Being the answer to prayer

The other day, our dog was hit by a car. A woman who had driven by after came to our door and told us. I didn't know what I would do when I got to the road, but when I got there, she was already carrying him off of the road for us. It was a gesture of kindness, love and compassion that meant deeply to me because I hadn't known if I would be able to. It reminded me of God's love and provision for us.

It also reminded me that oftentimes, we are the answers to each others' prayers. We are, in a very real way, love to each other. It is love that reminds us we are worthy not because of anything we do or don't do, but simply because we are. Our shared humanity and the suffering and joy that entails calls us into communion with each other, to share the burden of grief with those we love and with those we don't even know.

This communion is, perhaps, the mystery of being human: although we don't all know each other on the surface, we know each other at a deep level that understands pain and grief and joy and suffering. It's not something any of us can escape, and so we are here for each other. God is love, and we carry God within ourselves; this is the presence of God.

The woman's act of love didn't come without a cost to her: it made her late to the meeting she was going to. This reminds me it is often when we open up our schedules and our time to each other that the most meaningful transformations and instances of love can take place. We can inconvenience ourselves for another.

We are often the answers to each others' prayers. We pray, whether explicitly or implicitly, and in a very real way, others answer. It reminds me that no sigh of our heart goes unnoticed by God; our God is trustworthy and provides. It is all God, and it is also all us, this entanglement with the divine in which we are in God, with God and through God, and God is in us, with us, through us. It's the Trinitarian relationship of pouring ourselves into each other freely and fully so that love can then spill over into others' lives.

We can be the answers to each others' prayers if we act on the thoughts of kindness and compassion that we have for others. Even though our actions might not seem like a big deal to us, we never know what it might mean to the person who receives or how deeply it might impact them. We are Christ's body, his hands and feet and mouth and mind, in order to love others. And no less importantly, we are people on this journey with our fellow people. Let's love each other in ways that remind us divine love is real and in our midst.

And to the woman who helped us, thank you. It means more than you know.