Significance of prayer discussed in Grayslake

Not long after cancer claimed the life of his 12-year-old daughter, former Illinois attorney general Jim Ryan faced the prospect of losing a son.

Police would not let Ryan or his family into their home where his 24-year-old son had a gun and was threatening suicide. The family prayed together, sure that God would not let another child die. When a police officer approached and said only "he's gone," Ryan was disillusioned.

Ryan talked about using faith in God to reconcile those crushing personal losses during Lake County's fifth annual National Day of Prayer breakfast Thursday.

The breakfast, a nondenominational event, drew about 300 people to the Country Squire Restaurant in Grayslake.

"That's 300 lives that recognize the significance of prayer and leave here recognizing it even more," said former Lake County coroner Barbara Richardson, the honorary chairman of the event.

Ryan spoke about hard times his family has faced, from his own battle with lymphoma to his wife's heart attack to the untimely deaths of a daughter and son.

The room fell silent as Ryan talked about the difficulty of keeping faith when bad things happen to good people. He said prayer and faith ultimately helped his family deal with the losses.

"We have a lot to pray about and a lot to pray for, both personally as citizens and as a nation," Ryan told the crowd.

The Lake County event also included some criticism about President Barack Obama's scaled-back participation in the National Day of Prayer. He planned to issue a proclamation, but not host any events, as former president George W. Bush did.

Barbara Gilleran Johnson, co-chair of the breakfast, expressed frustration that this was the first National Prayer Day in eight years not fully celebrated by the nation's leader.

"He needs the prayers, we all need the prayers," Johnson said. "It's a difficult job to have right now."

Leroy Weinbrenner, of Mundelein, said he didn't care what Obama chose to do on National Prayer Day.

"I'm kind of a believer that Christianity is an individual thing and not a corporate thing," Weinbrenner said.

Congress made National Prayer Day an annual event in a joint resolution signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. The day aims to bring people of all faiths together to pray for the nation's leaders.

"We're all in the same church, we may be in a different pew, but we're all in the same church," said Bonnie Quirke, co-chair of the event.