Grandma, pray for me

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 1, 2024

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Grandma, pray for me

All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.

On Amtrak the café car had ½ price specials. So Miles and Jasper decided to use their $5 each on a cheeseburger and a drink. Angus beef and Sprite with ice. Yum.

Then Margaret looked out the window and saw a water tower. TAYLOR. But aren’t they getting off at Taylor? Didn’t they just get on the train at the Austin station? She looked at Isaiah the conductor.

How much time? Five minutes? He nodded his head. “About that.”

It had been “hurry up and wait” all morning, and it wasn’t changing yet. The Amtrak attendant had given them a nice carrying box, and Miles said, “I’ll carry the drinks and food.”

Be doers of the word and not hearers only.

Getting back to their exit door took some work, though. Downstairs, then up, downstairs, then up again on the two-decker Texas Eagle. The walk included two hairpin turns. As they got going, Miles looked up into Margaret’s eyes. “Grandma, pray for me!”

Jasper led the way, like a battering ram. He wasn’t going to get stuck on that train. Push ‘em back, push ‘em back. There was no one to push back, but his face shone with determination, pluck, resolve, grit.

Margaret often notices how prayers change things, especially in our family. We pray every day out loud together for everybody in our family, immediate and extended. Miles and Jasper get high billing in our prayers. When Miles asks, “Pray for me,” we have been and we will be.

Miles made it up and down the steps. He made it around the hairpin turns. At the exit door, Isaiah helped him down onto the step and the ground, where Jasper was already waiting. He looked up at Margaret, with his famous eyes-wide-open smile.

She smiled back. “You did it, Miles!” And inside she shouted, “Thank you, Jesus!”

Later at the Cotton Patch Café the boys asked to sit at their own booth across the aisle, a step higher than ours, and cooler too. Of course. After our food came, we prayed. “Close your eyes and fold your hands.” Miles doesn’t always do this, neither does Jasper, although we keep those pre-meal prayers short. But Miles closed his eyes, and folded his hands.

All day after the Amtrak snack, our life together as grandparents and grandkids went very well. Better than usual? Maybe. Because of Miles’ request for prayer? Probably.

Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you and is able to save your souls.

We sure won’t stop praying out loud every day for those kiddos, for our relationship with them and for their futures. The bible says those prayers are precious in God’s sight.

They are precious in ours, too.

The Father willed to give us birth by the word of truth.

(Deuteronomy 4, Psalm 15, James 1, Mark 7)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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