Our church members thought my spiritual gift, according to 1 Corinthians 12, was to sing. But my Grandmother Ester knew it wasn’t the tool by which God would use me to help build the kingdom – God adorned me with the gift of prayer.

My anointing to pray showed up on a Sunday morning in Forest Lawn Missionary Baptist Church on Weaver and Wileyvale in Trinity Gardens in 1987. I was supposed to lead Blessed Assurance in voice, but The Lord told me to speak the verse instead. So, I did. Apparently, I added scripture in my adlibs, because one of the Sunday School teachers told me she was proud that I weaved “The Word in with the song.” I don’t remember any of this because I was heavy in The Holy Spirit, but she talked about it for years, so I knew it to be so.

At that point, I kept singing because of course that’s what was expected of me. I had been singing since I stood up and said I wanted to join church and sing in the choir at the age of 6, so I kept on singing. One day, during choir rehearsal, my notes cracked. It was a surprise to the choir, but not to me. My Grandmother Ester had told me countless times that if I didn’t use my gift, God would take it from me. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be singing, I was called to pray. So, I asked our choir director if she would consider reassigning my solos and relegated my time at choir rehearsal to reading The Holy Scriptures.

Mind you, these weren’t scriptures I found on my own. My Grandmother Ester would call me frequently during the week and say, “Shay, The Lord put you on my mind and told me to give you these scriptures.” It’s important to note that the next time we talked I was expected to share those scriptures with her again in context with the events in my life. This was a standard in my church, we didn’t just quote The Holy Scriptures, we had to be able to verbalize what The Lord had discerned to us while reading The Scriptures. Therefore, I knew before my Grandmother Ester called me back, I best not only have the scriptural context intact with the chapters she gave me on that occasion, but I better also be able to weave it in with the other scriptures she told me before, all while retaining its relevance, and ensuring that the overall meaning of The Holy Scriptures weren’t compromised.

Well, I was still in elementary school, so I needed help. That’s when I called on Jesus. He told me to use His Words in my prayers. So, I flipped to the notes section in my Bible and wrote, “Lord Jesus, we seal this prayer by faith in Your Word in 1 Thess. 5:17, so that our daily prayers will align with Your Will in Mark 14:32.” Then I called my Grandmother Ester and read the prayer that God had given me to her. She said, “Shay, God is going to use you. Don’t let the devil trip you up, you understand me. I want you to promise me that when he starts with his foolishness, you shut him down with The Word of God every time. Promise me now.” “Yes ma’am,” I responded. And Praise Jesus, I’ve been doing exactly that ever since.