More than ever, in these odd times, I’m missing my family members who have been taken Home to be with Him. I want to laugh with them, to hear them re-tell old stories like only they could. Every single one of them was so darn funny.

Nanny, my great-grandmother, found so many things amusing. Even after she lost her hearing completely, my mom would jot down a funny incident and she’d read it and then shake with laughter until the tears ran down her face. I have her name written down in my Bible next to the verse that says, “…I have learned to be content in all circumstances.”

When Nanny was still at the stage of just being "hard of hearing," she’d think she was whispering when she was actually saying things loud enough to be heard in the next room.

On one occasion, we had a visitor who had gained some weight. When the visitor left the room, Nanny ‘whispered,’ “Was that Martha?!? Why, she’s put on so much weight, I scarcely recognized her!”

We frantically made the hand motion to zip it, and, with her usual quick-wittedness, she added, “But it is so becoming!”

To be fair, she always described herself as being as "fat as a butcher’s dog.”

I heard her say this so often that as a little girl I started using it for whatever unfortunate state of being I happened to find myself in. I was as “hungry as a butcher’s dog,” “as tired as a butcher’s dog,” “as mad as a butcher’s dog” and so on. I didn’t understand why my parents found this so funny until years later.

One of my sweetest memories of Nanny was her “whispered” prayers. When she spent the night at our house, she slept in the twin bed next to mine. Those prayers seemed endless, she covered everyone in prayer. She prayed honestly and specifically—some requests I’m sure she would be mortified to know I could hear loud and clear. I remember her praying for help to show Christ-like love to a person she clearly found intolerable. She’d say, “You know Lord how I feel about [so and so]. Oh, how I do need Your help with that one.”

She would specifically thank God for all of us. I loved hearing my own name as she went down the list.

As more and more of my faithful pray-ers were taken Home, it saddened me to know I was losing their prayers along with their physical presence. I have “Papa” written in my Bible next to the verse, “The prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.” Papa, my maternal grandfather, who never got off the phone without telling me how much he prayed for me, especially after Brett was born. 

Of course, I know no one prayed for me more than my mom did. I’ve struggled for decades with sleep, and every morning she would ask me how I slept. She’d be thrilled on those rare days I’d tell her that I’d slept through the night and woke up feeling rested. Praise God!

I wish I could remember where I read it, but anyway, it said that because God is outside of time, our prayers are eternal. When I read that, my eyes welled up at the thought that my loved ones prayers did not end when their lives here on earth did. Their prayers are still sustaining me!

Only God knows how much I miss calling my mom up and asking her to pray for me. How often I’d get off the phone encouraged and even laughing out loud about things that just moments ago had seemed so dire.

I take comfort in knowing millions of Americans are praying for God to heal our land. What a gift it is to lift each other up in prayer!

    What a friend we have in Jesus

   All our sins and griefs to bear

     And what a privilege to carry

        Everything to God in prayer.

         Oh, what peace we often forfeit

           Oh, what needless pain we bear

             All because we do not carry

              Everything to God in prayer....