THE PRAYER HOUSE


Are you praying? Do you have God’s phone number? Are you on the Executive Committee in Heaven? Want to learn how to pray? Read this story and ask God to show how we should pray….

Here is a true story by, Mary Stewart Relfe. This is how we are to be in prayer. Do we have what this Lady had. Do we really want what she had. We do but, we just don’t know how to use it. Let’s pray that God will show us how to really pray. This is copied from the Book: "CURE OF ALL ILLS."



DEDICATION

To My Mother



Kathleen Thomas Stewart

1907 – 1965

Mighty in Prayer,

Eloquent in the Scriptures.



“Her children arise up and call her blessed,” Pro.31:28



Family Altar


As far back as memory serves me, days at our house began and ended with my mother conducting a Family Altar. She would read a portion of Scripture and follow it with an application, as it related to our conduct and character. All of us would then kneel for prayer.

From the oldest child, in order of descending ages, each would pray individually. The youngest was instructed in prayer until it became a “status symbol” to be old enough to pray one’s own prayers at about age four.

House Of Prayer

After family devotions, Mom would retreat to an old prayer house. An unused garage, and for an house or two, she would engage God in a “season of prayer.” Though beds were unmade and breakfast dishes unwashed, Mom tended early to Heaven’s bidding. From any direction, we could hear Mother praying for us by name. She would entreat God for our physical health and protection from accidents for the day; then she would ask God to sanctify us wholly, and that our whole spirit, soul and body would be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. She would pray for God to make us industrious without covetousness, diligent without anxiety, and that He would so sequence the events of our lives that each would work toward our temporal and eternal benefit. She would ask God to enable us to perceive truth; that our learning would not conflict with the word of God; that wisdom would be granted us to delineate fact from fiction, truth from error and prudent assessment from wistful thinking.

After chores were done, Mom would study and memorize Scriptures. She read the Bible through so many times, that her later years she refused to disclose the number, though she kept it by code in her Bible.



She could quote chapters, name David’s children and their mothers, expound on the sweet influences of Pleiades and the bands of Orion. But her most skillful dividing of the word came to her six children who daily sat at her feet and heard the “word” become extensions of her constant instructions, admonitions, exhortations, reproof and rebuke. Her “conversation” was indeed in Heaven. Her communications were “spoken with grace, seasoned with salt
--- like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”

I never heard Mom argue, debate or tarry a point with my father. “The heart of her husband did safely trust in her… “ Pr. 31:11.

All who made Mom’s acquaintance soon recognized her as a woman, mighty in prayer, eloquent in the Scriptures and whose dwelling was a “house of prayer.”


Day Of reckoning

I was 13 years of age when Mom’s faith was tested and her power in prayer was made manifest to the entire community. My oldest brother James 17, was driving the family car in which five other teenagers were riding when it was involved in a tragic single car crash.

My brother, comatose, was immediately transferred from the small hospital in Clanton to one in Montgomery, Alabama where a team of neurosurgeons worked on him and gave the following prognosis: “Critical, brain injury, survival doubtful! If he lives, he will be a vegetable.”

Carolyn, a friend in the car, sustained broken back and pelvic bones in several places. She was rushed to a Birmingham hospital where she was placed on the critical list; her family was told that if she survived, she would never walk again. A third friend, Frances, had multiple disfiguring cuts over her face. The other three had lesser injuries.

From the time my mother received this news, she ate no food. After a few days passed, my father returned home for the first time since the accident. He came to the front door in his “stocking feet” , with shoes in his hands. He had not been to bed since the tragedy, and his feet were so swollen he couldn’t get them in his shoes. Dad’s countenance was sad, his voice shaky, as he gave us the news: “There’s no change. James is still in a coma.” He Added, “I stopped by the General Store in Billingsley, and the proprietor, Mr. Patrick, said to me, “It would be a blessing if James died, for if he lives he will not have his right mind.”

Mom broke the silence. She began, as was her demeanor, very quietly: “We should all be of good cheer. There shall be no lost of life as a result of this accident. The Lord Jesus Christ, whose I am and whom I serve, spoke to me: “Fear not, God has given thee all them that were with James. James shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. His body will be healed. His mind will be restored. Carolyn’s bones will knit together. She will walk again and without crutches, or cane or even a limp. And, the face of Frances will come again like the flesh of a little child’ …I prevailed before God for every person in the wreck. That which was thought to be evil, God will make good. Therefore, be of good cheer, for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”

Moment Of Truth

Word spread about my Mom’s “correspondence with heaven.” The community waited. A week later James was brought home in an ambulance, still incoherent, and therefore bedridden. The following Sunday a car drove up out front. As the people exited, I noticed there were also Carolyn and Frances. Carolyn walked without any aid of any kind, neither did she have a limp! The face of Frances was like the complexion of a baby. There was no scar.

Within days James mind returned. He subsequently became a career military man, was with the Marines in Iwo Jima when they hoisted Old Glory and flew many missions from Okinawa. He served our country again in Korea and in Vietnam. James retired a second time in 1986 from the Jefferson County School System in Birmingham, Alabama.

There has never been a day of his life he did not owe to the effectual fervent prayers of a righteous Mother, who invaded the deep, dark mysterious regions of the dead and made death to flee in the presence of the Lord of life.

It was at the tender age of 13, that I became intrigued with, and a student of prayer.

Mom went to be with the Lord in 1966. Thirty-nine ministers and hundreds of people attended her funeral.



Reflections

In retrospect, I realize that during the hours Mom spent in that old Prayer House, she was functioning as a Board Member on the Executive Committee that ruled in the affairs of mankind. She was casting her votes on decisions that determined the destiny of the members of her family, her community and nation. It was therefore early on that I learned it was pray-ers, not mayors, presidents, kings, and princes, who were the real molders of events. When the Archives of heaven are unveiled –

When the books are opened wide And the deeds of all are tried

--- it shall surely be revealed that history was not made in halls of congress or offices of armies or navies, but in Prayer Closets of nameless intercessors, for the fate of this world has always been, and is today, in the hands of praying saints.

To the memory of a praying saint,

My Mother,

Kathleen Thomas Stewart

Who, being dead, “yet speaketh.”