A Prayer from the Outside

Lord Jesus, a Gentile mother once fell at your feet with no claim on you at all, and you healed her daughter for the sake of her reply. We come the same way. We have no right to your table. We are not asking for the loaf. We are asking for what falls from a table that can never run short.

Some of us are praying for our children, and we have prayed for a long time, and we have heard what sounded like no. Give us her persistence. Keep us on our knees. Do not let us confuse your testing of our faith with your rejection of our request.

Open what is closed in us. You put your fingers in a deaf man's ears and sighed and said be opened, and he heard. Say that word over our ears, so that we hear you, and over our tongues, so that we speak plainly of you. Then let us say with the crowd that you have done everything well. Amen.