For a few months now I have been posting a daily reminder here and on social media to say a personal prayer for the freeing of the hostages in Gaza and the Ukrainian hostages in Russia. I get quite a number of likes and restacks/shares. I also get comments that prayers do not work, or you might as well write Santa Claus. Well here’s the thing, I have a lot of experience working with prayer and finding that it does work. The question really is, how do we know prayers work? What does an answer to a prayer look like? How long does it take? Is a response to a prayer what you want it to be or is it just exactly what you need?
So let me tell you a story…
I began getting sick on and off in October of 1996. I thought it must be the flu or stress and the doctors I saw did not suspect anything else. Then in June of 1997 I became extremely sick and wound up in the emergency room. I consulted two medical doctors, a naturopath, and a doctor of oriental medicine. It’s “viral” was the big conclusion. Finally, my 69 year-old mother came to New York and took me back with her to Florida in a wheelchair. I was 44 years old.
I was extremely weak and fatigued and could not walk without holding onto someone. Even then I could barely go at a snail’s pace. I had terrible stomach irritation and could not eat fully for months. I lost a lot of weight. My throat felt like it had a lump in it. I could not swallow any pills. My mind was not my own - I could not think, focus or concentrate. I was anxious and confused 24 hours a day. I knew no peace, even in meditation. I heard voices. My short-term memory was gone. My vision was blurred, I could not read. I lost hair and my menstrual periods ceased because my body was too weak to have them. I had a vaginal infection, dizziness, and heart palpitations. If I exerted myself just a little I felt like I would faint or collapse. In spite of feeling cold, I was heat sensitive and ran a continual low-grade fever. I dared not shower or bathe without my mother’s presence for fear I would faint from heat.
All that was frightening enough, but three months into the illness and my search for health I descended into extreme environmental illness. Not only was I intolerant of all scents or odors - soaps, cleaners, shampoos, perfumes, powders, gasoline, paint, even toothpaste and sometimes cooking smells - but electric and electromagnetic fields as well. I could not tolerate even to sit under a lamp or near a digital clock. I could not use a phone, watch TV, listen to the radio or audiotapes, use an electric stove or the toaster oven. I was reactive to everything. I could only wear 100% cotton clothes and no jewelry. My outfit was baggy sweat pants and cotton t-shirts for some time. All environments bothered me, I went nowhere except to the doctor and then I wore a mask (this is way before COVD). Essentially I stuck to one room in my parents’ apartment that was safe for me. Riding in a car was difficult because of the fumes. Given my extreme symptoms people thought I had AIDS or cancer, or both.
I remember jokingly saying, ‘here I am sitting in the dark with only my own light to guide me’. And the power of prayer. I had thought of prayers as standard verses used in ritual or last ditch requisitions for help when all else failed. I did not know that prayer was a direct telephone line to G-d. I learned to heal myself by making direct phone calls to the Heavens and receiving answers custom-made for me. The answers to prayers came in form, a physical response. I could see it, touch it, talk to it, smell it or hear it.
It took me a while to realize what form the answers to my prayers would take. When I dropped my expectations, I could see the answers sticking out at me. For example, in the very early days of my illness I prayed for miracle. In those first few weeks I received an audio tape called “The Miracle Within You”. I knew nothing about Qi Gong, but remembered sending away for something a while ago and then forgetting about it. I listened to the tape for about five minutes, dismissed it and put it away. Later I listened to the tape in its entirely. In it was a simple Qi Gong exercise that immediately helped and started me on the road to success with Qi Gong. Even then I don’t think I recognized it as the answer to my prayer. I expected something from Hollywood - a beam of light here, a manifestation of an angel there - at least some special effects. Instead I got an audio tape (without a case). I didn’t recognize the form.
I got very frustrated. At one point, I remember praying to G-d that “I don’t see it. I don’t see what you are sending. Stick it in my face!" It happened that I had to go to the dentist. Laying back in the chair, I was telling him my symptoms and he said “If you have that, then you have mercury”. I told him I could not have mercury because I had all my mercury fillings removed years ago. He started arguing with me, and finally wrote on a pad a doctor’s name and a test and said “Here, go get this test” - and he stuck the pad in my face. Now what is interesting is that months before this when I first arrived in Florida with my mother, I wrote a holistic doctor I knew and described my symptoms. He wrote back that in his experience these symptoms indicated heavy metal poisoning, “especially mercury” and to go get “this test”. But I ignored it because I didn’t believe I could have mercury. I needed to have it stuck “in my face”.
In very beginning of my illness I was desolate. I remember sitting in the dark praying for help and for a symbol of my healing. I was shown a vision of a beautiful gold Star of David. This made no sense to me because I was not a very observant Jew back then. How was Judaism going to heal me? Five months later I began to understand. I sat in the chelation room of a doctor’s office. I was taking the intravenous test for mercury poisoning. In a room full of patients an 86 year old man recovering from a stroke stared at me and started to talk. Finally he said - “Do you know what a Bar Mitzvah is?” And I reached for my Jewish star and showed it to him. “Yes Arnold, I know what a Bar Mitzvah is. I am Jewish.”
Even this answer completely passed me by until after I received the results of the test. I had severe mercury poisoning, the highest level that office had ever seen. Only then did I remember my star. This was going to be how I would heal and I did. After few a treatments I had some good days. My period returned. Removing mercury from the body takes a while. It is so toxic that the body does not release it readily. After it was removed I needed to rebuild my health. All in all it took about three years to regain my full vitality. I went back to school for a teaching degree. I retired in September 2023. I still teach yoga, walk/hike and garden. My prayers were answered, though I missed all the answers the first time around. So I will keep praying for the hostages in Gaza and Russia. I hope you will join me.
This makes me think about how I pray. Great insight.
I love your comment Annie.