MAYOR'S PRAYER BREAKFAST DRAWS 700

Prayer is personal and powerful.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III and his family have seen its effect on their lives.

Before a crowd of 700 at the Mayors' Prayer Breakfast Thursday, Spradling related a story about his family and how they were affected by the community's prayers.

The mayor's oldest son, Bert, was diagnosed with bone cancer in October 1997. He began treatments at a Houston cancer hospital and has been in remission since June.

During that period of diagnosis and treatment, the Spradlings were all in constant prayer.

"Prayer changed our lives," Spradling said. "And my wife wasn't bashful about who she asked to pray."

Pam Spradling asked for prayer support from a church Bible study group and even a Houston store clerk and a General Motors representative.

Spradling said his son is healthy now "because people unselfishly took the time to pray."

"What kind of nation could we be if everyone could say a prayer every day and if we could heal the ills of our country and our world?" he asked.

Attorney David Limbaugh, featured speaker at the breakfast, agreed that prayer is a solution to the problems America faces.

"We've been sold a bill of goods by the enemies of Christianity," said Limbaugh, whose syndicated column appears in the Southeast Missourian. "America really was built on Christian principles," he said.

But "we've abandoned our calling to be a light and have been an example of darkness," Limbaugh said.

What if America was chosen as a nation to spread the gospel?, he asked. "That wouldn't be arrogant, but humbling."

America has a responsibility to set the example for the rest of the world. "Christian principles are scattered in the ideas of liberty which is the building block of a free society," he said.

People are wrong if they think that Christianity and liberty cannot live in harmony together. "There are few free nations in the history of the world, but what we do have comes from the nursery of Europe," Limbaugh said.

European thinking had a formative influence on the creation of America's freedom, he said. The Founding Fathers sprinkled those influences into the creation of America with the Bill of Rights, Constitution and even the Declaration of Independence.

"God's laws aren't rules to restrict because he doesn't want us to have fun, but to ensure that we have dignity and respect for freedom," he said.