Karen: Well, we have been conversing about aging. Two weeks back, we felt that…

David: …One would do well to view old age as a gift. A gift not all that many are given.

Karen: And then, last visit on the podcast, we concluded…

David: We concluded that it’s good to talk seriously about aging with someone you love.

Karen: And hopefully we modeled together what we had suggested because we were talking with each other about aging.

David: Okay. Our key emphasis this visit is that America stands in desperate need of the potentially powerful prayers of its gray-haired citizens.

Karen: So I’m going to repeat that. That’s an important statement. America stands in desperate need of the potentially powerful prayers of its gray-haired citizens.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

Karen: Now, the dictionary defines gestation like this: One, the act of carrying young in the uterus from conception to birth. Or two, a development as of a plan in the mind.

David: And I’m not identifying with the first of those definitions.

Karen: You certainly were involved in it, though.

David: Well, I guess so. Development as a plan in the mind. That’s not exactly where I am. It’s more in my spiritual being. There’s something that’s going on. I understand some of it, but I don’t understand some of it. I feel a little bit like Abraham of old, where the Lord says, “Here’s what I’m going to unfold in your life”. And Abraham understands it partially, but it doesn’t make any sense because he’s an old man.

Karen: Well, he tells him he’s going to be the father of a great nation, and he knows he’s old. Old old.

David: Something is birthing in me. So that word gestation that you used is appropriate, but I’m 84 years old, and I don’t have the staff. More than that, I don’t have the stamina that I did when I was younger. So this is a very difficult thing for me as I’m trying to process it all.

Karen: Something is happening. You’re feeling something happening. What do you know so far?

David: I know several things. I know that one of the highlights of my week is a time when I pray by phone with friends. And we’ve been doing this for, I’m guessing, somewhere between three and four years now. We get together, and we all call in on the prayer line, and we just start to pray. And we’re praying specifically for an awakening in this land.

Karen: Maybe I should clarify that most of these people have never met one another. They’re from all over the country.

David: I guess in some ways I’m the glue because I know all of them.

Karen: They all know who you are, and you’ve invited them or opened them.

David: But we live a long, long way apart. California.

Karen: You don’t see one another. This is the one time when you connect once, but it’s once a week. It’s on Wednesdays at noon, I think it is.

David: And everyone in the group feels definitely that we are called to do this, and we’re getting better at it. What we’re doing is we’re growing ourselves, but we have become aware that our efforts are not nearly enough. We know there are other prayer groups going on all around the country. People talk about this, but I don’t know anybody in those prayer groups. And my feeling is that there are far less of these groups than are going to be needed for us to see an awakening in the land. So, we’re at the place where I’m saying, “How do we multiply this?”. And it’s very important to me because I’m convinced that the way to grow in prayer is to pray with somebody else.

Karen: Okay.

David: You can read books. You can do all those kind of things.

Karen: Pray alone. But somehow the stimulus of praying with other people is more powerful.

David: It’s hard to explain. Like Ron is on the line, and I hear him say things that people have been trying to express for a long time, and now he just nailed it. And I’m so grateful. And one of the persons, a woman in the group, she reads scripture most of the time. The scripture she has put into prayer.

Karen: Oh, that’s beautiful.

David: Yeah.

Karen: After the last prayer call this week, you said, “You know, the Lord is allowing a lot of these folks to go through hard times”.

David: I think that the enemy has, somewhere, somebody heard the…

Karen: …word that this was beginning to form.

David: And I think that’s characteristic of prayer groups that begin to say what we’re doing is significant. You know, there are people in our group who have gone through terrible, terrible things now as far as the health of their children. And you’d say, “If I’d known when I’d gotten into this what might have happened, I don’t know that I would have gone ahead with it”.

Karen: Well, maybe it would have happened anyway, but now they have the support of this group, and the Lord in His grace formed it knowing that they would be heading into hard times. I think there’s another way of looking at that.

