Sometimes I feel prayers. At those times, when someone is praying for me, my right temple becomes very warm. This has happened both when I knew someone was praying for me and when I didn’t know. On at least one occasion, I felt much better immediately.
I have no theories about my body’s response to prayer because it’s unpredictable. It doesn’t happen whenever someone is praying for me, and it’s not connected to a particular person or even to my need for prayer, as far as I can tell. And for reasons I don’t understand, it doesn’t happen nearly as often these days as it once did.
I found two examples to share from old journals. The first example happened before I understood that the warmth was connected to prayer.
September 1993. (I’d been going through a difficult time and quite a few people were praying for me.) From my journal: Yesterday, I went into the spare attorney’s office to lie down on the couch because I didn’t feel at all well. I’ve been fighting this virus everyone seems to have. As I lay there, my right temple became very warm, like it did that other time. I thought it must be Jesus’ touch. I didn’t know what was happening, but I fell asleep, and after the nap I felt much better than I had all day. The temporary secretary at Charlene’s desk noticed a difference in me. After my nap, I was joking with people, and she said something to the effect that I must be a night person just waking up because she’d felt earlier like she was working in a morgue.
October, 1998. (I was planning to look at an apartment I wanted very badly, and some of my friends knew this). From my journal: “Right about noon I felt my forehead on the right get very warm, and I thought that someone must be praying. Later, I got an email from H. saying, “It’s noon, and I’m praying like mad.”
When I feel the touch of prayer, it’s like a bright, warm drop from the vast ocean of Light.
—Sally Gillette