Is There Anything in Prayer?

August 13, 2005

Some years previously, this mother has found that her child was not

getting on well at school. He began to bring home bad report-cards,

he did not like the teachers, he hated the studies. The mother finds

herself beginning to anticipate more trouble. She expects another bad

report, more tales of being disliked by the teachers, more inability

to do the work prescribed. Her very face as she meets the child at

the door tells what she anticipates. Suddenly she realizes that the

whole atmosphere of the home is melancholy with the sense of

impending failure. Her personal influence, through the black

background of her consciousness, is, in spite of anything she may

say, foreboding. Then she endeavors to 'get hold of herself '; to

prevent this thwarted desire for her child's happiness and success

from turning

sour and becoming a fixed, if almost unconscious, conviction that the

child will not get on well at school.

She begins to pray. She invokes another conviction, that the good

Spirit of the universe has no such intention for her child. She

recalls some of the great passages of religious inspiration, the

words of the saints who have been sure of a power outside ourselves,

as well as in ourselves, making for righteousness. Thus gaining the

prayer mood, she then reminds herself that she must be the channel

for bringing this good-will into the life of her child. She replaces

the picture of failure, which threatens to become fixed in her mind,

with a more vivid and living picture of success. With all the love

and sympathy and imaginative fire she possesses, she pictures to

herself her petition being granted—the new attitude on the part of

her child, his awakened interest in his studies, his liking for his

teachers, his expectation of success. She prays intensely, with all

her desire, through and in this mental picture.

This act is exceedingly difficult; but, if done, it changes the whole

atmosphere of the home. The very face of the mother as she meets the

child is magnetic of success for the child instead of being prophetic

of failure. In the thousand ways, known and unknown, in which the

mother's mind touches the mind of the child, encouragement,

expectation of achievement, faith in his powers now flow in upon the

will of the child. In petitions of this nature, the whole personality

is stirred; desire, intellect, and imagination are at their highest

point of efficiency, that she may become a conductor of God's