Shari

Shari is the name of our children's elementary school crossing guard.

She's a nice lady and we all like her.

Monday morning, Shari confided to me that her husband had just had surgery for prostate cancer. I asked Shari if she and her husband had any support around them during this challenging time. For a brief moment she looked confused and then answered, "Well no, not really."

It turns out, Shari and her husband don't really have a significant network of family and friends available to them. They are doing life alone.

It's so hard to do life alone. The only thing harder, is watching someone else trying to do life alone.

This morning, after we had crossed our children to the safety of their school door, a neighbor friend and I gave Shari an encouragement card and a loaf of yummy Great Harvest Bread.

We told her that she was a part of our community, and that we care about her. We told her that she didn't have to do this alone, and that we would walk with her through this difficult time. We told her that we wanted to help, however and wherever she needed our assistance. We offered our phone numbers and our friendship.

Shari's response?

She cried.

I cried.

And then we hugged, not once but three times.

When I saw Shari this afternoon, we both smiled at one another and there was a new warmth between us that hinted at the beginning of a new friendship.

Tomorrow Shari takes her husband back to see his surgeon. At that time, they will hear the biopsy results and learn whether Shari's husband's cancer was contained in the prostate.

Dear friends, won't you join me in praying for Shari and her husband? Let's surround this couple with our prayers.

Shari and her husband may have been doing life alone before, but we can change all that. We can pray. We can pray that Shari receives good news on Thursday. We can pray for continued healing, for restored health; and we can pray that God will bring a plethora of caring, compassionate friends into Shari's life.

It might not seem like much, but we can pray. We can stand in the gap, that invisible sacred gap, and we can be the praying community that Shari and her husband both need.

I'm willing.

Are you?