David: We just don’t know. I also am learning, Karen, this is from my years of study of this topic of spiritual awakenings. You never have a time of renewal or revival or awakening without somewhere a base of prayer. There’s a base of prayer. And sometimes, you know, the history records this.

Karen: Well, and I think I’ve heard you say that very often those people who had this burden laid on their hearts prayed for years before they saw the end result of all of those prayers. So it’s a real calling, isn’t it, that some have been given?

David: I think of it almost as a gift from God to these people. That somehow they stumbled or bumbled onto the importance of what they were doing. But I’m learning all of this, and then it’s pushing me to say, “How do we then expand what is going on?”. I don’t think we’re the only group in the world.

Karen: God is calling out other people to this work of prayer.

David: So if I put together what we’re saying for this visit before we do something a little bit odd here in just a moment, it would be that America stands in desperate need of the powerful prayers of its gray-haired citizens. And I say that because I think they are probably key to the whole thing that we’re talking about. This is from Tales of the Kingdom. I want to read one of the stories with you.

Karen: Tales of the Kingdom for our listeners who don’t know what that is, it’s a series of three books. It’s a trilogy that we wrote actually 45 years ago.

David: For children of all ages.

Karen: And so you’re drawing on one of the stories out of the third book, Tales of the Restoration.

David: Yes. This is the story after there has been a victory of the forces of good. It’s the opening story, and it’s about the Granny Vigilantes.

Karen: Okay. So let’s repeat that again. This is about the Granny Vigilantes. That’s the title of the story.

David: And I’ve recorded all these tales. I got talked into doing it. But I listened to what I recorded, and I thought, “That’s not as good as it should be”. And part of that is because there are two older women in the story, and I have to do all the voices when I do it by myself. It’s a little bit corny. I don’t sound that well. So I have twisted your arm. You’re going to be Grandma Sarah. I’ll try to be a Grandma Ruthie. Okay. We’re off to a great start. So anyway, this is after there has been a great victory by the forces of the King, and now they’re trying to change the Enchanted City. It’s becoming Bright City. Right. But not all the victories are won.

Karen: No, it’s in the process.

David: Okay. Are you on top of things here?

Karen: I think so.

David: Okay. We’ll go through the story then. You can ask me questions as to why I wanted to do this in terms of the podcast.

Karen: Okay.

David: The restoration had begun, and it would be some time before Enchanted City lived up to its new name, Bright City. The changes required for that to happen would demand the gifts and work and actions of all who loved the King. “Tweet. Tweet.” The whistle sounded softly in the thick darkness of the night. Grandma Sarah woke instantly, the warning signal jolting her from slumber. “Tweet. Tweet”.

Few heard the call, but those whose ears were trained turned in their beds, shook off the covers, and made ready to do battle. The warning meant that dark things were creeping out of the garbage dump to do damage somewhere. Danger had breached the surround that protected Bright City. “Tweet. Tweet.” It was the whistle for the Granny Vigilantes. Grandma Sarah dressed quickly in the deepest of midnight blue pants, which she yanked over her aging legs and then with one more tug up far above her waist. Over her head she pulled a matching cable knit sweater for warmth. Tucking her white hair beneath a knit stocking cap, she tied the laces on solid black shoes with thick flat heels. Double knots. No tripping while on the streets. She patted her pants pockets. Yes, there was a big box of strikes. Careful to keep her balance, she strapped around her left knee the most important weapon of all: her ever-ready beeper. Steadying herself with a sturdy walking cane in her right hand, she cautiously touched that knee to the ground to set off the device. She bowed her head closely to listen. “Bzz. Bzz. Ah, good. The battery was still strong.” The signal low but clear. She was ready to take her place on night patrol. Grandpa Daniel still lay in bed, snoring and deep in sleep. Grandma Sarah pulled the covers over his chin and whispered a blessing over his dreams to the King. Then she tiptoed from the bedroom, from the house, to where her patrol partner should be waiting on the street outside. With King’s ways, she would be gone and back before dawn’s break, back before her husband even woke and had a chance to worry.

