A lifelong Episcopalian, Bush attended Sunday services regularly from childhood but, like many Americans, was uncomfortable discussing his spirituality in public. After marrying Barbara Pierce and starting a family, he would have his faith tested when their four-year-old daughter Robin died of leukemia after months of trying to fight off the disease. Partly from that experience, the prayer life of George and Barbara Bush grew stronger, not simply more rote. “George and I pray every night together, by phone if we are in different cities,” Barbara Bush once admitted in a television interview. “We have been doing this ever since we’ve been married. We never pray for financial gain or political victory – we have prayed for health of family and friends… We both believe our prayers have been answered, but then we have never prayed for the miraculous – like terminal illness being cured tomorrow. I can say I feel relieved after having said my prayers.”
One Nation Under God: The History of Prayer in America by James P. Moore, Jr. Doubleday, 2005. p.418
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