A Prayer for Health

We are grateful, O Lord, that we here today are able to come together and visit with our fellow members.

But we are concerned about our absent members. Some of them, as well as other here now, are facing critical medical dysfunctions, or are about to undergo surgery.

May we offer up this prayer for them:

That you, O Lord, will stand beside their physicians and surgeons to guide their hands and minds so they may perform their tasks with certainty and triumph.

And that you grace our members with your healing power, so they may soon come back to us restored to health and vitality.

For that, we thank you, O Lord.

The Sun Shines Again

3/5/86

We thank you, O Lord, for this lovely day. The rain, the cold, the dampness of other days has passed. The warm sun has broken through the clouds.

And that speaks for one of our ailing members. The critical time of her surgery is over, and we all rejoice that she has successfully surmounted the first hurdle.

For our other members still ailing, may we offer up this prayer:

Please, O Lord make their days pleasant and painless. Let he warm sun shine brightly into their lives, driving away anxieties, and raising their spirits with hope and encouragement.

And grant all our ailing members the touch of your healing hands to help them come back to good health.

I don’t know the timeframe between when my grandmother, Rose Ridnor, delivered these two invocations. The consternation she originally experienced, regarding the critical surgery of a member, was resolved by the time she wrote the second invocation.

For the most part, my grandparents, both who lived into their early 90’s, had very few health issues. While both had glaucoma and used eye drops several times a day, neither one had chronic illnesses. The most serious affliction my grandmother had was the removal of a tumor in her bladder.

Everything would have been fine, except she either fell off the operating table or was dropped, resulting in her shoulder being fractured. Nevertheless, she soldiered on, and within a few months, after physical therapy, she was back to normal.

In their late 80’s both my grandparents suffered from dementia, which may or may not have been Alzheimer’s Disease. It impacted my grandmother the most with horrific mood and behavior swings. She was angry at her inability to continue writing, walking on her own, and doing everyday activities. My grandfather, on the other hand, drifted back to his childhood in New York, lost in adventures, peaking in tenement windows, talking to his father, interacting with his 7 sisters, and getting into mischief.

Health is something you take for granted until you no longer have it. I’m grateful my grandparents got to spend most of their lives in good health, traveling, enjoying visits with friends and family, attending synagogue, lamenting over their garden, watching Merv Griffin and Dick Cabot in the afternoon, eating meals, and sharing a good-night kiss.