is prayer just verbal??

I was thinking recently of a book that I read a few years back called My Grandfathers Blessings. The book was by Rachel Naomi Remen MD. Her specialty was dealing with people that had been diagnosed as terminally ill. The book was a book of hope. I know that may sound strange, but it dealt with many of the success stories that can come out of life’s situations that do not seem to make sense.

My favorite chapter was about a mother that had a terminally ill son. He was very young; still in his primary school years. While he would be in his bed unconscious from various treatments and drugs, his mother would sit by his bed and place her hand underneath the covers on his leg and close her eyes. When the Dr. asked if she was praying she said calmly no, she was seeing in her mind him running again, going to his first dance, graduating from high school, going to college, and his wedding and his future children.

I remember being struck by this story. I remember thinking, while she said that she was not praying, I would say she was.

I am not someone that believes we can visualize something into existence. And quite frankly I am glad we can’t. I mean let’s be honest and look back on all the things that we wanted to happen throughout our lives. In retrospect would they have all been good things for us? No, my faith assures me that only God can make something by his thoughts or visualizing. But the story still intrigued me.

Seeing something whether actual or virtual is a powerful thing.

We have heard it said that a picture paints a thousand words, and that seeing is believing.

The ancient church understood this very well. Before the printing press the possibility of having a copy of the scriptures in your hand was next to impossible. Even when the printing press came into being the scriptures were not available to the common man. So how were the common people going to be able to remember and understand the stories of the Bible? They would need to be able to see a picture, but how? That is how stained glass windows came into being for the church. They were created to give the common person a visual of the great stories of scripture.


I believe that some people are gifted in expressing themselves in words while others are gifted in expressing them selves with pictures and/or visuals. Walt Whitman was gifted in words, Mark Twain was gifted in words, Rembrandt was gifted in visuals, and Monet was gifted in visuals.

I believe that the women was praying, in possibly the only way she could, She was visualizing in her mind what her petition could have been in her words. She was asking in her thoughts what she was desiring in her heart.

God knows the hearts of people. He is not limited by the hearing of words. So what makes us think he is limited to our thoughts when they are in visualization as opposed to words? When we pray in our minds to God do we really see words? Some of us may, but I bet most of us don’t.

I believe that God is not limited by what man does or does not do. If I didn’t believe that then I would not believe him to be God.

I think that we need to understand that prayer, our hearts crying out to God comes in different forms to different people and to limit them to just words gives people a limited view of God’s love, grace and mercy.