Someone else's prayers.

Heavenly Father, giver of life and health:
Comfort and relieve your sick servant, and give your power of healing to those who minister to her needs, that she may be strengthened in her weakness and have confidence in Your loving care;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Amen.

Sometimes when I don't know what to pray I find comfort and inspiration in the prayers of those who've walked before me.  This is a prayer for the sick from The Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal Church BCP, 1979.) And these words are every bit as relevant to this situation as any I might speak on my own.

My offer to pray for a friend is always made honestly.  And I do pray.  If I doubt I'll remember, I don't offer.  Because prayer is too powerful a thing to say you'll do without following through on it.  But sometimes the situation needing prayer is so big or so personal or so whatever that it feels like it needs something constant.  Something that is ongoing rather than something that is in a moment that has passed.

I think prayer is an art.  Anyone can do it.  But some people are gifted at getting to the heart of communicating a certain situation or circumstance to God - honestly, what is the entire book of Psalms if not a prayer we go to again and again to reach out to God in the same voice that David did centuries ago?  

I don't feel that gift myself sometimes which I think is why I'm so drawn to the beautiful words of others in communion with our heavenly Father.  I think using corporate prayer or the prayers of others to communicate with God can be a powerful thing.  It's a spiritual communion with other members of The Church.