On the front porch, Grandma Sarah touched her left knee to the ground and tapped out a secret code: two short buzzes and one long. “Bzz. Bzz. Bzzz.” This meant: “Grandma Vigilante reporting for patrol. Are you there?”. One could never be too careful on the streets at night. In the dark, all shadows looked alike. The answer came back a quick code in reverse. “Bzzz. Bzz. Bzzz.” This meant: “Grandma Vigilante reporting, yes, I’m here”. A tall, thin form stepped from behind the lamppost. “Ah, good. ” Ruthie was near and ready. The two were longtime partners on night patrol. By day, these grandmas and hundreds of others—two for every block—were gray-haired ladies with slightly stooped backs, or soft, comfy tummies, or saggy arms, or wrinkled faces. In day life, all were grannies who doted on their grandchildren. They said, “Of course, dear,” to their husbands. They baked endless batches of walnut-chip molasses cookies and kept their house in immaculate order. But at night, when their grandpa husbands were sleeping after a full day of labor for the restoration, at night, when danger was most near, when dark things dared invade the City of the King, slipping through the cracks in the holy surround, then these grannies became, who would have thought it, the fierce Granny Vigilantes.

The grandma patrols, stealthily moving two by two, looked like aging cat burglars and might be laughable to some, but the Enchanter’s legions had learned to fear their blitz attacks and no longer took any old ladies for granted. The Naysayers and even Burners and Breakers had learned that when danger threatened grandchildren, these grannies showed no mercy. They took no prisoners. They scorned negotiations. Their canes were deadly, and their deep knee-bends proved lethal to the cause of the Enchanter. “So, Ruthie, what’s going down tonight?” whispered Grandma Sarah, pausing in the street to pull dark gloves over her gnarled fingers. When they had finished their night disguises, the old women linked the hooks of their canes so as not to become separated in the darkness. “Oh, dearie, the worst of the worst is out tonight!” muttered Grandma Ruth. “There are Sleep-Stealers on the prowl.””Those low-down, dirty crawlers. Stealing beautiful dreams. They hate it when the city rests at night and lives in daylight. Well, we’ll fix them, won’t we, Ruthie?”. “You’re going to try, Sarah, sweetie”.

The tall, thin granny chuckled under her breath. Despite the danger, the two were too old to be afraid. They had worked for the restoration for a long time, and they knew the secret : those who practiced deep knee-bends at night became filled with King’s power. Grandma Sarah went to bend her knee, and Grandma Ruth steadied her elbow. “Careful, dearie, remember the arthritis”. The buzzer emitted two long signals. “Bzz, bzzz.” “We’re on the vigil. Who is keeping vigil, too?”. Throughout the city, her signal was answered. “Bzz, bzzz.” “We’re on the vigil. Who is keeping vigil with us?”.

From the sound of the many echoing buzzers, it seemed the Granny Vigilantes were out in force. Sleep-Stealers were abroad, and surely following them were the Naysayers. The first went creeping and stealing the good dream stories, and the second came sneaking behind, blowing bad tales into the ears of sleeping boys and girls, men and women. From somewhere down the street, the two patrol partners heard a soft “toot”. “Hark, hark!”. They paused, still joined by their cane handles, waiting for a Mercy Street Taxicor cab to loom out of the darkness. Once, before the King had freed the people of the city from night life, the city taxi company had been the underground headquarters of the Resistance. But after Burning Place, after New Day Rising, the valiant company had been renamed and now dedicated itself to aiding the work of the restoration.

It was Mercy Street Taxicor that sounded the nighttime warning whistle to awaken the Grandma Vigilantes. “Hey, Bubs!” growled a gruff whisper. The two grannies winked at each other. Sure enough, they recognized the voice of Pete, the Cabbie. They could just make out the form of his taxi parked at the curb with the motor purring. “Evening, young fella?”. They answered, “Yes, some ladies, we got trouble tonight. Them power-outs are doing us no favors, no. The creeps been night-crawling for sure. Get you a breach in the surround and get you a trouble, that’s for sure. Got canes?” The grandmas nodded. “Got working batteries?” They nodded again.

