A Corporate, Timeless Prayer

July 1985

Dear Lord,

We come to you as a group of hurting people, some desperate at this very moment, to ask you for help and guidance for problems we have in common. We know you have full knowledge of our problems because you are all-knowing, and because you experienced some of the same problems during your time of ministry here. As they said of you in Hebrews 2:17, 18, "He had to be made like these brothers of His in every way, so that He might be merciful and faithful as their high priest before God....For since He Himself has passed through the test of suffering, He is able to help those who are meeting their test now." Lord, we are meeting our test now and we need your help.

You know what it is like to be rejected and hurt each day because you were rejected too. You were not believed by your neighbors, nor the spiritual leaders and authorities of your day; and that unbelief in you and that rejection has continued right up until today. We ask that you open the eyes, ears, hearts and minds of our loved ones, fellow employees, friends and doctors to the truth of our illness. Help them to not reject us or be frightened themselves, but to be empathetic and helpful. We cannot understand why they don't understand, and their unbelief in us makes our lives just that much more unbearable.

Lord, especially work in the marriages that are teetering because of this illness. You know the incredible stress on both members of the marriage.

Comfort them, give them patience and tolerance and hope for the future. Thank you, Lord, for all those well spouses who are helping and caring for their wives and husbands, and who recognize their loved ones are ill and not themselves. We ask that you be with and help those who have spouses that are uncooperative.

Oh, Lord, there are a lot of mothers and fathers in our group who are very sick and want so much to be good parents. It is hard enough to be good parents when you are well! On top of being sick themselves, many have sick children, have hyperactive children, have many diets to fix, may even have sick parents, and some are single. The stress is overwhelming. Lord, give their families a supernatural understanding and tolerance of the situation and protect the children from psychological damage in the future because of the hardships involved. Uplift and encourage and guide these parents. Help them to do the best they can and encourage them to persevere.

We have several in our group whose heart's desires are to be married and/or to have children. Time is passing them by. Oh, Lord, please restore to them their health and the years that the locust have eaten (Joel 2:25) and give them meaningful, joyful lives.

Lord, there are so many that cannot find safe housing. They are "chemical fugitives." We know you understand what it is like to not have a permanent home because you said, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but I, the Messiah, have no home of my own--no place to lay my head." (Matthew 8:20) Lord, help those we know of and those we don't know of, find a home where they can rest and recuperate, and protect them from further exposures in the meantime. Thank you. Guide and provide for those planning safe housing projects. They are so desperately needed right now and will be even more needed in years to come! Thank you.

According to your Word, work is honorable and in your will. Yet we have so many in our group unable to work, even though they want to, would be capable, and need the money very badly. Many have special talents that are being wasted. We have writers, musicians, teachers, and artists that are thwarted from using their creative abilities. And what about those who are working at jobs that are harmful to them? They are too sick to get another job, or cannot find work in a less polluted environment. Since they need the money to keep going, they seem to be trapped. Many have been waiting on you, Lord. Please answer their prayers and bring them up out of the mire and clay. Set their feet on a rock and give them firm footing (Psalm 40.2). Provide safer employment or change the environment where they work now. Oh, how we thank you for your help in this matter, Lord.

Lord, our diets are so unbelievably hard to follow. Sometimes it seems humanly impossible to stay on these diets--we do it with your help, and because we have no choice. Not only do we suffer from reactions when we eat on or off our diets, suffer from not being able to eat what we want, not have enough to eat, have difficulty obtaining safe foods, take a long time preparing our food, and have to eat what we don't want to eat while watching others eat what we want to eat, but we are not even appreciated for doing so by those who know us. They have absolutely no understanding of the self- discipline involved and sometimes they even try to get us off our diets! Lord, how can they be so blind to not know going off our diets causes us so much pain, physically and mentally? And what is a Christian wife supposed to do when her Christian husband tells her to eat something she is allergic to? We know you want us to be good stewards of our bodies. ("Your body is a shrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit...then honor God in your body....Whether you eat or drink...do all for the honor of God." 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20; 10:31) But, you also want us to honor our husbands, and we want to please them too! Lord, please have your indwelling Holy Spirit take control over these situations. Thank you.

And, what about temptation? And, binge eating? We know you know what it is like to be tempted when hungry and tired, as the Devil tempted you in the desert after a 40-day fast. Is he at the bottom of our temptations, or is it just an imbalance in our body chemistry due to addiction to allergens, and/or other chemical allergenic triggers causing the addictions to certain foods? We ask that you support us in our diets. Control our bodies and minds when we are craving something that will hurt us. Help us to know what foods are offenders and which ones we can add back. As one of our members said in a recent letter, "I am not only willing to give up what is bad for me, I am desperate to do so." And yet, such rigid self-discipline is sometimes not rewarded with relief. We pray that you will renew a balance and harmony in our bodies and that our bodies will once again accept food as food--good tasting, filling, nutritious food. THANK YOU, LORD! And, as we get better, help us to handle our new freedom wisely.

Christ, we lift all those in the medical field to you who are seeking to find the cause and cure for this illness. Please guide and direct them to the solution soon. We thank you for the doctors who have stepped away from conventional medicine to treat the Environmentally Ill with avoidance, antigens and supplements, etc. We know that they sincerely want to help us, and it must be a big strain on them to have so many patients so desperately ill and to not be able to help everyone. Many of them are sensitive too! Give them insight, Lord, with each one of their patients as we are all so different. Provide the scientists with funds to study this problem in the best way possible.

Many in our group still need medical care and do not know where to turn. It seems each doctor and clinic has a different approach; we can only get a little bit of help from each of them, and they are all expensive. Guide each person to good medical care for them, and help each one to be discerning so as not to be taken in by charlatans or become involved in harmful Spirit Medicine. Also, many in our group are unable to get further care due to financial burdens. Lord, please provide in this area too. Thank you.

Our diet, exercise and activity restrictions both cause stress and prevent release of stress. There is no vacation from this illness. Please help each one of us to cope and to have interesting and fulfilling things to do with our time.

Lord, we thank you for gathering us together to help and encourage on another. Often we have taken our fellowship for granted. But, you led us to one another and are loving us through each other. We also thank you for encouraging us by letting us know of universal reactors [exceptionally sensitive] who are totally well and others who are getting better gradually. By this, we know that you are still working miracles on earth today by healing those who are terribly sick, and also that our bodies can be renewed through practical [avoidance] means too!

Lord, we are thankful, too, that you know the truth and that you know our hearts ("For Thou alone knowest the hearts of all men." 2 Chronicles 6:30). At least you know that we are sick, why we are sick and what can be done about it. You know that we truly want to be well, to be able to eat and work and be about our business with our families and in ministry to you. You know that we do as much as we can now to live the best way possible even though no one else can comprehend that. As Hichens wrote in the Song of the Freed Negroes, "No one but God and I know what is in my heart." And, Lord, as the seer Hanani said to Asa, King of Judah, "The eyes of the Lord range through the whole earth, to bring aid and comfort to those whose hearts are loyal to Him" (2 Chronicles 16:9), we ask that you see us and bring aid and comfort to us because we have not turned our backs on you. We do not understand why you have allowed us to be so ill, and we have our moments of doubt (forgive us), but we believe in you and will continue to worship and serve you to the best of our abilities. The writer of Hebrews says you are not like a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses...and that we are, therefore, to boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in His grace find timely help. (Heb. 4:15,16) Lord, we respectfully ask you for your grace, your mercy and your timely help. Thank your from all Share, Care and Prayer members as we pray this prayer in your most precious Son's name, Jesus. Amen.

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