My Mother's Purse

I have a friend who is going through a thing in life right now. That thing is a cancer diagnosis for someone he loves. It's a serious diagnosis – Stage 3 that has metastasized to two other places in her body.

He is familiar with the challenges that come with medical diagnoses. But they have always been his. 

This time, he's on the outside looking in.

He is a Christian. He loves God. But he's not feeling particularly connected. He asked me to pray for him and his mom because he doesn't really know how to do that right now. I will and I am. But I want him to be able to do that too.

I've had many conversations about prayer over the years with many people – most smarter than I. There are so many theories about prayer. Not many of them have resonated with me. And then I read something a while back – I have no idea where – that brought this image to my mind. And it makes more sense to me than anything I've ever heard before about human connection to God in the form of prayer.

Prayer is like my mother's purse.

When I was a little girl of 6 or 7 I wasn't terribly confident.  I was terrified of getting left somewhere and no one realizing that I was missing. I was also terrified of being kidnapped. That image dominated my mind for quite some time when I was about that age.

The way I dealt with it was to hang onto my mother's purse. It always hung from the crook of her arm. It was the early 1970's and rather than shoulder straps, her purses had short handles that she hung just above her wrist.

It was at the perfect height for me to grab onto whenever I felt unsure.

All I ever needed was one small touch on her purse to feel connected. That was all it took for me to feel less apprehensive or anxious. When I felt better I would let go and move back out into my little world.

Touching my mother's purse wasn't going to keep me from wandering off. It wasn't going to keep me from losing track of where my family was and having them move away from me when I was looking away. Heaven forbid – it wasn't going to keep someone from whisking me away if that was truly their intent.

But it made me feel safer and more secure.

Her purse was always there.

Perhaps that's all prayer is. A short touch. A moment of reassurance in a world that seems to spin crazily out of our control. It's a moment of connection with God that can make us feel less anxious, a bit less apprehensive. 

Prayer won't keep the most difficult challenges we might ever face from happening.

But it will keep us connected to the most powerful source of love and hope and strength that we may ever find. And all it takes is a short touch. A mental touch to remind us that we are loved.