Paying with Prayer

Amanda Woodiel describes what happened when she began offering prayers for the needs of people who have helped her.

It is uncanny. When I thank God for something—be it our washing machine, air conditioning, or dishwasher—it frequently malfunctions the next day. We live paycheck to paycheck, so what might be an inconvenience to someone with savings to pay for a repairman is a real concern for us.

The day before my birthday I thanked God that our air conditioning worked. That evening it broke. My birthday was spent in humid 90-something-degree weather. The next day we discovered that our water heater (the one we just installed; you can read about it in "Not the Prayer I Felt") was venting incorrectly. It was melting and could possibly cause a carbon-monoxide backup. The following day our dryer broke.

I ended up calling up my neighbor, whom we don’t know very well, just because we knew that at one point he was in HVAC. He graciously came over and diagnosed the air conditioning problem and said that he would put in the correct water heater once we purchase it. We paid him a small token for his time, but because I never feel like it’s enough for the favors we have to ask from people, I decided to offer the one thing I do have: prayer.

“We are blessed to have a lot of people help us,” I began. “And we don’t have much to pay them, so I like to ‘pay’ people with prayer. Would you have any prayer requests?”

He paused. “It’s funny you should ask,” he replied. “I do.” He went on to share with me a tough family situation. I’ve included him in my Rosary ever since.

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A couple of weeks later, I was on the verge of thanking God that our cars work, when I paused. I was tempted not to do it, almost on a superstitious impulse. I shook it off. “What would the alternative be?” I thought to myself. “Never to thank God for my blessings?” So I thanked God that our cars worked.

That night, we had a severe thunderstorm. Our power went out almost instantly. We piled into the basement, since we have our share of tornados here in northern Indiana. We found a box of old stuffed animals and laughed as the kids went through them, telling us their names and stories about them. After the worst was over, still without electricity, we went to bed.

The next morning, my husband and I walked around the property and saw this:

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Click to tweet:
Lately I’ve wondered if sometimes things break around here because I need to ask for help from certain people who need prayer. #catholicmom

The top of a tree had split off in the storm and had somehow gotten wedged under my van. Yet there was no damage whatsoever to the vehicle. No flat tire, no broken windows, no dents. I felt as if God were saying to me, “Look. I protect your possessions when it is for the best.”

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Lately I’ve wondered if sometimes things break around here because I need to ask for help from certain people who need prayer. I’m not the kind of person (yet) to just ask someone if they have a prayer request. But if I feel like I owe them for a favor, it’s all I have to offer, and I will do it. By now I’m praying for five people and their situations [almost] daily.

We still don’t have money to pay for repairs, but I have more peace that if something breaks, we will either be able to do without it, it will be provided for in some way, or someone will help us who needs a little extra prayer.