I learned something of how prayer can protect us during the early 1970s when I lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during the height of what was to become a thirty-year sectarian, political conflict known as the Troubles. During this time over 3,600 people were killed, and many bombs, too many to count, were exploded. As a store owner in Belfast, my stores suffered damage a number of times from bombings.
One day my business partner came into my office ashen-faced. He told me he had just received a phone call threatening his life and stating that terrorists were going to close our business down. Politicians and business people—friends of ours—had already been murdered by the IRA (Irish Republican Army), one of several terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland at this time. My business partner was visibly upset. He said, “What are we to do?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. He decided to take his wife and three children and leave the country.
