Privacy and Prayer

God’s timing is incredible!

This week, I was reading in the newspaper about the privacy act and churches. The article was about how ministers should not ever announce the specific illnesses publicly of someone in church without a signed release from that person or the family. For example, it is against the law to print or announce from the pulpit, “Please pray for Fred as he is in the hospital with a heart attack” unless the church has written permission to talk about the heart attack. It is OK to ask for prayer, but not what his specific problems are.

I was startled when I read this, as it never occurred to me to think about the lack of privacy for people in prayer requests. The article made excellent points on how there was really no need to announce the heart attack to get people to pray. God knows why the person is in the hospital, and the congregation just needs to pray for healing.

When Chris and I were talking about this, I was not surprised that my husband, who is a very private person, agreed with the article 100%. Being an open person, my first response was there were more important things to worry about, but after 17 years of being married to a private person, I immediately realized the importance of the article for other people.

It seems that this week God has been working on me respecting people’s privacy. Even in my blog note from yesterday, when I was typing it in, I had written my friend Debbie’s personal comment to me on the book. As I thought about it, I realized that I did not have Debbie’s permission to quote her, so I removed her comment before I published the blog.

And then….

Yesterday, my mother was admitted to the hospital. :) See, I told you God’s timing is incredible. My mother has told me frequently that she is a private person, and so with that in mind, I just ask for prayers for her. My siblings and I also need prayers for God’s wisdom in dealing with the situation.