In our last issue we explained how Spiritual Healing worked.  We are often asked the question "How does prayer work?"  We answered this question many years ago with a little leaflet called "Mary's Prayer," and we think it is well worth repeating.  So here it is.  This is how prayer actually works.

Little seven-year-old Mary lies in her bed weeping.  The bruises on her face and back hurt terribly.  Her father has returned home drunk again, and in a rage, has beaten her mother, when she complained that he'd spent all the rent money.  Mary had tried to help, and she had been knocked in the corner.  Mary takes a small crucifix a neighbor child has given her from beneath her pillow and holds it tight.
"Please, Jesus," she prays, "help my daddy.  He's not a bad man and I love him.  Please make him stop hurting me and mommy, and doing these other bad things!"
She goes to sleep still crying.  Jesus doesn't hear, but the invisible Spirits of Mary's grandparents who died several years before, are standing in the room and hear her desperate plea.
"What's happened to Bob?" says her grandmother.  "he was such a good boy, Bill.  Never gave us any trouble, was good at his studies.  Why has he become like this?"
"It's the bad crowd that he's fallen in with at the mill, Janice.  They've convinced him that the way he's acting is real he-man.  'Slapping your wife around a little bit,' one of them told him, 'will make her respect you.  Never let her give you any lip.  You're the boss in your house and she does what you tell her.  None of this women's lib trash!'  You know how hard a time Bob has making friends.  He doesn't realize this crowd is just exploiting him."
"What are we going to do?" asks the grandmother.
"We've got to get him to help," replies her husband.  "The Angels told us to watch over our family, and to help them.  And that's what we'll do. You concentrate on Alice, while I work on Bob.  There's a young pastor at the church who's really good with people with Bob's kind of problem.  If we can get him there, I'm sure the man can help him.  I'll keep after him day in and day out, telling him what he is doing is wrong and that he needs help.  You keep after her, to get him to go."
So for weeks the grandparents work.  Bill speaks in Bob's ear daily, telling him what he is doing is wrong.  Bob cannot hear in his conscious mind, but in his subconscious mind he does, while Janice keeps encouraging Alice.  At first there's little result, then Bob's conscious starts to bother him.  Bill's constant attention is beginning to seep through to his conscious mind.  He responds to Alice's encouragement to attend church.  His mill friends laugh at him and ask him if he's getting religion, but Bob continues to attend.  After one service the pastor, being told of the problem, asks Bob to come to his office after work.  Reluctantly Bob agrees.  At the meeting they discuss Bob's problems and the pastor finally manages to make him see his friends for what they are.
"You must accept Jesus," says the pastor, "kneel down now, with me, and cast off these sins, and accept His love."
Bob agrees.  He kneels and prays.  After this day he turns from the bad influence of his friends and becomes involved with the church.  He becomes a good husband and father.  Everyone in the church praises Jesus.
"Look what He's done," they say, "turned this man from the darkness into the light.  Praise be unto The Lord!"
Even the grandparents join in this, praising Jesus for giving hem the Power to help their son.  But DID Jesus give them The Power?  No.  They HAD The Power.  It was not God that answered Mary's prayer, or, Jesus, but her loving grandparents in The Spirit World.  Though even they were deceived into thinking their work was of little value, it was actually their hours of toil, of loving work that accomplished the task.  All the praise was given to Jesus and God, when it was actually these two devoted spirits that accomplished the task.  It is they who would be praised, they who should be honored with all our hearts.  We should not give credit to others when it is Their love and devotion that accomplishes these tasks.

The little story you have just read emphasizes the power of prayer.  It shows the forces that can be called upon in time of need, forces that can give strength, guidance and protection.  Many people tend to ignore prayer, thinking it unimportant, but many great men recognized its value.  It was Benjamin Franklin that said "To awake with a prayer and to bed with a prayer strengthens a man's character."
But we should be careful for what we pray for!  It is better to pray to be wise than to be rich!  To pray for guidance on how to do something rather than to have it done for us.  Spirit is far wiser than us.  They know what is good for you and what is not.  They know what we need and what we don't need.  The Nazarene said, "Ask it, and The Father will give it unto you.  But ask not foolishly, in prayer.  The Father is not foolish."
We should take heed of these Great Teachers, and follow Their Wisdom.  When we are in need, pray.  But be sure of our need, so we do not  waste the precious gift that has been given.