Labor Day testimony

I know, I know, there's nothing older than yesterday's newspaper. Or the Labor Day just past. But I just received this report yesterday, and I'll bet it's still current in the angels' gazette.

My friend Joanne and I were taking our usual Thursday walk, and talking about prayer. She was telling me that she writes her prayer requests down on a piece of paper and then checks the paper once or twice a month to see if they are answered. I asked her if they get answered. She said yes. I requested an example.

She said that her daughter, an incoming sixth-grader, is new to their church (the girl was living on Long Island for a year---long story), and the other girls were excluding her from their clique. In fact, one of the girls asked Anna if she was planning to go to the church Labor Day retreat, and when Anna said yes, the girl booed.

Joanne was brokenhearted so she . . . well, why don't you guess what she did: (a) decided that as the mother and protector of Anna, she should make alternative plans for the weekend, so as not to inflict unnecessary pain on her daughter; (b) phoned the unfriendly girl's mother and discussed the problem with her; or (c) prayed for her daughter.

Actually, the correct answer is that she prayed for the girl who was hating on her daughter. (I'm sure she did "c" too.) And the family went to the retreat, and Joanne's daughter and those girls became friends.

I said to Joanne, wow, I wish there was a time scheduled into every Sunday worship for sharing testimonies like that. It's the kind of thing that builds my faith. Come to think of it, I seem to see a praise-and-testimony time somewhere in 1 Corinthians 14, don't you? What ever happened to that?

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.