Prayer...holding one another, with God

If your living on welfare or a disability pension, it is the constant battle of juggling the bare necessities that of life, food or a roof over your head. Often we have friends in our CARTS community coming through the line suffering and fighting a terminal illness like cancer. And, a lot of these drugs are only covered if you are' in the hospital. So now, on the outside, juggling two things has become far more precarious. What will I sacrifice, I sacrifice now for the medicine I need. Stories like this are all to common on the inner city street.

Prayer is sometimes the only thing that they have. It is the hope that connects us all. We stand in solidarity with one another, acknowledging the fragility of life. We can question the unfairness of it. But, through the pain and suffering we know that God is somehow in the midst of it. Does prayer come with a guarantee, with a positive outcome. Will, someone's cancer be healed, or addiction cured, or poverty eliminated. We don't know. But, standing together in prayer, we acknowledge that a huge part of prayer involves us all, working together to heal one another. Matthew 25, reminds us, " I was sick, and you took care of me."

We need to be reminded that it’s normal to have problems, get sick, experience financial challenges and face relational breakdown. Jesus promises us, “You will have trouble” (John 16:33), but not many of us stick that verse on the fridge.

But, at CARTS we can stick together, hold one another and embrace each other's pain. And we can pray in the hope of a power greater than ourselves. But, most of all we can be there for one another.