Irreverent Prayers: Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick, Elizabeth Felicetti and Samantha Vincent-Alexander. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (ISBN: 9780802882639), 2024.
Summary: Talking to God when you’re seriously sick is modelled in this book by honest, unvarnished prayers written during such illnesses.
Samantha noticed her leg was hurting and swollen. She was feverish. She went to the ER and was rushed into an ICU with a life-threatening case of MRSA. Samantha spent several months in and out of the hospital, wearing a wound vac to drain infection from her leg.
Elizabeth was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after treatment, with lung cancer, resulting in the removal of part of her lung and courses of chemo and radiation. And while writing, she was diagnosed with a recurrence of inoperable nodules, one on her aorta.
Both women are Episcopal priests and writing friends. And both faced the question of “how do you talk to God when you are seriously sick?” Serious sickness means tests, hospitalization, surgeries, pain, drugs, and feeling weak and lousy for extended periods of time. Friends and caregivers mean well and say unhelpful things. Meanwhile, death is sometimes a real possibility. How does one pray about all that?
For these women, the answer is blunt honesty, even if it seemed “irreverent.” They wrote these prayers down and grouped them under the following headings:
- Pain and Anger
- Blood and Breath
- Waiting, Wondering and Wandering
- Hospitals
- Well-wishers and Caregivers
- Aftermath
- Relapse
Examples of the kinds of subjects for prayer include painkillers and cursing the nurses who wake one to administer Tylenol when it is not effective or needed. One prayer rejoices in hospital underwear. Another prays for help lying still during hours of scans or in dealing with the common adjunct to pain meds: constipation. There are lots of prayers about well-wishers, usually well-intentioned but unaware of how to accompany one with a long and serious illness.
Not only are the prayers bluntly honest. They are short and pithy, sometimes preceded by a verse of scripture. Here’s one example, a “Prayer When People Call Me Brave or Inspiring”
“Gracious God, help me to react graciously when well-meaning people call me brave. I’m not brave. I didn’t choose this and wouldn’t if I had a choice. All I do when I’m not in treatment is sit around or sleep, which is hardly inspiring. I should pray that you shield them from knowing that they would react as they must if they were in this situation too, but I would like them not to say stupid things in the future. So please sort it out, God. Amen.”
This book is helpful for the person of faith facing serious illness. It not only gives words to pray about all the things this entails. We may say to God what we think and feel! As well, the prayers help friends and caregivers imagine what it is like to face serious illness.
And I pray for Elizabeth, fighting inoperable cancer and wanting to live, echoing her prayer: “bring me peace, but not yet.”
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.