In Response To Pandemic, Tulsa Woman Creates Prayer Box For Her Community

A Tulsa woman responded to the uncertainty of the pandemic by setting up a prayer request box on a trail near her home.

More than 100 people have stopped and written, anonymously, about their needs. Mickey Lemery put the box out in April of 2020 alongside a walking trail at 47th and Braden.

The box is simple: a plastic tub, on top of old piano bench, with a sign that says, “How can we pray for you?” 

"There are days when I get three or four responses, and then three or four days with nothing,” Lemery said.

She’s found plenty of people are willing to ask a stranger to pray for them. She has a stack of requests, about all sorts of needs.

Lemery has kept them all, to help remember how meaningful it can be to have someone - even a stranger - make such a simple promise.

She said it helped her family work through the loss of a child 11 years ago.

“We know that peace you can have in your dark days when people are praying for you, and it's all that gets you through,” she said.

Lemery hardly ever sees people putting in requests, so she said she checks the box regularly.

To her, it doesn't matter that they're strangers. If they believe a prayer will help, she's willing.

“Everyone is important and matters to God and if they matter to God, they matter to me,” she said.