Give Me Strength

Growing up Catholic, I believed that if you prayed for something, God would grant your prayer. This is what I remember the nuns teaching — pray to God and He will hear you.

As an adult, it has taken awhile to get to the place that God doesn’t always answer our prayers the way we want. God’s plan is not always our plan.

The year 2000 was a very difficult year for my family, in many ways. One thing that got me through the year was talking with God and praying. And learning to pray: “Lord, please give me the strength I need to deal with however this turns out. And please help me to understand that it’s your plan and not mine.”

Philippians 4:13 speaks to this: “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”

— Ellen Takatori

TODAY: Take to heart this excerpt from a speech Booker T. Washington delivered at Harvard University in 1896. “Remember that wherever our life touches yours, we help or hinder. Wherever your life touches ours, you make us stronger or weaker. No member of our race in any part of our country can harm the meanest member of mine without the proudest and bluest blood of Massachusetts being degraded. When Mississippi commits a crime, New England commits a crime, and in so doing, lowers the standard of our civilization. There is no escape. Man drags men down or man lifts man up.”