October 19, 2009 ~ Three Little Words I Keep Repeating

Do you have a favorite prayer that you seem to find yourself repeating because it brings you peace, or strength, or even continues to ask a question you haven’t yet found the answer for?

Over the past few months I’ve found myself repeating the same prayer, again and again:  Jesus, Help Me.  It’s not that I repeat it because I’m waiting for Him to answer days or weeks later, because He always answers it right away.  He answers with peace to endure, strength to go on or just to stand, or with new resolve to continue.  Sometimes He answers with just the nearness of His presence, but He’s always answered that prayer of mine.  I think at first it disconcerted John to hear me whisper that little prayer because it’s relatively new.  He’d ask, “Are you okay?” or “Are you sure everything is all right?”  Well, usually everything wasn’t all right, but I knew it soon would be because I had asked Jesus for help.

My mother-in-love gave me a little book by Dodie Osteen a few months ago about how God had healed her from advanced cancer, and for some reason I set it aside and didn’t read it right away.  Then, the other night I couldn’t sleep and so I grabbed my pillow and a cozy throw and went to the sofa in the den so I wouldn’t wake John.  I also grabbed that little book which had been waiting on my nightstand for weeks, and I began to read about her healing, and about the scriptures that had meant so much to her during that long battle.  And I found that she, too, had repeated that three-word prayer during her cancer war.  Maybe every warrior prays that prayer.  Maybe it’s our common bond:  Jesus, Help Me!  Anyway, He helped her and He helps me too.  But I was struck by that prayer that we held in common.  It’s so simple, and so childlike.  It’s not eloquent or beautiful.  It’s a cry from the heart and a cry from the midst of trouble that we cannot overcome without Him.

I think it touches His heart when we cry out to Him like that.  It expresses our very dependence upon Him, how we can’t live without Him and His help to get through.  I’ve been told all my life that I’m tough.  I’ve had doctors tell me that I’m “tough as nails,” and I used to really believe that.  I guess a part of me still does, but mostly I’m learning just how very dependent upon Him I am, how my strength is nothing compared to His might and power to save, to heal, to salve, and to calm.  It’s not something I have to guess about, not something that is just accepted on faith – I’ve experienced it.  I’ve lived it.  I can’t make it without Him.  And almost every day that prayer whispers from my heart:  Jesus, help me!  I need You.  I depend upon You.  I’m nothing without You and I can’t take another step without You.  And there He is, waiting to answer with comfort or strength, encouragement or instruction, or just the love that fills the room when His presence is close.

If you find yourself in the deep-end of the water and the trouble seems overwhelming to you, ready to take you under – with a humble heart, cry out to Him from the center of it.  Whisper, Jesus, help me!  He’ll answer that heartfelt prayer.  He will.  It’s my testimony, and the testimony of many, many others.