Suddenly, a child’s cry pierced the night. The sound wrenched their hearts. Pete growled, “See what I mean? Got kids screaming with bad night tales all over the city”. The red light blinked on the dashboard, and the cabbie shifted gears. “Yep, look here. Something is cornered. Gotta give some grannies a hand”. The taxi started the way. The tires squealed. The brake lights flashed. The car stopped and backed up. He called, “Oh, forgot to ask. Think you ladies can handle your patrol without me for a while?”. They took his neglect as a compliment to their fighting skills. Nodded and shooed him along. This time, the cab man did not come back. Stretching their linked canes out to full length, Grandma Sarah and Grandma Ruth began their patrol stroll. They slowly semicircled down the sidewalk, the motion of the arc propelling each granny out and forward by turn. “Handsome young fellow, isn’t he, Ruthie?”. “A real nice boy,” agreed Ruth, and whispered, “See anything?”.

Whereas Grandma Sarah’s hearing was a little lacking, her night sight was superb. “No,” she answered in an undertone. “Nothing yet. You hear anything?”. And whereas Grandma Ruth’s far sight was a little blurred, her hearing was excellent. The two stood still, one listening, one staring. They heard nothing and started the patrol stroll again. A child’s scream shattered the silence. “If I get my hands on a Sleep-Stealer, he’s gonna be real sorry”. “Shhh, sweetie,” Ruth lifted her hand in warning. “What’s that?” Grandma Sarah stood still, straining to hear. “Down on your knee, quick! Down on your knee!”. Without argument, Sarah bent her left knee, trusting Ruthie’s unerring ear. “We got a signal coming from somewhere. Double signal. ‘Bzz, bzz.’ Double trouble! Sounded triple!”.

Grandma Sarah held tightly onto Grandma Ruth’s hand for balance, due to the aches and pains. She pressed her knee to the ground in quick taps. One, two, three. “Bzz, bzz, bzzz.” Again. “Bzz, bzz, bzz, bzzz.” This meant: “Help is near, where are you?”. From down the block, but close enough, came the answering signal. One long sustained buzzer that another nearby patrol could track. “Bzzz.” This meant: “Follow quickly”. The two grannies hastened because everyone knew that the danger with a long, deep-knee buzzer was that anything good or bad could follow its signal. Grandma Sarah and Grandma Ruth linked elbows and hurried toward the emergency call. Strained together, they peered into doorways and lit strikes. The tiny flashes of fire that glazed to light alleys and cul-de-sacs where Burners and Breakers like to hide.

“Stop, stop!” whispered Grandma Sarah. Her sharp eyes had detected motion. “Something shadowy, flurging around the corner of a building. “This way. Use the hobble-cobble”. Ruth could see nothing, but she trusted her partner’s night sight. Then there was a sudden silence. The long “follow quickly” signal had abruptly stopped. The two grandmas hooked their canes again, spread them to full length, and began to march. Outside legs forward and together: hobble. Inside legs forward and together: cobble. Outside legs forward and together: hobble. Inside legs forward and together: cobble. Their thick heels clunked noisily. Hobble, cobble, clunk, clunk. As one stretching unit, they turned the corner of the nearby building, sweeping anything shadowy before them.

Sure enough, a whole circle of dark shadows was inching closer and closer to another form, huddled in the courtyard of a housing complex. Dark things. And it looked like, oh my gracious, it looked like a solo granny. “Halt, who goes there?” called Grandma Ruth. Then, without waiting for an answer, the two women chanted in one voice: “In the name of the King, the Most High One, the Daybringer, the Lord of Light, we command you to cease and desist!”. Here in this courtyard. In the night, their words began to call forth Ranger Protection, to knit together some hole that had opened in the surround, that would keep them for a few minutes, and the shadows stopped advancing upon the lonely granny. Grandma Ruth took several strikes from her pants pocket. She flicked them with her thumbnail. They flared. She threw them into the air, and they gave off a sudden light. “Well, my, my, my, Sarah, sweetie, what have we here?”.

