An online devotional

This is the third in our trio of “seeker response” stories. I’ve heard of “fireside devotional” gatherings and “impromptu” devotional gatherings and even devotional gatherings over the phone, but here is another first—an online devotional! Here we have one of the friends working at the regional level, responding to a seeker’s requests for prayers for himself and his family. In this case, one of the friends first emailed him:

Greetings!

My hope is that this note finds you well. Back in February your request for prayer for your brother was honored. At that time __ may have let you know about that. Now, I am helping her with following up with folks like yourself who have requested prayers or want information about the Bahá’í Faith).

I wanted to let you know that your brother is still on our prayer list, and if there is anything we can do to be supportive of matters of the heart, we are here to support you. This is the prayer that I am saying for him: . . .

"Lord! Pitiful are we, grant us Thy favor; poor, bestow upon us a share from the ocean of Thy wealth; needy, do Thou satisfy us; abased, give us Thy glory. The fowls of the air and the beasts of the field receive their meat each day from Thee and all beings partake of Thy care and loving kindness.

Deprive not this feeble one of Thy wondrous grace and vouchsafe by Thy might unto this helpless soul Thy bounty.

Give us our daily bread and grant Thine increase in the necessities of life, that we may be dependent on none other than Thee, may walk in Thy ways and declare Thy mysteries. Thou art the Almighty and the Loving and the Provider of all mankind."

(From the Baha'i prayer book)

I would love to hear how you and your brother are doing.

Very sincerely,

A

The seeker then sent this reply to the Bahá’ís:

Dear A,

Thank you for the prayer for my brother. He seems to be doing better lately.

If it is ok, I would like to have another prayer made for my other brother. I am sure he gets a lot of prayers sent his way from the church he goes to, but I would like to have the Bahá’ís pray for him also.

Again, thank you and the others for your prayers,

The regional specialist then commented

Dear friends,

It's nice to see Mr. __ respond to prayer in this way. I'm writing an email back to him.

Would you put him and his two brothers on the Regional Bahá’í Council’s prayer list?

Warmly,

A