PRAYERS WORK WONDERS, EVEN MIRACLES AT TIMES!

From Sampath’s desk:

 

 

PRAYERS WORK WONDERS, EVEN MIRACLES AT TIMES!

 

One of my friends, a Good Samaritan, once contracted a terminal disease, which I could not digest, not because of my close proximity to him, but he was a noble personality. More than him I got shocked and upset. For he was kind-hearted with charity mindset besides sterling humane qualities. True to the golden saying of Sri Sathya Sai Baba, 'Helping hands are holier than the praying lips', he was helping the needy in all possible ways. I muttered sotto voce, “People believe good things happen to good persons for their good actions. Is that theory a truth or mere myth?” Reposing faith in God, I, among others, prayed to Him for his recovery. I didn’t how prayers worked? But it really did in his case! However, I am afraid, it can’t stand scientific scrutiny. When one falls sick, the first and foremost option is doctor and medical treatment. However, the doctor pitches in saying, “I would do my best and the rest is in the hands of God”. There is no undermining or underestimating the medical world much less wishing it away or brushing it aside. We do take medicines, but it is God’s grace that makes it work and cure our illnesses!

 

Thanks to the prayers of his well-wishers, medical advances and the doctors who attended on him, he speedily well responded to medical treatment and recovered that made me heave a sigh. While some would claim it a medical miracle, some others would say ‘God’s Grace’! In fact, prayer, I believe, doesn’t change God, but changes the one who prays. Faith and prayer are like the two sides of a same coin, elixir to life and soul. Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life. Our prayers are sometimes answered without us realizing it, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, or, in ways we couldn’t not even comprehend! God's scheme is always far better than ours. 

 

Once, one known to me working in the U.S., had come to Chennai on a holiday. When the son asked the mother about her general well-being, pat came the reply “I am in fine.” Despite mother’s outward appearance of normalcy, the son could decipher and discern some discomfort that was lurking her inside though externally she pretended normalcy. He said to himself, “There is something amiss; she is unable to express. I should take her to doctor”. At first she resisted saying that she didn’t think she needed to consult a doctor. On the son’s persistence, both visited a doctor who did elaborate tests on her and commented “everything is fine”. However, doctor confided with the son in his room in person without the mother present there that she had a tumour in her stomach. Still more stunning and startling was that the mother was not expected to live for more than 6 months, but posted the review after 3 months. When the mother insisted on to know what had transpired in the doctor’s room, the son underplayed thus, “Doctor wanted you to take nutritious food and prescribed vitamin tables/substances just as food supplements for good health.” Realizing the precarious health condition of the mother, he extended his leave and stayed back in India.  

 

Three months later when the son proposed another visit to the doctor, the mother questioned the need on the plea that she felt fine and the doctor had also told during the earlier visit that everything was fine. However, on insistence she agreed for the second visit. The doctor did some tests and opined that the mother was perfectly alright. Doctor called the son to his room accompanied by the mother and asked him if he had done anything ‘out of the ordinary’ since he saw her last. Pat came the reply “No, nothing but prayers to God including group prayers. And many people joined me on a daily basis.” Everything had happened behind the back of the mother! The doctor then explained to both that the lethal tumour that he had seen three months earlier had completely disappeared without trace. And, he had no explanation for it. Then the son revealed everything to the mother. Thereafter, he went back to the U.S. taking her mother along and both are now living there happily, both keeping a good health.   

 

If we pray with sincerity, there is no such thing as an ‘unanswered prayer’.  Let us pray to GOD for those in distress and pain irrespective of whether, they are related to us or not, or close to us or not, or even known to us or not, with the fond hope ‘He will answer’. Sincere prayers do work wonders, even miracles sometimes! A universal truth well demonstrated in this case notwithstanding absence of any scientific clue about it. Isn’t it?

                                                                            

R.SAMPATH