Finding Peace and Strengthening My Faith through the Power of Prayer
One prayer, one word, one breath at a time
It’s me, it’s me, it’s me Oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
These are words from an African-American spiritual I must have heard in my childhood. Feels like I’ve known them forever. Did we sing it at the YMCA day camp I attended along with the Noah’s Ark song? Or was it one of the songs Aunt Jamima of maple syrup fame sang when she performed at a school-wide assembly?
I know, I know. Racist as all get out.
Yet my heart floods with fond memories of the intimacy of her songs. Songs like, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands. This was in a public elementary school in 1963, if that explains some of the contradictions. In Abilene, Texas, before the school was integrated, if that explains more.
Getting back to the song, there’s something comforting about the humility of surrender. Of admitting I can’t shoulder my burdens alone and I need help. The doorway to a spiritual intimacy that lays my soul bare, and invites me to trust in a Higher Power I’m not sure I fully believe in to respond.
When I Googled the lyrics, I landed on, of all websites, a page from the United Methodist Church’s Discipleship Ministries, all about the history…
