Click here for Jack’s video version of this prayer.

Here I am along with my sister, Carolyn, and my brother, Charles, dressed in Easter white. Mom took such pride in showing off her children at Easter church services and in celebrating the Resurrection of Christ. I was full of hope and abundant joy living a life that any three-year-old healthy boy could ever hope for.

Here I am four years later. I am confined to a wheelchair after contracting polio. I wore a back brace and braces on my hands. The smile for the camera hid my despair. Everything had changed. I could no longer dress myself. Feed myself. Climb trees, run, ride my bicycle or play in the yard with my friends and family. What good could ever become of my life in the future?

Now, decades later, looking back I have a different view on what happened to me and what I lost. Eventually, I became a lawyer. I have a wonderful wife, children, and grandchildren. I have been financially successful and independent and supported those I loved. As a family law attorney, I have helped many parents and their children in dark times. I once thought that polio was the end of my life. However, with the help and love of God, that was not the end of my life. That was when my life truly began.

God is truly amazing. God can transform bad into good. Miraculously, God can transform curses, like my polio, into blessings. Our own deaths, like that of Christ’s, can be transformed into eternal life.

God has spoken to us in Scripture about the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

John 10:28-30
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

Proverbs 8:35
For those who find me find life
and receive favor from the Lord.

Matthew 10:39
Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

Let us to pray together.

God, in prayer we thank You for the gift of our life on Earth and for eternal life in Heaven as a result of the birth, the death and the Resurrection of Your Son, Jesus Christ.

God, please strengthen our faith in You that when we suffer troubles, losses, tragedies, and illnesses of any kind, that in prayer and with Your love those endings will become beginnings. Those bad things will be transformed into goodness in Your creation. They will be invitations to grow our spirits in serving You.

God, may each of us be good examples to others of Your love so that we may inspire them to overcome their own heartbreaks, disappointments, and losses in the living of their lives.

God, help us see through prayer that our human troubles and sufferings are divine opportunities to bring us ever closer to You on Earth and one day nearer to You in eternity. Amen

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If you want to purchase for yourself or a friend a copy of Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love or Prayerful Passages: Asking God’s Help in Reconciliation, Separation or Divorce, please click here to go to Amazon.

Jack H. Emmott is a Senior Counsel of Gray, Reed & McGraw, LLP, a 145-lawyer full-service firm in Houston, Dallas, and Waco, Texas, a Board-Certified Family Law and Master Credentialed Collaborative Law Professional Divorce Attorney, Mediator, Author, Entrepreneur, and Inspirational Speaker. For more information about Jack or his latest book, Bending Angels: Living Messengers of God’s Love, go to www.BendingAngel.com website.