Pray if you would please?

     Close to a year ago, Brad, Mac and I were out to dinner.  We were chatting about general kinds of stuff, when Mac said he had a favor to ask of us.  He explained that his friend Vicki, really the good friend of his friends Julie and Katie, was sick, leukemia, and it didn't look good.  He asked us if we would, "...do that thing you do, you know, pray?"
     There are two things you need to know here, even if you already have heard this story.  One, Mac would tell you he doesn't believe in God.  Two, Mac "lost" four friends in less than a year's time a while back, and it truly broke his heart.  He does not want anyone he knows to have to go through what he went through, so in caring for Vicki, he was showing great care for their mutual friends.  I used to call Mac my little Linus, his heart was so big and loving.  He has not lost that quality as he has grown into a fine man.
     This ask gave us the opportunity to talk with Mac about prayer.  We told him just because we would pray, it didn't mean we'd get a, "yes."  He listened, which was a gift itself.
     I came home and did what I do, I emailed people and asked them to pray.  I got such thoughtful replies, I popped into his room and told Mac that people "are already praying," and he seemed so heartened by that.  Some of those wonderful people, some of you, are still praying a year later.
     God has worked some incredible things through this ask of Mac's.
     Vicki went into remission. Through church and baptism, God placed Sarah in our lives--Sarah who is 18 and dealing with the same leukemia as Vicki.  They have connected with each other, two young women with an "old man's blood cancer," who talk to each other about what only they can know.  Vicki, no longer in remission, walked in a leukemia walk last fall, and many of my praying friends supported her financially.  This December, when Vicki got released from the hospital to graduate from college, people from Atlanta to Naperville to France were cheering that day for a young woman they had never met.  When Vicki was finally home from the hospital and that last long stay, many of you reached out to her through Emails and notes.  She said, "You have such amazing friends."  I do.  Last month, Vicki, her boyfriend Adam and her mom came over to finally meet us, to meet Sarah and we are closer now. By the way, Vicki's mom Helen is SuperMom, a role she never would have asked for, but one she fulfills in a way that blows me away.  Vicki's boyfriend Adam?  What a good man.
     I pray for Vicki every day.   Of course I ask that she feel His presence, that she feel held.  Truth be told I pray for nothing short of a miracle--I ask for her life.  Because Vicki's back in the hospital facing a fierce case of pancreatitis, I cried as I prayed with Brad this morning, and then I cried on my way to school.
     God has softened my heart to this young woman, so I ask, will you pray too?