Answered prayers

National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for communities throughout the land to seek divine guidance and spiritual answers to our most important questions.

On this National Day of Prayer, our nation finds itself waging a War on Terror. "Let Freedom Ring," the theme of this year's event, could be a battle cry. It also could be a prayer, an entreaty to God to guide this sweet land of liberty.

Prayer is never needed more than when the world is fighting.

You don't have to be religious to pray. Prayer is the means available to everyone to commune with God or whatever we believe in. Prayer is our connection to the divine, to the source of our being.

So often we look for answers in the wrong places and wonder why they can't be found. Prayer can produce those answers.

The Mayors' Prayer Breakfast will begin at 6:45 o'clock this morning at the A.C. Brase Arena Building in Cape Girardeau's Arena Park. Lawyer, author and syndicated columnist David Limbaugh is the speaker.

Today also is the one-year anniversary of the tornado that smashed through Jackson, damaging more than 130 houses and 11 businesses but causing only minor injuries. After the tornado, the entire community came together to help each other. There's another reason to thank God.

Jackson's ministerial alliance is sponsoring a noontime community service for that purpose today at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.

But what difference can prayer make against terrors of the world? In the sixth century, Chinese philosopher Lao-Tse wrote:

If there is to be peace in the world,

There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,

There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,

There must be peace between neighbors.

If there is to be peace between neighbors,

There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,

There must be peace in the heart.