A Year Named Prayer

This year is a discovery year of prayer.  

I thought 2012 was named trust, but prayer is the only door I know to step through that will grow 

trust, faith, hope, and love

so I’m going boldly through it and waiting expectantly for all kinds of new on the other side!

I could spend hours ~

~studying the prayers of Moses, Elijah, Daniel, Hannah

~reading the markers of those who've traveled before, like

 Andrew Murray’s With Christ in the School of Prayer, 

Charles Allen’s Prayer Changes Things, 

St. Theresa’s The Interior Castle

~learning the different types of prayer

Real prayer is something we learn.  The disciples asked Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray" (Luke 11:1).  They had prayed all their lives, and yet something about the quality and quantity of Jesus' praying caused them to see how little they knew about prayer.  If their praying was to make any difference  on the human scene, there were some things they needed to learn.  It was liberating to me to understand that prayer involved a learning process.  I was set free to question, to experiment, even to fail, for I knew I was learning.  

          Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline

Because I'm a ~mom, wife, teacher, military spouse~ I don't have the luxury of hours on end.

And that's a really good thing.  

It's good to stay in the world I was placed in.

But I do have time for practicing.

I'm going to take my time with this year called Prayer.  I'm going to learn how to luxuriate in it.  Learn how to breathe it.

 This is part of my family.  I can give you a name for each face, can feel the warmth of each hand placed on me as Ken and I and our children sit in the center of a circled goodbye. 


God taught us in this little church in Brigham City, UT how to move our practices, our knowledge, and our love for Christ, to a centered place deep within and really begin to live a life that loves others before ourselves.  That's the only way I can explain the deep love and longing I have for these people.

In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills.  Progressively, we are taught to see things from his point of view.  

Foster, Celebration of Discipline 

I gave myself 30 minutes to write this.  I've time-busted it by 45 minutes.  My boys have been waiting to go bowling for an hour now.  One of my daily prayers for 2012 is that God clarify my purpose and provide the venue for writing, for writing is one way I pray.  And though I have journals stacked high on shelves, thoughts that never make it to the page, and little-to-no savvy for IT and making this job shorter, I am a writer.  Pray for me, Favored One!

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  Ephesians 2:19-21


Counting grace in 2012...
770.  I have experienced Love.
771.  I have experienced love.
772.  I have the privilege of praying for others.
773.  I am loved enough that others will sing my name before the Lord.
774.  God is always doing something new.
775.  He has answered my prayers before they have crossed my lips.
776.  In the circle I am reminded that I am being joined together with all the members of his household, being raised up as a temple of the Lord.
777.  My children forgive me when I have to write and they have to wait.
778.  We have some bowling to do!