...and pray some more!........part 1

OK! OK! Now that I have had complaints from not only one person, but two, I will write more than just pray pray Pray! Often times,when I write things on my blog, my thoughts aren't necessarily geared toward others reading it. It has mostly been a creative way for me to enjoy journaling my many thoughts and events. Therefore, when I wrote pray, pray, pray, God and I both know what was behind it and that is all I needed to remember. But thanks to a few curious minds, I am going to try to put my experience with God and Christian life into words. And that's great because I often learn even more about God, myself and my journey through doing that. So, for Tye, Betty and whoever else out there in blog land, here goes.

For those of you who know me well, you have heard me say that I believe that everything depends upon prayer. I remember the first time that I came to that conclusion. It was the fall of 1995, 10 years after God had first stirred my heart with wild wonderings about prayer. I continue to maintain the belief that everything depends upon prayer as well as abiding in that truth and I regard it more deeply today then I did yesterday. Praying is hard work and yet it is the most rewarding work that I have ever experienced. (Fasting is another facet of it all but that will have to be another blog on another day.)

Let's back up to 1985. I was 25 years old and that is when God first introduced me to the idea of "praying". Not the stereotypical or conventional prayers, such as praying before a meal, praying at bedtime or for your cancer filled dying relative. But rather, praying as a ministry(but ministry was not the word then).....it was the discerning of a concept, an essence, an impression of some sort. It was foreign and yet captivating....weird and yet wonderful. It seemed uncanny, atypical, and eccentric all mixed together. I was in awe but so callow.

At that point, I don't recall having heard about prayer "ministries" or having read about such things. I regularly punched into the Wednesday evening prayer meeting at the Baptist church that I attended. Frankly, it was quite boring. My husband, Dan, was the youth pastor there so it was a "good" thing to do. Dan spent a lot of time in personal prayer. I don't even vaguely recall probing him about it, which is highly unusual for me. There were times when we prayed together but I am sorry to say that unless we were praying about something that pertained to us or to my small spiritual world, I was often drifting in and out of attention, my mind a wandering. It's not that it was boring. Well, okay, it kind of was. It was just not stimulating to me at that time. I wasn't where Dan was and I wondered how he could go on and on about things so abstract and unreal to me. Like the Timbuk people in Timbuktu.

Anyway... God had initiated acquainting me with this new slant on prayer and I stepped out in faith, attempting to obey according to my, less than narrow, understanding. I don't remember what I prayed for. I don't remember whether or not I had a list of things to pray for or if that is when I started making lists of things to pray for. Probably the latter. I remember it taking quite awhile...like up to 45 minutes. I remember thinking that the experience was really awesome, in the true sense of the word. There was some confusion. Was this a "calling"? Was I supposed to do it everyday? Once a week? For how long? For a month? For a year? I didn't think about the possibility of it being for a lifetime. I felt special to be bidden upon to do this. It brought me the same excitement as the call to fast but my knowledge of that was very limited as well. I sensed that this kind of praying required something, that it would be great in challenge. I also sensed that it would assuredly "change things." What kinds of change? I didn't know. What kinds of things? I didn't know that either but I was up for the adventure.

The years roiled on. The vision, the calling, the mental concept, or whatever it was that I had been gifted, was without exception my companion. At times, the impression was luminous but at other times, murky. I saw answers to prayers. I continued to believed that everything depended upon prayer but often enough it was only by heavily sought after blind faith. Periodically, it still is. But.... it is becoming clearer, so much clearer.

Now, not to tease you but I have been at this for a few hours so how about ....and pray some more!.....part 2 in the next few days? Thanks for your curiosity. I have really had to think. I mean, 1995 is 12 years ago, 1985, 22 years ago. Yikes!
Almighty God,
You are so awesome and so good. No one is good except You and You alone. Your mercies, truly, are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness! I thank you and praise you for giving me all that You are. You hold nothing back. I don't understand. Why do you love me? Why are you mindful of me and my puny life? Without You I am nothing. I am less than nothing. You alone are great and glorious and mighty and famous and Holy. You alone are God. I can't fathom it...that I am Your child. I am Your child. I am your child. I am Your child. I am Your
Child.
Unbelievable and yet true. How can I thank You? I give You my life. Let it be. Amen.