Nancy Kennedy
I have two fundamental beliefs about kids.
If you need help with your TV remote, ask a 10-year-old.
When you need big-time prayers, ask a 6-year-old.
That’s what I did the year Hurricane Irma hit Florida.
So, I reached out for the big guns — my great-niece Leah in California.
Her mom, my niece Jennifer, said every night at bedtime Leah asked, “Does anyone have any prayer requests?”
Since she was soliciting prayer requests, I gave her mine: “I’m afraid of hurricanes.”
Jennifer sent me a video of 6-year-old Leah praying for the “hurricane to go away” and especially that her “Tee Tee Nancy wouldn’t be scared.”
Irma didn’t go away, but it did decrease in strength enough that my house didn’t blow away.
I put that in the win column for Leah’s answered prayer. Plus, I wasn’t afraid — two wins for Leah.
Another time she told me she had a friend at school who was mean. “When I prayed for Taylor to not be so mean, a couple of days later, she was nice,” she said.
“God just went poof!”
But then she said God didn’t always do that.
She had been praying a long time for her Papa, that he would believe in Jesus.
“When God doesn’t answer my prayers right away, it makes me a little angry and sad,” she said. “But maybe He’ll do it sometime, so I keep praying.”
She’s 15 now, and I was curious if she remembers being six.
She remembers praying, “God, please let us have tacos for dinner tonight.”
“That was one of my most common ones,” she said. “My prayers now are more about my grades.
“Last year I prayed that I would do well on my math finals — and I did. I was so grateful. Math is tough for me.”
She thinks about Psalm 23 a lot. “It reminds me that the Lord is my Shepherd,” she said. “We don’t deserve Him, but here He is. Right by our side every day.”
Yesterday I sent her another text.
“Do you still pray for your Papa?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m still praying,” she said.
“He still has the cross necklace that I gave him hanging up in his car.”
I told her I’d been praying for my dad for the past 48 years.
My dad lived 3,000 miles away, so I couldn’t see what God was doing.
Leah had seen him fairly often when he traveled from his home in Mexico to visit the family in California.
“I’ve learned to be patient,” she said. “I know that this is God’s plan for me and I’m not the one in control.”
Yes, but 48 years is a long time to pray.
On Friday, I sent Leah a text: “Do you still believe that God sometimes goes ‘poof’?”
“Oh, definitely!” she replied.
“Sometimes I pray and then totally forget about it.
“Then God does something and I’m like, ‘Wow. He just did that!’”
I texted her back: “Then I’ll continue to pray.”
On Sunday morning, my dad died.
I don’t know what God has done with those 48 years of prayers.
I don’t have to know.
He knows.
And I know He heard them.
Contact Nancy Kennedy at 352-564-2927 (leave a message) or email at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com.
