Prayer--War Room

I watched the movie War Room last night. It spoke deeply to me and it ministered to my heart in ways I can not even explain in words. If people take it to heart, the message behind the movie, it can be life changing.

  

I haven't written in this blog in over a year but I wish to change that.  I wish to chronicle changes and miracles that are going to happen in our lives. Some I may detail, some I may not but God knows all the details. There are so many things I am believing God to to in our lives, our bodies, our church, our extended family, our community, and our nation.  Prayer it may feel small or even inadequate but when we utters words of heartfelt, faith and hope fueled prayer, not one word, not one syllable goes unheard by the Father. The older lady in the film was a warrior, a prayer warrior.  She touched lives, one person at a time, one prayer at a time. That's what I want to do. I want to change lives through God, not of my own power or volition but through God. I want to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to prayer. 

So today, I decree and I declare that our house, the one we live in, WILL BE a house of prayer. I want people to feel the power of prayer when they walk through the doors of our home. I pray God help me as I learn to pray as I ought, seek God's face and stand against the storms that rage. I am able to be a strong warrior of God because greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world. I don't have to be exactly like Clara in the movie. I can be the Thelma God called me to be and I can be mighty in prayer.

 I have often felt in the past, that yes I pray, and sometimes I touch heaven. However, due to the lies the enemy attempts to feed my mind; I often felt like my prayers were these itty bitty things that God heard and answered but were like little candle flames instead of a bonfire.  Well, God showed me last night ALL prayer matters. If you pray with a heart that is humble and filled with faith before God, it doesn't matter what that prayer looks like or sounds like, it is powerful. Do not underestimate your power through the Lord Himself.  I will be a woman of prayer.  I don't care if people think I am crazy, I will be a woman of prayer.  

God Himself, gave me a deeper call to prayer last night. He sounded the battle cry, the cry to pray like I have never prayed before. The cry to not doubt His power in a simple woman who just loves Him. I don't have to be eloquent. I don't have to have anything, but faith, humbleness and love.  I don't have to have a fancy place to pray. My closet, my prayer closet can be simple or elaborate but it will be a place of prayer, 

I think if we as a people, believers, prayed like is portrayed in the movie; we would see things we can't even imagine. Prayer it is alive.  You can feel it. When you are in the midst of a storm and people began to pray, you feel it. I know there have been times in my life that I knew people were praying without them even telling me they were praying.  

My challenge to anyone who wants to pray, believers, new believers, people struggling with faith, people who don't believe; try it, just try it and don't stop. Even if it is 5 minutes a day. Pray and ask God to teach you to pray and to send true prayer warriors into your life to stand with you in prayer. When we pray, we can just pray that God will release His power and His will into the situation, person or thing we are praying about. HIS WILL, not ours. He isn't a magical genie BUT we can go to Him about anything. Nothing is impossible for Him and nothing is too small or too insignificant to pray about.  Don't give up, even if it seems nothing is happening, don't give up. Pray....just pray.Talk to Him like He was sitting next to you having a conversation. 

My prayer is Lord, make me a woman of prayer.  Help me fight every battle of this life, from my knees. 

Thorns and flowers

I saw these lone 3 flowers on a bush in my backyard. One Sammy, has not yet decided to eat, since it has thorns. The beauty is not even a good representation in the photo.  The deep burgundy colors are rich and warm and silky but has many layers of color.  The beauty comes with thorns.  Thorns than can prick and make you bleed. That is so much like life. Life is beautiful but it comes with thorns.  To appreciate their beauty is to respect and be careful of the thorns.

 Life has to come with thorns and beauty, how else would we appreciate the good moments. It doesn't matter what part of this life you walk, who you are, what you have, what you believe, life comes with thorns. It is what we do with getting pricked that matters.  Are we going to stop enjoying the flowers because we might get pricked? Are we going to stop living life because, sometimes, frankly life is hard and has no explanation. We are all going through things, good things, bad things, somewhere in between things. We laugh, we cry, we hurt, we love, we live. It is all blended in to our lives to make a depth of color and beauty the Master is weaving through our lives.

