She Prays and Does Not Say So

Aine has prayed for Roisin every morning for two years and Roisin does not know.

That is not an accident and it is not shyness. Roisin asked. Directly, in a kitchen, in the way that only a very old friendship permits.

She said, "I know what you think about it. I am asking you not to bring it up, and I am asking you not to be praying at me. If you want to be my friend, be my friend."

And Aine said, "All right."

And she meant it, and she has kept it. Not one word in two years. She has been a friend. She has been at the birthdays, she has driven to the hospital that time, she has said nothing whatsoever about the situation Roisin is inside.

And every morning, with the kettle on, she prays for her.

Here is the difficulty, and it is a real one and it is not what people assume.

She is not troubled about whether she is being deceitful. She has thought about that carefully and concluded, correctly, that praying for somebody is not something anybody has a right to prohibit, and that she has kept the actual promise, which was about her mouth.

What troubles her is smaller and worse: she has begun to suspect it does not count.

Two years of something nobody sees, that produces no visible result, that she cannot mention to the person or to anybody who knows them. It has started to feel less like standing and more like a private habit she has grown attached to.

Here is the day it caught.

Her sister said, of somebody else entirely, "Well, at least you can pray about it," in the tone people use for a thing they do when there is nothing to be done.

And Aine said, "Mm."

And then thought about that tone for the rest of the afternoon, because she has begun to use it about herself.

You know that. You do something every day for somebody who does not know, and it has no evidence attached to it, and somewhere in the years you started to wonder whether it is anything at all.

Somebody reported it so they would know

Let me put down what I am not doing tonight, so you can stop bracing.

I am not going to tell you to break your word to Roisin. I am not going to tell you to raise it, hint at it, or find a clever way around what she asked. And I am not going to tell you what will happen in her situation, because I do not know.

What I will do is read you a sentence in a letter, near the end, in the part everybody skips.

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.Colossians 4:12

Now, several things in that verse are worth slowing down on.

Epaphras is not in Colossae. He is with Paul, somewhere else entirely. The people he is praying for are not in the room and cannot see him doing it.

The word rendered laboring fervently is a wrestling word. It is a word about strain, effort, contest. Paul is describing something strenuous happening in a man in another city on behalf of people who have no idea it is going on.

You are doing something Scripture describes with a word about strain rather than a word about sentiment. Colossians 4:12 calls hidden prayer a labor and a wrestling, and the Holy Spirit is the one who carries that off the page and into a kitchen with a kettle on.

And now the part that answers Aine's actual difficulty.

Paul tells them.

That is why the verse exists. Epaphras was doing it invisibly, in another city, and Paul writes it into a letter that will be read out loud to the whole church, so that the Colossians will know that a man they cannot see has been wrestling for them.

Paul thought it was important enough that they should know.

You are doing something that an apostle considered worth reporting to a whole congregation, and the reporting is the reason that verse is in your Bible. It is written that he was always laboring fervently in prayers for them, and the Holy Spirit is what makes an ancient report a present valuation.

Hidden is not lesser

Now let me be careful here, because this is where somebody gets hurt.

The tone Aine's sister used, and the tone Aine has started to use about herself, is very common in churches, and it is at least you can pray, and it treats prayer as the thing you do when the real options have run out.

I am not going to pretend that tone is rare or that it comes only from careless people. It comes from tired people who have watched a great deal go unanswered.

You are not being asked to be naive about how prayer feels after two years, and Scripture is full of people saying so out loud. Psalm 13:1 opens with a man asking how long, and the Holy Spirit is what keeps an honest weariness from disqualifying anybody.

But here is what the verse does with the valuation, and it is the whole of tonight.

It calls it labor. It calls it wrestling. It reports it to a church as news worth having. There is nothing in Colossians 4:12 that treats what Epaphras is doing as a fallback, a consolation, or the thing you do when there is nothing to be done.

You have been doing work rather than passing time, and the word Paul chose is a word about effort and contest. Colossians 4:12 uses a wrestling word for something entirely invisible, and the Holy Spirit is the one who assigns weight to a thing that produces no evidence.

Say this here rather than at the end, because I would rather say it and not be needed. If the two years have gone somewhere heavier than lonely, or if watching your friend has begun to cost you more than you have, do not carry that alone. Tell somebody this week. Your sister, your doctor, a counselor, or the 988 crisis line if you live in the United States. And if you ever believe Roisin is in real danger, then the ordinary thing is to call for help where you live rather than manage it alone. That is me refusing to leave you at that kettle by yourself.