Lauren come downstairs and eat, my nanna yelled out to me. I wanted so desperately to lay in bed and drown in my sorrows. I had just lost my mother to a horrible car accident and eating was the last thing on my mind. I wanted God to know how mad I was at him and that it was nothing he could do about it. Why my mom? Why now? I was just two months away from graduating from High School and the one person that I loved and cherished was GONE. LAUREN come downstairs and eat, my Nanna YELLED out again. I kicked my weighted blanket off and made my way downstairs. I had the look of my horrible attitude all over my face, but that did not seem to even affect my nanna. She kindly said to me do you want fried or baked chicken. LADY, I wanted to say I don’t want your food, nor do I want to eat.
However, my momma did not raise no fool so I kindly said Nanna “I will take fried chicken, please”. As I sat down at the table and looked into my nanna’s eyes. Call me crazy or even emotional, but I could see the same pain in her eyes as well. I mean she did lose her only daughter and now was left to take care of me. “Nanna”, I whispered, “how do you have the strength to go on like this. I feel so broken and angry with God”. As I watched my Nanna place a little more greens on her plate, she looked at me and said “baby say grace”. Did Ethel not pick up my attitude towards God. I don’t have a thing to say to this man we called Jesus. I watched my mother and grandmother countless times pray to this God that they said was amazing. Yet that same God took the only thing that I loved from me.
“NO”, I said back to my grandmother. ‘ I will not say grace”. Now my nanna was quiet, but if you pushed her buttons you might see another side of Ethel. Yet nothing could prepare me for what happened next. My nanna broke down crying like I have never seen before. She cried until the tears began to soak her chicken. WHAT have I done “I thought”? As I moved my chair closer to my grandmother and embraced her. She looked up at me and said very faintly, "please don’t give up on prayer". HUH? “Promise me that you won't give up on prayer!”. “Nanna, I’m mad with God,” I whimpered. “I know you are and I respect that. Listen to this. When you were just a young girl, too young might I add, to understand, you fell ill. I can remember your sweet mother running into my room crying saying I think Lauren is dying. I laughed at first because your mother was a drama queen at times, but not this time. This time it was different. I felt it in my bones. The pain in her eyes toppled with the fear of losing you made me grab my secret stash of Holy Oil. I began to rub the oil on your head and we prayyyyyyyyyyyed until your fever broke. It was that same dreary night that your mother gave her life to Christ and became a woman devoted to prayer.
She was the first Johnson to start her own prayer clinic and counseling services. She also made me vow to her that if anything ever happened to her that I would continue to raise you up as a powerful believer in Christ. Your mother Lauren dedicated her life to prayer. It was her greatest desire that you would take over her prayer clinic and for you to learn the effectiveness of having a prayer life. If it wasn't for prayer and the promise I made to your mother many years ago, I may have given up! Yet, deep down in my heart I feel the peace of God.”
“Nanna, thank you for sharing with me how powerful prayer is and the impact it had on my mother's life. It's my desire to keep her legacy alive. I promise that I won't give up on prayer. I know this journey will be hard and it's gonna take time, but with each other and God I know we can make it through. Nanna, I think I can say grace now.”
Have you ever felt broken like Ethel and Lauren? Have you ever felt alone? What do you do when you lose a loved one? How do you recover from a broken relationship, or how can you move on after hearing that you have a terminal illness?
Here is my response when you have to deal with the most catastrophic seasons in your life as a mother TRUST GOD & KEEP PRAYING!
Just like Ethel & Lauren had to face their hardest battle together. Christ is saying that you have him to help you through your most difficult seasons.
It says in 2 Corinthians 4:17 KJV “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
Remember mothers, when you don’t know what to pray, or you feel broken let our chief intercessor Jesus Christ step in. He is constantly standing in the gap for us interceding on our behalf when we can’t. I don’t know about you, but I’m grateful for the many mothers who have paved the way for us through having powerful prayer lives in the midst of their pain and struggles. Now it’s our turn to keep that PROMISE of prayer going even through adversity because another mother’s life depends on it!
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