|
Pauline Hord
A Woman of Prayer
By Nicole
R. Jones
Ask
Pauline Hord to tell you her greatest life
accomplishment, and her answer may surprise you.
You might expect her to say that it was being
one of President Bush’s Points of Light, her
extensive prison ministry, her long-standing
teaching career in the Memphis city schools or
her awards for excellence in education and
community service.
Instead,
she says it is the publication of her new book
Praying for the President: A Daily Guide of
Scripture and Prayer.
She
believes this book is the most important writing
she has done in her lifetime: “The things I’ve
written over the years, for other teachers, for
pleasure, in poetry,” she says, “I don’t think
any of it could be as important as this book is
for this time.” Former President George Bush has
written that “ Praying for the President
could not have come at a more opportune
time.”
Praying for the President shows America how
five minutes a day can make a difference in our
nation, and in our lives.
The book
originates from a carefully preserved daily
prayer journal written during President Jimmy
Carter’s days in office. On the day of Carter’s
inauguration, God used Pauline’s early
devotional time to direct her to pray for Carter
during the coming year: “I think that the Holy
Spirit at that time asked me to pray. When I
made a commitment to Him, I kept it. So I prayed
‘Father, I know I must pray for him every day,
at least for a year.’ And it was if He said,
‘That’s right. And I will give you the Scripture
on which you ought to pray.’ That was
confirmation that He was telling me what to do.
I look at it now, and ask myself, ‘How did I
choose those Scriptures?’ Well, I didn’t. God
led me to each Scripture. It is amazing how God
works. This book is as applicable today as it
was in 1977.”
As she
prayed for Carter daily, she says: “I would know
when he was going to another country, or when he
was going to have a conference with a person
with another country. And I would pray as
disciplined as I could regarding whatever he was
doing. Because God has told us to be as specific
as we can when we pray. He wants us to know that
He hears and He will do exactly, if we are
praying in His will and we obey Him when He
tells us what to pray, then He will do it.”
She firmly
believes that close communion with God in prayer
is essential to our nation and ourselves: “How
imperative it is for us to become a people of
prayer - who let our relationship with Christ be
centered in our communication with Him. The Holy
Spirit speaks to us through the Word, but only
if we are tuned to Him. If we ask not, He
doesn’t answer. If we ask, He is going to
answer. If we ask, wanting to know His will and
being in His Spirit, asking for His honor and
glory, He is going to speak by His Holy Spirit.”
For
Pauline, Praying for the President is
simply a further extension of her own prayer
life. In early childhood, she experienced the
power of earnest prayer.
Six years
her senior, Pauline’s brother had broken his leg
and it was in a cast. Early one day, when the
telephone rang, he jumped up to answer it. As he
made his way to the phone, he stumbled over
Pauline, breaking his leg again.
She was
tormented with guilt. She vividly remembers:
“The doctors could mend his leg, but there was
an answer far greater than just mending. They
took him to the hospital and removed the cast.
When they did, they measured his leg. They
discovered that the bone had grown back
incorrectly. If it had healed like that, he
would have been a cripple all of his life, since
one leg would have been permanently two inches
shorter.”
“I
realized then that I could stop blaming myself
because God let my brother stumble over
me, so that my brother’s leg could be reset to
heal properly.” When malaria struck her
younger brother, she called on the Lord again.
She recalls: “One night, I overheard this
country doctor say to my mother: ‘Mrs. Jones, I
don’t think we can save George. He may leave us
tonight around midnight-he’s going to reach a
crisis.’ And I was horrified that I was going to
lose my brother in the night. So I began to pray
- ‘You cannot let my brother die.’ It felt as if
I prayed all night. My brother did live, and
became a general and commander during the Second
World War.”
Today, at
96 years old, Pauline believes all the more
strongly that prayer is vital for us all. An
avid believer in the power of prayer, she says,
“Everybody should pray. You should just pray
about everything, because God is God, and He is
in control of everything.”
Pauline
says with a smile, “As I’ve gotten older, I
sense the Lord’s presence more. I talk to Him
all the time-about little things, big things,
future things and present things. The older you
grow, the closer you grow to wanting to know
what He wants you to do, to say, to be the
person He wants you to be for His glory so that
you would reflect Him in the lives that you
touch. That’s our main purpose-helping somebody
else along the way. Where He leads me, I will
follow.” For those interested in reading more
about Pauline and Praying for the President
, visit her online at
www.prayingforthepresident.com.
Copyright,
2003
Master
Design
|
|
