A Prayer for Rosemary

"This I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness... The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him... For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love." ~ from Lamentations chapter 3.

I have found that the more I seek to show God's love to a friend, the more God seeks to show His love to me. The truths that I feel my friend needs to hear are those that God uses to minister to me.

My friend Rosemary is in jail for murder. It is a murder that I do not believe she committed, but a murder I do believe she caused. When she and her family moved in next door to us around two and a half years ago, I had no idea that this is what the future would hold. I saw four beautiful children and a single mom, being supported by a much older boyfriend. I experienced a call to minister to this disjointed family, and my husband and I answered that call - forming a friendship that ebbed and flowed through the following two years.

When the family moved away last August, we vowed to keep in touch. Little did we know that within a week of their move, we would be keeping in touch with Rosemary behind bars. With Rosemary suspected of murder, I knew that she would be very alone, and that I had a choice to make about my continued responsibility in her life.

At first I wasn't certain whether I was being an ungodly onlooker in business that was better off without me. I have a great disgust of this tendency in all of us, myself included - that we are drawn to other's suffering. If you look within yourself or others you know, I think you will see this tendency. It is akin to gossip. We like to be experts on other people's grief. It's amazing how when someone has a tragedy, there are suddenly "friends" present who we'd never known before. I think we do this because we like the way that others look at us when we are so compassionate and kind. It sickens me when I discover it in myself.

However, regardless of whether this was what initially drew me to continue my contact with Rosemary, I sincerely believed that God had not released me from this friendship. Over the last six months, I can see not only confirmation that God wanted me to remain in contact with her, but I can also see some of what He is choosing to do through this friendship.

For example, I do not tell folks "I'll pray for you" very often. It is a promise I hesitate to make, because it is not a light thing to say. I believe you make a commitment before God when you speak those words, and that far too many people use them far too lightly. These words often even become a blanket excuse, as if promising to pray for someone negates your Christian obligation of charity, as if when you pray you no longer need to help others to meet their physical needs. But I told Rosemary I would pray.

I can only thank God that I made that promise to Rosemary, because there have been events in the past six months that have threatened my often unsteady prayer life. Sometimes Rosemary is the reason that I pray. And I believe that God is using her to minister to me, while He uses me to minister to her.

Rosemary reminds me of my own guilt before Him, and of His great compassion for me. And when I speak the truth to her, like God's promises in Lamentations, that He does not cast us off forever, my faith is strengthened. The more I try to help her to believe, the more I believe.

So tonight I encourage you to commit yourself to pray for someone you love. When you can't love yourself enough to pray for your own needs, maybe lifting up someone else to God, even if the words feel like an empty fulfillment of an obligation, maybe God will use that to change your heart. Voicing someone else's hurts can give you an opening to voice your own. I'm still struggling to speak to God about my hurts, my anger, my fear, my pain, my desires, my needs, but tonight I will start my prayers with Rosemary; and if God can heal her, He can heal me too.