Putting the Letters Together

Article 11 of 37 from the Ponder This - 2003 series

March 2003 - PUTTING THE LETTERS TOGETHER by Ray Pritchard Someone clipped a comic strip called “One Big Happy” and left it on my desk. The first panel shows a little girl kneeling by her bed getting ready to say her prayers. It must have been a long day for her because she begins this way: “I'm so very tired tonight that I can't even remember the words to my prayers.” In the next panel she folds her arms on the bed and adds, “But since you already know what I'm going to say ” She then begins to say the letters of the alphabet: “A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z.” In the final panel she looks plaintively toward heaven and says, “Maybe you could put the letters together in the right way. Thanks and Amen.” Although I found the comic strip on my desk several weeks ago, it means even more to me now than when I first read it. After I received word that my mother had died, we hastily rounded up the boys and made a quick trip to Alabama for the funeral service. I was a bit under the weather before the trip and stayed that way during my time in Alabama. The whole thing is a blur in my mind. One moment you're in Oak Park and your life seems to be running smoothly, then suddenly you are hundreds of miles away greeting old family friends you haven't seen for decades. It was a true “wrinkle in time” for me where the past, the present and the future all seemed to come together for a fleeting moment. Then just as suddenly, you're back in Oak Park again trying to get on with the demands of life. I do remember that I had trouble praying during the trip to Alabama. Perhaps “trouble” isn't precisely the right word. Perhaps I mean that for those few days I felt distracted and unable to concentrate. It was emotion plus weariness plus being a bit under the weather plus seeing so many old friends so suddenly. But for whatever reason, prayer was difficult and came in spurts, when it came at all. And it is precisely at this point that I take comfort from the little girl's prayer. Paul reminds us in Romans 8:26 that very often we do not know how to pray. We don't know the words, we aren't sure what to say, our minds can't focus, and the strength simply is not there. In those moments we have the consolation that the Holy Spirit prays for us when we can't pray for ourselves. He speaks to the Father with groans that cannot be expressed in human words. This means that we need not feel guilty when we cannot pray. The Holy Spirit “puts the letters together” when we can't find the words to say.