Pray for Baby Layne!

Five-thirty in the morning. Still dark out. I took a deep breath, the crisp November air chilling my lungs, and climbed into my Ford pickup.

I didn’t usually drive to work so early, but I had signed on for the morning shift at Lowe’s, where I’m a manager. A couple of miles in I took a shortcut I hadn’t used in a while, through a growing subdivision. I was surprised to see how many people had already put their Christmas lights up.

There was a brilliant glow up ahead, almost beckoning me through the darkness. Must be one of those new high-tech decorations, I thought. Then I got closer. This was no decoration. It was a sign. A roughly cut piece of plywood, maybe four by three feet, painted white, with a message bathed in floodlights: “Please Pray for Baby Layne.”

Questions bounced around in my mind: Who was this child? What was wrong? Why would someone go to such great lengths to put up a lighted sign for prayer?

Maybe it troubled me because I had been wrestling with prayer for years. I envied people like my wife, Susan. She prayed with such conviction. “Praying brings me closer to God,” she’d tell me when I’d ask her about it. “You should try talking to him more—he’s a great listener.”
But whenever I tried to pray, my words felt mechanical, so rote. God seemed so remote, so far away. How could I be sure he would answer? Or that he would even hear me?

I was about to drive away, but those words: “Please Pray for Baby Layne” were staring at me. Challenging me, almost. All at once something came over me. “Lord, I know I haven’t exactly trusted that you hear my prayers,” I said. “But this isn’t about me. Please heal baby Layne.”

The next morning I got into my truck, grabbed a coffee at the drive-through and cut through the subdivision. There it was: that same sign shining through the dark. I put aside my doubts and said another prayer. Lord, please bless the baby’s family today.

The day after that? You got it. I said another. Before long I had a new morning ritual: Drive. Get coffee. Pray for baby Layne.

A few weeks into it, I told Susan about the sign—and my praying.

“Isn’t it nice to start your day off by thinking about someone else?” she said.

“I’m just doing what the sign says,” I replied. “I wonder how baby Layne’s doing now.”

“Why don’t you knock on their door and ask?” Susan said.

I didn’t want to bother a family that was probably overwhelmed with caring for their sick child. So, instead, I just kept praying.