Prayers for Haiti

By now you know a 7.0 earthquake shattered Haiti. Reports are coming in in dribs and drabs but the situation is grave. Early pictures show a lot of tilted and shaken buildings and indicate many injured and mass chaos.

Every once in a while, we get a nudge, a request to pray. It is a reminder that we can never pray enough. It's a funny thing about prayer. For me, when I claim I don't have the time, the day is hard, the tone is hard, the process of getting through everything is hard. Conversely, when I nag myself to make the time, even if things are difficult, they aren't hard.

Prayer doesn't always alter the situation the way we wish, but it always alters the one offering the prayer. We cannot seek God's aid or love or attention in our direct petitions and not be affected by that calling out or His answer.

In the past, I've asked for any number of things, most of them by the world's standard, probably silly. God has always answered with lavish abundance. It humbles, or it should.

We often wait to pray until life brings us a situation that pulls us to our knees. But these sorts of massive tragedies remind me that I ought to be willing to pray more often and that every day with all the people I know, is a gift and rare and precious.

What we should hope, is the mere knowledge of others suffering, is enough to bring us to our knees, and to ask, and then to listen to how we are to be of service. At times like this, prayer is not the very least we can do, it is the beginning of what we must do.

Then, if you feel called to do something more physical and fiscal in response;

http://www.crs.org

They have a special fund already set up specifically for Haiti; and they are known to be good stewards to the sick, the poor and the suffering internationally.