Like most of the pictures I have used this is a stock picture from the internet and not a picture of an actual patient from our health system.  (Privacy rights prohibit the use of pictures of actual patients.)

Every week I pray for many patients.  I don’t keep track of the number of people I pray for from week to week, but prayer is component of a high percentage of my patient encounters.  Today something happened that does not happen frequently.  After I prayed for the patient, the patient prayed for me.  I was pleased to be the beneficiary of the prayer and also struggled to remember the last time that happened, I do know it has happened at least one other time in the past 6 months.

I am impressed when people want to pray for me even though there is no expectation that they have to offer a prayer.  Perhaps that is the heart of prayer; we do it because we want to and not because we have to!