I MARRIED a young lady who grew up in Nailsworth and she brought me back down here for a year.

That was in 1975 and we're still here.

As a result I have now spent most of my life here and have seen so much, even in a quiet rural area.

Recently, it was not so quiet.

I was in Stroud when some shouting broke out between two people.

Bad language was flying about and it looked like the fists were about to do the same.

I wanted to stop it but I didn't have what it took, either the brain or the muscles, to break it up so I turned elsewhere for help.

No.

It wasn't the person net to me who was looking for a free ringside seat.

Fat lot of help they were.

I tried praying instead.

Prayer isn't soft.

It is more powerful than the atom.

My simple prayer was that God would separate them.

In less than a minute, one protagonist had walked away and someone more able than me ha walked walked he other person away in a different direction.

I think it was one of the fastest answers to prayer I have experienced.

Conversely, another prayer I saw answered that month occurred almost forty years after I began praying.

I could so easily have given up but it's not about how long, how much or how cleverly I pray.

It's about the one I'm talking to.

He stopped the fight within seconds.

He changed a situation I couldn't, even if it took forty years.

have you got an unanswered prayer?

Don't give up.

I recently came across a good word.

Actually it can be turned into a sentence as well.

It's PUSH.

Pray Until Something Happens.