Some time ago, I began the practice of praying (outloud if my family is present) everytime we’re in the car and an ambulance drives by with lights flashing.
My prayer includes things that you might expect:
- That the patient be healed and experience a small amount of pain.
- That they drive safe as they speed along.
- That the caregivers will have wisdom.
- That the family involved (which is now going through some significant crisis that they didn’t expect) seek God as a result of this. And that they we feel peace.
- That God be glorified in the ambulance and the hospital.
The benefits of praying like this with your kids include:
- It teaches that you don’t have to have all of the knowledge about a situation to pray about it.
- It shows them that praying for strangers is valuable. Looking outside yourself for prayer requests is something most of us do too little.
- It shows them that the fact that you’ll never know the outcome is not a good reason to not pray.
- It brings to mind how God can be glorified even in traumatic events.
- It brings to mind how Peace can happen even in traumatic events.
Thanks for doing this and for modeling for your children. I never paid much attention to ambulances until I was in one with my husband and my one-day-old son almost 4 years ago. That was the day I learned how much it means when people move over, stay out of the way, and pray.
Can I ask, one day old – what was the medical emergency. Or was it one of you?
Certainly. Of my five children, he was the only one born at home. He was born in the evening, and I was pretty sure I could see Down syndrome. The next day we had to take him to the doctor for some breathing difficulties, and they transported us directly to Children’s for a week in neo-natal intensive care. He did not have a heart defect, thankfully, but we had to be monitored because they thought he had pneumonia. While in the hospital, we got the official diagnosis of DS, and had the most wonderful care anyone could ever ask for.