In the winter of 2007, a close friend of mine was felled by not one but two brain aneurysms. For weeks she lingered on life support, growing weaker each day. As her condition deteriorated, her children were called in to say their goodbyes, and her church prepared for a funeral. Then Linda suddenly snapped out of her coma. As she came to, she looked over at her husband and asked, "Where is everybody else?"

Shaking his head, he explained, "They allow only one of us at a time in the ICU. There is no one else here."

Linda argued, "No, I heard them. They were all speaking at the same time, and there were hundreds of them, too. Some of them I knew; others I didn't. But they were all around me. They were here!"

Linda's husband assured her that all those people had never been in the room. Like many, he initially thought that Linda must have been hallucinating. Some people speculated that Linda had seen and heard angels. But the real answer was probably much closer to home.

A few days after her miraculous recovery, Linda discovered that a large prayer chain had been created to pray for her. This group had been formed when news of her condition was sent out to local churches, and then it had spread to other groups throughout the region. Within days Linda's name had been placed on hundreds of prayer lists and written in scores of prayer logs. For weeks, thousands were praying for her each day. Her miraculous recovery convinced Linda of two things: the voices she heard were of the people who had been praying for her, and those prayers had pulled her back from death's door.

Linda's story is far from unusual. Countless people have been touched by the power of prayer. Science and personal experiences have proven that the words of prayer do have impact. But that impact can't happen unless the ones doing the praying believe their words carry weight.