They Prayed

Will and Mary had been married for 51 years this coming fall. They had lived on the same place for close to 40 of those. It was one of their proudest achievements other than the rearing of 4 fine children. They had purchased the place on borrowed money that Will was almost sure they couldn’t pay back in 100 years based on his income. Course the bank only wanted it back in 30. That’s not a simple task for a man with a young family and bills to pay, but it was Mary’s dream place and he would make it happen no matter what he had to do. It wasn’t easy those first few years either. The house needed some work and the 50 acres that went along with it was rough country. He cleared it all himself though, with hard work and patience. Chopped every brush stump out himself to make sure it wouldn’t grow back. It was backbreaking and tiring work, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. Figured that if he put in the work it would take to make it look nice, then it would look nice. Whatever work that meant he had to do, would be worth the cost. He also wanted Mary to be proud of their place. She was.

Now all these years later, after the raising of the kids and seeing them go on to be successful, who would have guessed? A man came to Will one day and asked him if he would entertain the idea of having an oil well on his place. He wasn’t so sure. How could he have oil under his little piece of land? Would it be enough to be worth the trouble for the oil company? These were all the questions that went through his mind that day. He wanted to think about it. That night after supper, while watching TV, he told Mary about the man and his offer to lease the land. She was unsure too. They decided to pray and sleep on it.

Will woke up the next morning and the decision became clear. He had worked as hard as he knew how to clear that land. It was his sweat and labor that made it look so nice and had kept it up all of these years. He’d be damned if an oil company ruined it all just to drill a dry hole and then leave a mess. He was kind of old schooled that way. The answer would be no when the man came back to ask him.

Three days later the man did show up. He asked Will if he had made his mind up. Will informed him of the bad news. No well would be drilled on this property that he had worked so hard to pay for and keep up. The man informed him that he could be passing up the opportunity of a lifetime. He could, by allowing this to happen, provide for his children and grandchildren for years to come. Maybe for their lives. All of the neighbors had decided to do it he said, but he realized that maybe they saw things differently than Will did. Will would reconsider.

After speaking to Mary again, they changed their minds. They decided they were getting up in age and that this could allow them to leave something behind to the kids other than an old wood frame house with a roof that needed replacing. They prayed on it again and slept on it for good measure.

When the man returned, Will notified him that they would accept his offer. When the paperwork had been done, he and Mary felt some regret. They hoped they had made the best decision. They prayed some more.

What happened next the likes of which they had never seen. Men showed up and drilled a brand new water well. Then a huge white rock location was built, and then mobile homes showed up along with machinery like they couldn’t imagine. All of Will’s hard work had gone out the window in just a few short weeks. Now the pasture he was once so proud of had been sacrificed. He hoped it was not in vain.

Then the noise came. It was 24 hours a day. The drilling rig ran nonstop night and day. At night the lights were bright and shined so far that they even cast a glow into the back yard just enough to see their way without a light. It reminded them of a full moon night where you could walk in the dark with no help from a flashlight. Sometimes at night when nothing was on TV, they would take a couple cheap “dollar store” aluminum lawn chairs, sit in the backyard just watching the workers and, quietly hope. They would go back in the house and pray more.

They stopped a man who was driving out one evening. The road out from the well was not far from the house and Will and Mary had decided to do some watching from the lawn chairs this evening. Will asked the man if he knew of any progress. The man walked into the backyard and pointed to a huge pit. Over the pit was a pipe that lay horizontally and was open on one end. He told them that if you see a big flame coming from that pipe, your worries will all be over and their lives would change forever. They would have made a well on their place.

Four nights later Will and Mary were in their lawn chairs watching. The lights of the night cast just a dim glow once again into the backyard. Will had noticed that the noise was not quite as loud these last few days and that some of the equipment had changed, but the men still worked like ants. Suddenly a man with a long stick and a rag burning on the end lit the end of the pipe. The flame was not a very big one, but one all the same! Then the most amazing thing happened. That little flame slowly became very big! It lit up the night sky for miles around! It was huge and Will and Mary both could feel something that could only be described as disbelief. They watched the flame from their lawn chairs without saying a word.

The man who had stopped at the house that day was at the rig. For some reason he couldn’t help but wonder if the nice old couple had seen what was happening. He walked to the edge of the lights and used his hand to cover his eye so he could see all the way over to the backyard of the little wood frame house. What he saw made tears well up in the corners of his eyes. There sat that little old couple in their lawn chairs in that backyard. They sat looking at that flame and not at each other. They sat dressed in regular clothes like regular people who had been married for 51 years this coming fall. The man wore glasses and her dress had flowers on it. They sat looking at all of their worries and care burn away on the end of that pipe over that pit. What he couldn’t see was the tears running down each of their faces. They were sitting there, chairs in the same positions, but now they had arms outstretched and were holding hands.

After some time had passed, they folded up their lawn chairs. Will took out his handkerchief and they wiped their faces. Then they went inside and they prayed.


try it....it works....have a good one,

Walker