Authentic Prayer

I was about 13 when the accident occurred. I heard my mother answer the telephone and I listened in. News travels fast in a small town.


My friend, Susie McLain, and her two brothers, with their parents, were on their way to their cabin in East Texas. There was a flat tire, and Mr. McLain pulled off the road to fix it.

A car propelled by a drunk on his way to Galveston left the road and smashed into the McLain automobile. Susie and her two brothers were killed. So was her father.

Only Mrs. McLain, Rose, was left, gravely injured. It was several weeks before she was released from the hospital.

I remember the Sunday she returned to church.  She was fragile and trembling, reminding me of a tiny lost bird in a rainstorm. Lots of folk rushed up to her to welcome her back and to express the grief they desperately wanted to share with her.

Our pastor asked the congregation to stand and pray for her.

I remember her reaction clearly. "I don't want to pray," she cried out. "I want to scream!"

And so we did. All of us, as a mournful, but purposeful group, accompanied her outside and we screamed. At the tops of our voices we screamed. We mourned and wailed. We shook our fists in the air challenging the God we loved and worshipped, trying to make some dreadful sense of it all.

I don't know how long it lasted. I think quite a while.

I was 13 then. I am 70 now. That might have been the most authentic prayer service I have ever attended.