As I stepped into my running pants I noticed the scar on my right ankle. A red blotchy heart shaped mark, about the size of a nickel. I grimaced. It was about this time last year and I got that: cut by a piece of glass in the ocean – for some reason it took a long time to heal. I didn’t see that piece of glass and when it cut me I didn’t feel it. Then I got out of the water and my leg was pouring blood.

I thought about that situation and how that cut reminded me of other pains hiding in my life over the last several years – that jagged slice that shredded me and my heart when I was least expecting it.

Oh yes, I have had some seismic hits to my psyche. From intimate betrayals, to death to serious health issues to financial problems. And like the cut on my ankle, they have left scars – but in places you cannot see.

And though I like you, had happenings in my life that have brought me to my knees and kept me from breathing normally, sleeping well or eating at all, the one thing that did remain constant in my life throughout all of it was God. There were days and there may be some in the future, where I literally could not get off the floor. The pain was too great, my head was exploding and every day was like groundhog day where I could not move beyond replaying my troubles and the damage in my head.

I could not even pray.

But God.

He whispered to me, and reminded me that when I cannot even move to pray, there is one who will do so on my behalf. It is the Holy Spirit who will pray for me when I cannot pray for myself in groanings and utterings that I cannot understand.

It is the Holy Spirit who lives in me, who loves me better, who holds me and knows me and my needs. It is praying to the Holy Spirit in the worst of times of my life that I have truly felt held together and held up. And as I said before there were days where I could not even under a syllable. But, I could call out in my deepest pain and the Holy Spirit heard me.

Before I really understood the power of the Trinity, I had a very milquetoast relationship with “a God” I never really understood the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

Friend – whether you are on a mountaintop or truly buried in the valley of your life, if you can barely whisper out the cry of pain and despair, just silently pray to Him who lives in you.

He will answer. Trust that. I am a living testament.

And you, like me will someday look at that scar that sliced you and move on past it. Knowing full well the lesson of the silent prayer that interceded on your behalf. The power of the Holy Spirit is mighty and He will heal you. Again. And again.

Amen and amen.