Bring Your Umbrella

I was talking with a friend of mine who has been ill for sometime now. Yet, somehow in the midst of fighting cancer, she manages to be upbeat, inspiring and active.

This past week when a new mass was found, we all feared the worst. I spent time in prayer. She spent time in prayer. Countless others spent time in prayer. Yet, when the doctor called with the news that the mass was not cancerous, we were all surprised…

I was reminded of a story I once heard. A rural church in the middle of farming country, much like the one my husband pastors, had a special service to pray for rain. The drought had hit the area hard and the farmers and community were suffering financially and spiritually. Many people came to the service to pray and as the pastor looked out over the crowd he was encouraged. However, the thing that inspired him most was a little girl sitting in the front pew, holding a bright red umbrella. Everyone had come to pray for rain, but only the little girl believed enough to bring an umbrella.

I think we are often like that with prayer. We pray, we mean it, we get up off of our knees, but we seldom grab an umbrella. Another lesson in this story is why do we wait until the corn has wilted, our life is in a drought, and then we pray for God’s help. We take our problems, we do everything we can to fix them and then, finally, we call on God to help us.

While this story has been used many times, it is a good reminder to grab our umbrella, grab our faith, when we go to pray. We are asked to pray in faith rather than in desperation. It is such a comfort to me to know that even when my prayers are not answered, they are heard. 1 John 5:14 reminds us, This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.


All Biblical quotes taken from the NIV Bible

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Donetta Garman is the author of "Growing Up Ugly" (Tate Publishing, 2008) and a wife of a rural church pastor. She resides in Osceola, Missouri with her husband of twenty one years, Gar Garman, on an idyllic spot in the Ozark foothills.
© 2008 Donetta Garman - All rights reserved. Used with permission.