But I also think that as the church, we have the opportunity to offer a corrective here and name that prayer does have a function for us in these moments.

I love that Peter doesn’t wait to move in the direction of love until he’s figured it all out. Instead, he simply says yes to God and opens himself to the Holy Spirit... He didn’t hesitate. He just said yes.

What we discover here in this tender blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment is all that Tabitha had meant to this community. And we see that it’s a profound and significant loss — because Tabitha’s life mirrored that of Jesus. Because this detail reveals just how much she blessed these women.

Belief implies that the action is limited to the mind. To the head. About what you can assent to conceptually. You can believe someone or something without trusting it. But trust is so much more than that.

He hears it, and as he rises to his feet, you can almost imagine a smile breaking across his face as he exclaims, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance…”