Thanks for your reply, Dave. My main issue isn’t with the writer not being someone who implicitly trusts God; she is, or God would not have provided the help she needed at that time. It’s with believing that one has to be in a church or pray to a statue in order for God to answer prayers. Believing that praying to a statue or crucifix is necessary for God to hear and answer your prayer is no different than what the Temple Priests demanded in the time Jesus lived. It wasn’t then and isn’t now something the rabbi Y’shua would approve of. And it’s no different than pagan worship of the time (and now, as well). God created all that exists, so ALL places are “sacred”. God is ALL and in All that exists, so all that exists is sacred. I understand that a church or a burial ground or any other place can be considered “sacred” by man’s understanding but man claiming such places to be more “sacred” than any other doesn’t make a forest, a meadow, a mountain top, or a peaceful garden any less sacred- God doesn’t need people to gather at certain places to pray in order to hear those prayers. That’s a relic of ancient Jewish Priesthood and the Niddle Ages. The lady could’ve simply sat on a bench to commune with (pray to~) God and the result would’ve been the same- IF she trusted God to do what is best for her at that time and any other time. To pray to a statue of Mary is to ignore the fact that Mary wasn’t God, and neither she nor statues of her can answer prayers. Praying to a statue as a ‘go-between’ her and God is a pagan belief. It could even be seen as a lack of faith in God. As I think I said, God is always with those who trust him. And will always do what is for a person’s best even if it isn’t what that person actually wants. But setting conditions on what you want is limiting what God will do for you. None of us know what we truly need and it’s arrogant and foolhardy to pretend we know better than God. True, honest, faith is accepting that God knows what we need and provides it. No matter where we pray. Just don’t believe that prayer is valid only in a church or other consecrated-by-man places and never, ever, place human-derived wants in place of what God can and will do if you simply allow God to do those things. True faith is accepting that God is always with you and providing what you need. There’s no way of knowing the long-term outcome of asking for specific relief by a specific time that day might mean to her in the future. It may, in fact, harm her in the long run and she might never make the connection between “demanding” (and that’s what it was-a demand cloaked in a “prayer”) God do something for her rather than trusting that God will if it’s what’s best for her at that particular time in her life. I’m well aware that what I’m saying will bother, and probably anger, many “Christians”, but that is between them and their version of God, which is not the God Jesus taught us to love. Since all places are sacred in the eyes of God, God can certainly hear your prayer, know your trust in God, no matter where you are at any moment in time. As is written in the New Testament, “In him I live and breathe and have my very being”. A beautiful, and accurate, saying.
May God bless and be with you- and with us all, even those who refuse God. The God Jesus worshipped is a forgiving God who “works in mysterious ways”.