Grandma Sarah’s sharp sights scouted the shadows. “I’d say we got a handful of Burners, a patrol granny alone of all things, and a few Naysayers for good measure. And look here sure enough, we’ve got a Sleep-Stealer climbing up a drainpipe. That dirty night crawler. Meanness just shouldn’t be allowed. Think we can handle this bunch, Ruthie, or should we signal for Pete?”. “Oh, that young fella’s busy. Don’t we usually end up helping him anyway? We can handle this bunch , but first let’s brace up that solo granny .” She called out, “Granny, granny, don’t be afraid, you’re no longer alone, remember the rule. Fear always lets the dark things near. Do you have your handbag?”. The granny in the center of the courtyard stopped huddling against the wall. She clutched her bag to her ample bosom. Recalling her vigilante training, she quickly began calling out the litany of names : “His Majesty, our Sovereign Liege Lord, His Eminence, the Benevolent Potentate!”. As if to drown out her words, a counter-chant began from the shadows. “Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay,” then louder. “Nay, nay, nay, nay, nay!”. “Well, wouldn’t you know,” said Grandma Ruth, “always got a pack of Naysayers around if they can sniff out fear”. Grandma Sarah began to unscrew her secret weapon, the handle-crook from the stem of her cane. “Shall we take out the Sleep-Stealer first, before he creeps in that open window?”. “Good idea,” said Ruthie, “and better be quick about it”. Her sharp ears were picking up the sounds of shuffling feet somewhere in the courtyard.

Grandma Sarah looped her loosened handle-crook around the end of the cane stem. She held both out and above her head, circling the crook. Now an instant boomerang, round and round. “In the head or between the shoulders, what do you think, Ruthie?”. “Don’t be nice, give the meanie a good knock on the noggin!”. Grandma Ruth flicked a strike for a quick light. Grandma Sarah let fly, the cane crook went whizzing round and round, sounding a high-pitched whine as it whanged through the air. It clunked the Sleep-Stealer directly on the back of the head, knocking him down the drainpipe. The pipe tore away from the wall. It teetered back and forth, back and forth. The Sleep-Stealer kicked and scrambled with his feet in midair, holding on for dear life. The pipe leaned low, lower, lower, then sprang back, striking the wall and shaking the intruder to the ground, where he rolled into a hump. “Duck, Grannies!” Ruth yelled as the crook boomeranged back. Sarah lifted her cane-tip to hook it in flight. “Now, Ruth,” called out, “whack him with your bag! Whack him all hard!”.

And at this, the solo granny against the wall began wailing and flailing against the shadows. She made a break for it and joined the other two in the middle of the courtyard. Grandma Sarah shouted a patrol stroll cry. “Cane war! Whooping and thumping!”. And with that, she bent her left knee to the ground and lowered her head to monitor its low, steady signal. “Better get a backup just in case”. The two other grandmas linked themselves together by the hooks of their canes, made a circle, and cried, “Cane wars!”. Sarah stood straight and joined them in the three-way hobble-cobble, rounding and rounding as they advanced upon the dark things. Hobble-cobble, clunk-clunk-clunk, hobble-cobble, clunk-clunk-clunk. The shadows edged back, pressed hard against the wall. The Burners lifted their pokers and made fierce faces. The Naysayers strained to double their doom tones. Any other city folk might have trembled, sweated, and fled, but not these three ladies. All shouted as one. “Whooping and thumping!”.

