Amen!
By: Jean and Joe McGuire (featuring Gracie!)
We are Jean and Joe McGuire, recently retired as a nurse educator and an attorney. We have been active in worship and in the Discovery Class since we were wed at Central’s altar almost 45 years ago.
For myself (Jean), the Lord’s Prayer provided comfort when my family was going through difficult years, including my parents’ struggles and eventual breakup. It helped me to look to God for strength during those trying times when I was unsure whom to turn to in my life. The Lord’s Prayer helped me realize that I did not need to fix the situation, but that I could turn to the Lord for solace and guidance.
For me (Joe), having grown up at Central, I loved the Lord’s Prayer because it offered safety. Safety by staying in my heart and mind and being available when I felt helpless or scared. Like when as a kid I was stuck at the top of a Myrtle Beach Ferris wheel for over forty minutes, or when my mother died from cancer while I was twenty-three and away at school.
The Lord’s Prayer provided a different safety when I would sit in worship next to my Granny Grace, who had survived two husbands with little of her hearing intact. She just liked being in church. Only during the Lord’s Prayer would my reciting the words with my lips moving keep me safe from her loud whisper of “Joe, wake up!” You can understand why we named our new retriever pup “Gracie.”
Nowadays, we pray the Lord’s Prayer more in gratitude than in refuge. No other words speak so well of the forgiveness and joy we receive and share along the road thanks to our loving God.
The ending of the Lord’s Prayer is only one word, but the majesty of the preceding lines makes it a mighty and resounding grand finale. Meaning “so be it,” Amen should be proclaimed with certainty, celebration, and gusto. Growing up with Baptist buddies, I envied their talking with a holy ghost and their freedom to raise up an Amen almost at will. Yet, as Methodists and believers everywhere, we are blessed to Pray exactly as did our Lord, to praise the wonder of God in our lives, and to proclaim “Amen” not as an ending but as a bridge to living the Prayer every day.
