Skip to main content

Changed

I suck at prayer.  If you need someone to pray for you, I'm probably not your girl.  Sure, I'll say I'll do it.  I'll even have good intentions to get it done.  But I won't.  The light will turn green, the kids will yell, the phone will ring and I will forget.  Every time.  My personal prayer life isn't much better.  It's embarrassing to say, but I'm too rushed, tired, and distracted.  The thought of prayer seldom crosses my mind.

Apparently, God has been noticing.  In the past few months I have found myself on the outskirts of situation after situation that lead me straight to my knees.  Not a passing "Please God work in that situation" way, but a "My words have run dry and still I pray" kind of way.  I have prayed myself to sleep and then awoken with an urgency to pray again.  I have wept as I pleaded with God to work miracles.  I have prayed that God's hand would be seen and I have prayed that Satan's lies would be revealed.

 Then, on Friday night, I found myself standing in a pediatric hospital room rocking a sweet little boy to sleep while his mama lay broken and exhausted on the bed across the room.  In the stillness of night, I began to pray.  As natural as breathing, it came.  I prayed for healing and rest and grace and strength.  I prayed and I rocked until both were asleep.  I prayed through the parking lot and on my drive across town.  I prayed myself to sleep.

If you would have looked in on me that night, you would have seen me smiling.  Not because I was doing some grand thing, but because for the first time I really knew that God was changing me.  He had given me a heart of prayer.  I may still get distracted and forget, but we're working on it.  Knowing that He is still working gives me hope.  Hope for my quiet time, attitude, patience, self-control, selfishness.............. you get the idea.  He is blessing me.  Through tears and heartbreak.  He is working.

Find more Laura Story albums at Myspace Music

Comments

  1. Lavish Memories PhotographyMarch 28, 2011 at 10:53 PM

    Love you sweet friend and thank you for praying for me and my sweet baby boy :) I felt those prayers more than you will know and was so blessed by you being there rocking my little guy to sleep! Love you

    ReplyDelete
  2. KarlaMarch 29, 2011 at 7:58 AM

    Erin, what a grand blessing it is that God never gives up on us! I love how He uses desperate situations to bring us to our knees, knowing sometimes the only thing we can pray is mumblings and heartfelt groanings which the Holy Spirit has to intercede for us. He then turns that desperation into the greatest of blessings and we grow and are changed as a result! Oh, how I love Him!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Janna OMarch 29, 2011 at 5:38 PM

    Isn't it amazing that He loves us enough to grow us? This is a great post, Erin. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mama's Sick

That's right, you heard it here first.  This mama's SICK!  I have fought off the runny nose-sore throat-head in a vice germs for months on end, but at last I have succumb.  Of course this misfortune must come on the same day as Ohio State's Bowl Game.  Try as he might, my dear husband has zero ability to hear ANYTHING that is happening when a football game is on.  Trust me.  I banged quite a few dishes around in the kitchen.  I even sighed loudly as I carried laundry in to fold.  Still...nothing.  He really does mean well.  He attempted to help with bedtime, but all three of those ankle bitters insisted on "mommy" putting them to bed.  He told me to go to bed as soon as he got home, but really ?  Can you imagine what the house would look like by morning???  I could have asked for help.  I should have asked.  Isn't that what my mother has been hammering into my head for the past 9 years?  "He doesn't see...
2 comments
Read more

My Promise

To my children: I recently saw this sign... "I am not your friend.  I am your parent.  I will stalk you, flip out on you, lecture, drive you insane, be your worst nightmare, and hunt you down when necessary because I love you and when you understand that I will know you're a responsible adult.  You will never find someone who loves, prays, cares, or worries about you more than me.  This is my promise to you." At first glance, I thought I might agree, but then I read on.  The words that followed didn't settle.  You are little and, right now, I am not your friend.  On day, I hope to be and so I am making you a different promise. I will give you the freedom to test your wings and the boundaries to keep you safe.   I will enforce constructive consequences that will help you better understand the choices you make.  I will listen to your fears, needs and desires.  I will treat you with respect, grace, and love alway...
3 comments
Read more

Changes

"This pool is shady.  I NEED sun, so get back over here!" she scorned.  A mom who's little girl just wanted to play with her friend.  A mom who couldn't see past her need for perfect tan lines.  A mom who was missing the joy of vacation and was, in turn, stealing it from her daughter. My heart breaks.  I wish I could make her see just how much she is missing.  I wish her daughter could spend an afternoon with a mom who was completely engaged.  I wish she could know the joy of splashing with her children.  The memories that far outlast a tan.  I've traded pina coladas for snow cones, novels for sand castles, and late nights for early mornings.  My tan lines aren't even, my people watching has been narrowed to three little ones, and more money was spent at The Children's Place than Banana Republic.  Vacation has changed.  It's not that I have given up on any of the original ways of vacation.  They are ce...
3 comments
Read more