Through it all, in my life, there is one thread that keeps me all together: It is the love of my Savior.  I want to make Him pleased with me. I want to spread the true love of Christ, the one that says, For God so loved the WORLD.  He didn't give of definition of who He would love. He came for whosever believeth in HIM.  I want to spread that kind of love. He walked, talked, ate with the ones society would not. He loved the "unloveable" by society's standards. That's who I want to be. My legacy in HIM, is love.  I want to be so filled with Jesus that His love is evident to everyone I met.

Life

Life is passing by faster and faster as the days go by. I can't even fathom how fast. This week alone we helped Chris plan out his schedule for high school, talked about Hannah's graduation from middle school and watched as Jenny took huge leaps towards being an older kid as she struggles with some math concepts.  Where oh where did time go?

I find myself wanting to hang on to their childhood a little harder. Jenny is still very much a little girl but we get glimpses of the big girl to come. She is all about Junie B Jones, ribbons, bows, ruffles, lace, patent leather Mary Jane shoes, and cow girl boots. She still likes dress up and cuddles and kisses and the magic of snow.  Then suddenly she says something so profound and so grown up, you gasp.

Hannah is so much a tween. She has a crush on a boy and asks about make up. She wants older girl clothes without all the bows and ruffles.Thankfully she still is about the glitz and sparkle. She has grand ideas about what love is all about and what "romance" is too. I am like you are too young to worry about romance. She smiles and blushes and says "okay mom, but I will be old enough soon".
Oh my, be still my heart, it can't handle the thought.

Chris also has a secret crush or two. He is very closed mouth about it. I was always his one and only.  I am going to marry you Mommy, he said when he was 3, and we will live together forever and ever he said. Now, he talks about what he wants to do. He is into computers and technology. One minute he is silly, not thinking straight teen boy and suddenly morphs into a young man with maturity that will blow you mind.

So here I sit, wondering.......all about life and how fast it is going.....can't it slow down just a bit?

I pray for the Lord to give me more wisdom to handle the changes and the fact that life, never ever slows down and we have to take time and appreciate the little things.

Love

There is a true picture, description, definition of love in the Bible. Yet many people are frightened of this definition. Most of us feel like we can never measure up to that definition. I don't think there is a person on this earth that loves in the way the Bible describes.  That is because the only love that never failed and never will fail is the love of Jesus. He lay down His life to prove His love.  His love had no ulterior motives. I admit, I fail at love. I am a work in progress but there is the whole point. We are not able to love like we are supposed to apart from Christ.  Even with Christ in our lives we will not always get it right. We will make mistakes. We will hurt people's feelings. We will be selfish or proud or conceited.  Yet, in all of that our Lord first loved us, faults and all and gave His life for us.  He does not keep a record of our wrongs and He keeps on loving us when we can't love the way we are called to love.  

(credit for photo goes to: http://christianmodestyblogger.blogspot.com/2012/09/bible-verse-otd-love.html)

We can not let guilt or condemnation stop us from trying. We can not let our "humaness" stop us from trying, because sometimes we will get it right.  We will show love to someone it matters to.  Sometimes we will show love to a stranger when the Lord Himself prompts us to do so. It may be as small as a smile or giving a blanket to someone who is cold. It may be giving water to the thirst or bending to hear the whisper of a child. Love is something that can't be measured, held back or stopped. Love grows and gives and one act of love can grow into something so enormous it effects everyone around like the ripples in a pond.

I choose to keep on trying to love in my imperfect way. I choose to find the little ways to show love, even to the "un-loveable".  I choose to love even when I don't necessarily want to. I choose to love those that push me away, even if it is quiet and from afar as I pray for God to bring a loved one back into the kingdom.  Love is beautiful regardless of how it comes. True Love is a beautiful thing.

To me, Valentine's day is not just a commercial holiday. I love people every day. Valentine's day to me is a day to remember that I am not perfect but I can give and receive love. I can make a difference by showing the love of Jesus, even if it is just a tiny drop into a large ocean.  When we love, even if the person we show love to does not see or receive it, there is one who knows and He notices and He smiles because His beloved son or daughter took time to LOVE.

1 Corinthians 13 New International Version (NIV)13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.