With the shadowy creatures trapped against the wall, the grandmas proceeded to take their canes and thrash the shadows. “Whomp! Take that! Take that! And that! And that!”. Whining, the dark things turned and hid their heads in their hands. “It’s his fault,” one cried. “Hit him!”. “No,” shouted another. “He’s to blame! Whomp him!”. “Thump! That’s for making little Patel afraid of the dark!” shouted Granny Ruth. “That’s for stealing the safe sleep from tiny Lorena! Take that! And that! You’re all deserving of whomping!”. As the ladies continued to wallop their enemies’ backsides, the lump that had fallen from the drainpipe stirred himself and began to crawl on its stomach toward the combat, unseen by the battling grannies. “How dare these shadowy beings bring danger to Bright City? No mercy! Whomp! How dare they creep through the fault lines? How dare they steal the good stories from the grandchildren’s dreams?”. A poker flew into the air, and the shadowy lump on the courtyard floor shimmied closer and closer. Unseen, it grasped the hot poker. Unseen, it drew itself to its knees at the back of the grannies and lifted the weapon to strike a blow. “Behind you, dearie!” called Grandma Sarah, ducking quickly into a deep knee bend, her head low again to monitor the beeper’s signal. Grandma Ruth turned and took her cane to the Sleep-Stealer who was creeping up to bash her. “Ah, gotcha!” she exclaimed and mashed him in the midsection. “Mercy!” he gasped. All three grannies lifted their voices and chanted, “No mercy! Whomp! No prisoners! Thump! No negotiations!”.

“Tweet. Hark! Tweet. Hark!” The taxi screeched into the courtyard. It was Pete. “Grannies, grannies,” he called. “Attention, hup!” The battling grannies paused, turned around, lifted their canes in salute. Sarah stood to her feet. The buzzing stopped. Pete the cab man scrambled out. “Good work, Grannies. Good battling job”. He opened the back door and barked, “All right, dark things. Night’s almost over. Back to the garbage dump with you!”. The shadows shuffled about nervously but made no move. “Or do you prefer the Grannies?” Pushing and shoving, they rushed together as one into the back seat, slamming the car door behind them. The Grandma Vigilantes remembered their training. Give no evil in return for evil. They tucked their canes under their arms. They hiked their pants above their waist and stood at attention.

“Just in time, young fellow. I guess we grannies were getting a little, what shall we say, frisky. We’ve just had it with those Sleep-Stealers. We’ve just plumb had it”. “Good job, Grannies,” said Pete, jumping back into his cab. “And solo, lady, I bet you don’t hit the streets alone again. Patrol in twos or you lose”. The solo-grandma mumbled something about her partner oversleeping, and thinking she could handle it by herself, and with the power-outs and everything she thought. But hearing her own words, she finally lowered her eyes. Pete winked at her and said, “Oh, well, everyone’s got to learn sooner or later that a vigilante rule is a good rule”. He reached back and double-barred the back door locks. “All in a night’s work, Peety,” Ruth smiled. “Say, looky girls, it’s almost dawn break”.

A faint line of light streaked the sky. Morning was always the all-clear signal to night battles. The taxi squealed its tires, tooted the horn softly, and sped away. “Yes, better get back home before Grandpa Daniel wakes up and wonders where I am”. The three grannies stood in the street. They listened to the sounds of Bright City. Ah, that was good. No more child cries. No more night screams. Everyone was dreaming the best of the good story dreams, the ones that come close to morning. “I guess,” said Grandma Sarah as they took off their gloves, shook their hair out from under the discarded knit caps, and strolled toward home. “I guess I’ll make a batch of walnut-chip molasses cookies today. After I take a nap”. The three grannies linked elbows and patrol-strolled with a little dance step down the middle of the empty street. “Yes, indeed, despite close calls, it had been a good night’s work.” “To the Kingdom, to the King,” they said softly and, parting, each went her separate way to live out her ordinary granny life. But in her deepest heart, each was proud, despite loss of sleep, despite danger and difficulty, despite today’s aches and pains, to be part of the few, the happy few, who kept vigil while the city was deep in sleep.

David: Wrote that a long time ago, Karen.

