers and I’m here for you.”
When Jan responded to my email, the dearest friendship of my life took start. She wrote her thoughts about Pat’s life, his death,and her own faith. One day she wrote that God seemed so near. She sensed His presence at every turn. Another day, however, she wrote that God seemed very far away. She felt so broken and helpless. She had so many questions for which there seemed to be no answers.
Sometime later she forwarded these words:
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Make haste to help me.
Rescue me and save me. Do your will in my life.
She had learned the ancient prayer from the ministry of Dr. Arthur Caliandro. She mentioned it often in her emails. And while I had never heard of the prayer, I felt so grateful that it brought her such comfort.
By and by, our emails turned to other things. We often met for lunch. We talked of happy things as well as sad. As our friendship grew, my family welcomed Jan and her husband, Harry into our home. They were often present to celebrate holidays, birthdays and anniversaries with our family.
I trusted Jan’s faith and insight so much that it felt natural to reach out to her that late fall day when I felt so broken and helpless. And she showed up in the kind and caring manner so unique to her.
After Jan's visit, the day to day life continued on our modest plot. The scratch piece of paper remained on my refrigerator door. I never dreamed of taking it down. I wanted a daily reminder about the power of prayer. That power had sustained Jan. That same power had sustained countless generations before mine. I was determined it would sustain me and my family, too.
Far too soon though, my friend from Kokomo, Indiana grew weak with a myriad of symptoms that robbed her of the ability to eat and walk.
“She’s the dearest friend I’ve ever had,” I told Harry when those symptoms required Jan to move into the hospice house.
“Mine, too.” He nodded and then left me alone with her for a while.
When I knelt beside her bed and repeated the little prayer, her eyes opened and she smiled. The next day I took down the worn scratch piece of paper bearing words with no punctuation. It traveled with me to the frame shop.
It made a fine refrigerator magnet.
In closing, I took creative liberty with the ancient prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for having mercy on my dearest friend Jan.
Thank you for making haste to help her all the days of her life.
Thank you for rescuing her; thank you for saving her.
Thank you for doing your will in her life.
With an amen and tear-filled eyes, I met many faces nodding and smiling through their tears. I realized then that Jan had shared the same little prayer with many there. Her ability to love, share and befriend people; all kinds of people had been down right divine. How grateful I am to have been among those she loved so dearly.
Several weeks later, I repeated the same prayer at the same hospice house at the deathbed of my own aged mother. Two weeks later, while standing at Harry’s final resting spot, the same little prayer kept me together.
Many say that, in the depths of Dixie, time passes at a less hurried pace. Yet it passes all the same. It passes amid joy and laughter. It passes when we feel broken and helpless and in sickness and death. It passes within a host of ordinary things in between. And in all of these, the little prayer once jotted on a scratch piece of paper is the most powerful prayer I know.
It is now the prayer of my life. I will teach it to the next generation. It will greet them with each opening of my refrigerator door.
*****
This post is made in memory of Janice Ellen Thompson Howell Livermore
1939-2019
Thisis beautiful Becky. Beth.
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