There is something most important to keep in your heart and mind when you are working with someone: God loves us when we are in body just as much as when we are not in body.
To God, it doesn’t matter if we are alive or dead.
Either way, we are with him.
And he is with us.
God put us here on Earth for a reason. One day we may all figure out exactly what that reason is. But, until then, we are here. When the time comes, we die.
So when someone comes to you and pleads for you to pray for their dying aunt, STOP.
The fact of the matter is this: a person can heal into life; a person can heal into death.
Praying for someone who has the Angel of Death present at their side is very, very tricky. In a way, it doesn’t matter what words you use because they can be received by God as restoring the person into life on Earth, or life in Heaven.
Praying for someone in a near-terminal state is praying into a black hole. You don’t know where the prayer will come out. You just have to sit and wait.
I feel that a lot of people who care for others forget that, to God, our lives are temporary. A blink to him. Our lives on Earth have no real value to God as such. We are just in this form. We are just these creations.
That are designed to die and return to bodilessness.
So when some pray, it has a kind of, Well, God, I know you don’t want this person to die, so heal him.
I have heard that sentiment a lot in my life: God didn’t want this to happen. To have these people die.
We are programed to die. What is it to God the means by which that happens?
And this two-pathed possible outcome to prayer isn’t limited to death.
I’ve been praying for a woman in prison for years. She may be sentenced to die. She may not. She may sit in prison for the rest of her life.
But when I find myself praying about the concept of her freedom, I have to stop. She could be freed to go back to her family on Earth. Or she could be freed to join her family in Heaven.
It’s a very tricky thing to stop and get the intention absolutely correct. And to stay focused on this intention.
And never to nudge God with your elbow and actually try to tell him what to do about the situation before you.
We know you want this person to live.
No, actually, we don’t.
We don’t know what is in God’s heart for this person.
We don’t know his will.
Which is, in the end, the best thing to refer to and leave the prayer there:
Father, your will be done.
Amen.