Recently Jo and John, two of our overseas workers, sent an email of support for us in Christchurch. They wrote:
We hope it helps a little to hear that we have heard of your pain and sorrow and that we are praying for you. We have learnt over the past couple of years, through our own times of sorrow, that there are two kinds of “praying for you”.
The first is what we usually think of when someone says they are praying for you – we are asking that God will be with you in pain, that he will bring comfort in mourning, and that he will work to bring something of his goodness and life out of the sadness and destruction.
But there is another kind of “praying for you” – that is, we are praying “on your behalf”. In times of pain, sorrow and tiredness, we often do not have the strength or words to be able to pray – even crying out to God is hard. At those dark times, the community of believers comes together to do the praying for you. If you do not have the energy to even think about praying, or do not know how to pray, we want to encourage you that you have a family around the world who are at this time crying out to God on your behalf.
We will uphold you in prayer until you have the strength to do it again for yourself.
