All was quiet in the Snyder house. I was just about to drift off to sleep when my eyes flew open and my spirit was convicted to pray for Tony. Tony was a friend – more of an acquaintance, actually – whom I hadn’t seen since he had moved a good six months earlier. But it was the middle of the night, and I was inclined to pray. So I did.

Tony’s face haunted me for more than a week, often at the most inconvenient times. I’d be guiding a string of preschoolers down the crowded hall of a church. “Pray.” I’d be fixing a late lunch for my siblings. “Pray.” I’d be lining up the perfect pool shot. “Pray.”  Though I thought the persistent urge to pray was getting a tad bit ridiculous, I prayed.

A year later, I stumbled across Tony’s mom on facebook. I shot her a message to ask how life was going and part of her reply sent a holy tremor down my spine. Tony had been in an accident last June. June was the month I couldn’t get him off my mind.

It struck me that I could have been lying in bed praying for Tony the very night he rolled his truck. My frantic prayers could have empowered the angels who spared his life that night. I suddenly realized that the entire time I was praying, Tony was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a near death experience.

Let me tell you, a message like that will make you think twice the next time God puts someone on your heart. So, of course, when I was unable to read the other night because I couldn’t get a certain face out of my mind, I set the book aside and began to pray. Though I may never know the reasons behind this particular prayer, I think of Tony… and how God divinely touches the hearts of His children when another is in need. And so I pray.