Prayer Relationships

These past few weeks have been an awesome time for me personally, and it has all come from my time in prayer. Not just by myself, mind you, but of course that is part of it. I've found, through our Women of Hope leaders, two especially dear friends and several others that I love tremendously, and over the last several weeks we have gathered together to pray in large and in small groups. Why do I forget so easily how incredibly wonderful it is to have someone to pray with you on a regular basis? --Not just about things going on in our personal lives but for a purpose other than ourselves.

I remember a dear friend of mine, and unlikely friend I would say (probably 30 years my senior), who encouraged me to lead the women's ministry at New Life Bible Fellowship years ago, before Jacob was born. She committed to join me in prayer weekly as we waited on God for the time I was to step up and continued through the time that she was living in south Dallas. Let me say that I was really not all that interested in having a prayer partner, but I felt like it was something I was supposed to do. There were many days when I would ask God to give me a break and let me do what I wanted to do instead of meeting for prayer, and on occasion he said "ok," but many times he didn't. Want to know why she was such a good friend? Because she prayed with me. She shared her life with me--the good and the bad. She prayed FOR me, too. She knew God and spent time with Him and I could hear it in her prayers when we were together, and I learned so much from her and grew closer to God during that time in my life. It's not anything aside from that really. We didn't go out and do things together; we didn't help each other out all that much; and we didn't have all that much in common except a love for God our husbands and children and the women in our community.

She is what I want to be. I want to be the one who really wants to get together to pray and hold others accountable to do the same--just by being there, praying together, praying for them and their concerns as well as for a greater purpose beyond ourselves.

I feel so close to these ladies that I meet with now because of this prayer time with them--even in such a short time we have known one another. We don't spend hours and hours praying--just about an hour each time we meet. We laugh together, we struggle together, we cry together, and we stand in awe together--before, during and after prayer to our Father.

This understanding of relationships, these special relationships, has got me thinking about my relationships with my children and my husband as well as what things would be like in our church body if more people gathered specifically to pray.....

looks like I need to pray some more.....but that's a GOOD thing! :)