By Jerry Morningstar, Sully Community Church pastor
One of the great privileges of being a pastor is to have the blessing of knowing that people are praying for me. Many weeks when I arrive for the Sunday service, I am reminded by someone in our congregation that they have prayed for me that day and for the preaching of God’s Word. It is truly a blessing to hear such words.
When my wife and I first moved to Sully (2001), the move took place in January during a horrible ice storm. It was a terrible, no-good day to be travelling - but changing a moving day is a bit like changing a wedding day! You keep the date! We witnessed a lot of cars (over 100) in the ditches along I-80 as we made our way east across the state of Iowa. Amazingly, we arrived without any mishap in our caravan of travelers that included a Ryder truck as well as a few other church member vehicles that had made the trip to help with the move.
A couple weeks after we had arrived and settled in, I paid a visit to one of our senior saints, Arletta Baarda. Arletta spoke to me and said: “You know that day you were moving – I prayed for you kids (I was just a kid then) that you would get here safely – and the Lord gave me this verse.” She pointed out a verse somewhere in Exodus that had to do with safety in travel.
That was my first encounter with Arletta’s prayer life, which I would come to appreciate more and more over the years. She prayed for missionaries, church members, the people of Sully, the children in our church, and pastors! She was a godly woman who loved the Lord, and it was reflected in her faithful prayer life.
Proverbs 15:8 – “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord – but the prayer of the upright is His delight.”
Arletta is joyfully with the Lord now, but she left behind a wonderful legacy of bringing delight to the heart of God. May the Lord raise up more Arlettas in our midst as God’s people seek Him in prayer.
Psalm 145:18 – “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth.”
