A new way to pray

About 10 women sat in a circle poised to pray. Needy women. With broken families. Broken bodies. Broken marriages. Longings. Pain. Women like me.

One by one, each woman sat in a chair and shared what hurt her heart. Open. Willing to receive. From her sisters. From her God.

I braced myself for the onslaught of needs. I knew I couldn’t meet them. That lesson was deeply entrenched because of God’s work in my heart. I knew I couldn’t meet them, but I was still prepared for them to be overwhelming. Continue reading “A new way to pray”

When God is silent

Everywhere I turned, I saw a prayer request. A need.

When we were in India, part of my work was crafting honest requests on behalf of my family in a creative way. These requests were sent to people who supported us, for the purpose of making our needs known so that our team could come around us in prayer.

Another part of my work was sorting newsletters from families living all over South Asia to develop story ideas. Sometimes it would be 80 newsletters per month, two to three pages each. And, that’s just the people I didn’t know. There would be another 20 or so from people I knew personally.

At first, I felt like I should pray through each newsletter I received. Then, I allowed myself to focus on the people I knew personally. I felt like I should care about each family, each person. Anything less seemed insincere. But, I couldn’t do it.

It took me a long time to realize that God never intended to use me to meet everyone’s needs. Not even all of the needs of all of the people I am blessed to know. Continue reading “When God is silent”