"This World in a Uproar, Lord"

NPH has been going over to a local retirement community once a week for about a month to lead a small Bible study on "faith." The participants are all (obviously) retired, African-American, female, and Baptist. It's like nothing else we do during the week. It's grand.

Yesterday, as the hour drew to a close, the convener of the study led us into a time of prayer. Typically NPH leads the group in an opening and closing prayer, perfunctory and perfectly Presbyterian. Yesterday, however, everybody prayed. And can these women pray; the prayer time lasted nearly as long as the study itself. But NPH hardly noticed, so drawn in were we by the fervency and the assurance and the grounded-ness of the praying going on. And what with all the "Mmm" ing and "Yes Lord"ing going on, it was easy to lose track of the then-and-there.

The woman seated to our left prayed for the state of the world with the spot-on assertion that, "This world in a uproar, Lord."

Mmmm.

Yes, Lord.

NPH loves his work.