Karen: Yeah, over 40 years ago, I think it was.

David: Now you’ve become a granny.

Karen: I’m a granny, Granny Vigilante. You know, it’s interesting how when you’ve written something like that, which is sort of a foretelling of where you are right now in your life, to think of the work of the Holy Spirit and these kinds of storytelling things that are prescient or seeing into the future. I mean, we can really relate with the whole concept of Granny Vigilantes now, or the old people, the seniors, taking up the role of covering the nation and younger generations in prayers. But you didn’t know that at that time. It was a story idea, and it’s a darling story, really. The first time we read it aloud and practicing this, we could hardly keep from laughing because there’s a lot of humor and tender humor that’s written into this.

David: Yeah, I also find myself almost crying.

Karen: Some of it’s very moving because we’re at that place now where we have become the granny or grandpa of vigilantes, the senior citizens who you are feeling very strongly need to be called out to be a national prayer vigilante.

David: And I don’t know how to do that. I don’t think the whole responsibility rests on me. I don’t have grandiose ideas in that sense. But the Lord is definitely saying to me in some way, “You need to move this along”. “Here are people you need to talk with. You need to make some connections here” because I think that the seniors understand prayer more than the next generations that come along, because they experienced Wednesday night prayer meetings. They experienced, I think back in days, in my early years, I worked with Youth for Christ. And those men, they would say, “We’re going to have an all-night prayer meeting”. I’d never been in an all-night prayer meeting. And it was wonderful, and now those days are gone. Somebody has to be recaptured.

Karen: Well, in the churches we went to, the conservative churches we went to, had Wednesday night prayer meetings. It was just de rigueur. I mean, you just didn’t question it.

David: Go back to that learning from others. I remember Carl Gunderson, an old white-haired gentleman. I was in a small prayer group with him, and I prayed, and I thought I did pretty good. And then he started to pray, and then I thought to myself, “You know, I don’t know a whole lot about prayer”. He knows way more.

Karen: So he was a senior at that time.

David: He was a senior, yes.

Karen: Yeah, he’s with the Lord now. David, there probably needs to be, apart from the fact that I think we’re more prayerless as a Christian contingency in American life, I think there probably needs to be groups where the elders do pray in a way that the youth hear it. And that’s not to discredit the great passion that young people have, or younger ones have, to do God’s work. And they’re often the ones who fuel those of us who’ve been around for a while with fervor. So, I like the idea of a cross-generational gathering of folk who learn to pray together. But you’re really, I think I’m hearing you articulate the fact that you feel like the Holy Spirit, or you’re being nudged. Something is moving you to call the elders of our nation, of America, in whatever way you can, to begin to be vigilant, to keep vigilant prayer, to become the prayer vigilantes that we so desperately need in our time.

David: Yes. The word vigilante, this is the old West where there would almost be self-appointed people to make sure that there was justice in the land, and there were no courts in the exodus.

Karen: Or there was lawlessness.

David: Lawlessness, yeah, they tried. Law was corrupt. Sometimes the vigilantes were corrupt. But that word has another feel to it, which is the vigil.

Karen: Yeah.

David: We are keeping vigil. And somehow that needs to come, and God’s saying, “David, be a part of helping birth that”. Where it will all go, I don’t know. I’m still trying to put the pieces together in my heart.

Karen: And we’re trusting that this burden, or this vision, is being planted in the hearts of many people all over the country.

David: Yes.

Karen: So that those prayer voices will rise up, sort of spontaneously all of them, and we’ll begin to find one another.

David: America stands in desperate need of the powerful prayers of its gray-haired citizens. That’s as far as I can take it in terms of this visit. But let’s continue for at least a couple more times talking about aging, and how some of these pieces might fit together. I appreciate you being Grandma Sarah. You did pretty well. It was probably easier than being a youngster. We need another mic and another woman to pick up all the voices. Thank you for joining us, friend. We appreciate your company.

Outgo: You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address: hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters, hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2021 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.