I won’t be the only one starting a letter saying 2020 is one for the books. Loss of disproportionate levels for our world, nation, and even in our homes. We find ourselves humbled to ask you to pray for children on a different continent.  Don’t we have enough to pray about here?

The Bible recounts stories of plagues, disease, famine, and suffering., and how our Bible heroes cried out to God in the midst of their pain. Ultimately, it strengthened their faith.

But reading about it is one thing. Actually, living through a pandemic is quite another. Lord, help me with my unbelief.  Where is God in 2020? What should we pray?

We learned a valuable lesson this week through Neide, a friend visiting us from Brazil. It’s almost dusk, and Neide, 51, has lost her hearing aid on her walk. We’re retracking her steps. Some neighbors finally come out to ask why we were frantically raking their lawns?  It got dark, and we went home to come back with flashlights.

Overwhelmed and sulking over my bad day, I wanted to ask God for a miracle. But what if He didn’t answer?  What would that show our daughter Bella?  We could always use the wiggle words “If it is your will” to cover us. But what about faith?  Do we believe that God is all powerful and omniscient?  Is this hearing aid important enough?

We decided to pray boldly, holding hands right there on the sidewalk, asking God for a miracle. To direct us to the hearing aid.

We didn’t find it.  We finally trudged home.  The next morning. a thick, stiff frost covered everything. But Neide set out early, her devotional book in hand.

She returned almost immediately. She said that she suddenly looked down and there, right between her feet, in plain view, in the middle of the sidewalk, was her hearing aid!  Through glistening eyes, she said “We searched in that spot 100 times last night.  And look, it still works! He even protected it from the dew on the grass.”

Oh, how glad I was that we had prayed boldly. Maybe you can explain how that hearing aid was there, and how no car ran over it.  We believe God orchestrated the event. Bella saw how God cares about the minutia in our lives.  Mathew 18:3, “unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We hope this year’s 30 Days of Prayer will be an inspiration to you. We hope you will see all the ways God has answered our prayers throughout the years, and that it will encourage you to pray, as James says, boldly, believingly, without a second thought.