The Power of Prayer

When I was in my senior year of high school, I had THE best seminary teacher EVER! For our seminary graduation (or maybe it was Christmas?), she gave each of us a plaque that says "Prayer Changes Things." I have come to know that this phrase is so true. Prayer does change things. It can change anything and I have a very strong testimony of that. But even more powerful than the prayer of one person, is the combined power of a multitude praying together.

Yet another powerful tool is the internet. The internet brings people together and allows us to tune into what may be be going on in the lives of other people instead of always just focusing on our own problems.

Today, I am asking anyone who is reading this to help me combine these tools: internet and prayer. There is a very special girl named Mary who will be undergoing a very serious surgery on her brain tomorrow (Friday the 21st.) Last summer, she suffered an AVM bleed. I do not know enough about it to speak intelligently about what exactly that means, but she was in the ICU for awhile and since then has had some very interesting trials. One of which was that she could not taste food the way food should be tasted. This problem made her not want to eat. Can you imagine? Not enjoying the taste of food? That would be so frustrating to me! But that is probably the least of her worries.

Mary is a BYU student and she was miraculously able to return to BYU this past fall but some of her symptoms came back and she had to go home early. So now she is undergoing surgery to remove the AVM from her brain. If any of you bloggers out there enjoy reading good stories of total strangers like I do, Mary's mom started a blog to tell their story. You can check it out here. You can also get all the details on Mary's story and what exactly is going on with her brain.

Although a few years younger than me, I know what a wonderful person Mary is. She has always been so bubbly and bright and so very kind to anyone she meets. She is hilarious and fun too. During my fourth year of Girls' Camp, Mary was a wee little first year and she hung out in our cabin for literally HOURS, entertaining us all with her "Coffee Talk with Linda Showelbowg." Any of you girls out there remember that? :) Then in testimony meeting during Sacrament meeting a couple weeks later she somehow related all the mosquito bites we got to some Gospel principle. She had everyone laughing but at the same time actually had a really great insight.

Anyway, please pray for Mary. Heavenly Father will hear our prayers and we can all be a part of helping one of His children.

If you're interested in getting updates from her surgery, you can read her older sister Catherine's blog here.