Can I tell you a story?
It was my first month of the race and I quickly realized I was in the deep end.
I was in India. A place so dramatically different (and special) than any place I have still have yet to visit. My team and I were leading a service in a church in a small village. At the end of worship, testimonies and the message, we stood up front to pray over any requests.
Thats when I saw her.
A small women, most likely in her 50s, wrapped elegantly in her saree with her head cast down. She walked up to me and lifted her head with sad eyes that still pierce my memory. There were many people that came up for prayer that morning and we (and our one translator) had our hands full making sure each person was prayed for and encouraged. Quickly in passing, the translator shared with me her prayer request.
She told me quickly and with few words about her life.
That her husband didn’t know Jesus.
That he beat her.
But that wasn’t her prayer request. Her prayer request was for her daughter.
It wasn’t clear if her daughter knew and loved Jesus the way this women clearly did, but what was clear was that her daughter had recently been given away to be married.
That her husband didn’t know Jesus.
That he beat her.
As the translator quickly told me her prayer request, my heart sank. He immediately turned away to translate another prayer and left me alone with the understanding of why those piercing eyes were so sad.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and I began to pray. As the first words rolled off my tongue the first tears rolled down my cheek and so did the tears of this brave women.
In that moment I placed my forehead on hers and we cried. We cried big, fat, snotty tears together as I choked out prayers of protection, salvation, and strength.
It was as if the Holy Spirit allowed me to share in a taste of her pain and it wrecked me. It still does.
The prayer ended, she wiped away her tears, and she walked out of the church and back to her home.
In a way I felt so helpless. There was nothing I could do for this women other than pray, yet she didn’t even understand a word I prayed. In a small village in a country that many women are not valued and often seen as property and in a region where Christians are severely persecuted, no police would come to her aid.
I was stung with the fact that I was in the deep end.
I don’t know why she came to me to pray, but God does. And every so often I am reminded of her sad eyes and I pray for my sister in Christ all the way in a small village in India.
