Getting My Knees Dirty

I come to the computer today, not because I have anything wonderful to share. More because I have a heavy heart and need to collect my thoughts. I just finished a craft project I found on Pinterest of a prayer board. I told God I want to get serious about praying for people in my life. So, I have been faithfully praying for the needs of my family and my friends lately.  Well, as the saying goes, “When it rains, it pours,” I have found to be so true. It's time to get my knees dirty.  I have prayers for exhausted Mommy’s wishing their babies would sleep through the night, prayers for women who long to be Mommy’s (& could honestly care less if they slept through the night, if only to hold a baby in their arms), healing for so many women in my life with cancer (7 to be exact), a friend’s newborn baby is hospitalized with bronchitis/RSV, two family members in surgery this morning, another family member is waiting for test results, and a very dear friend just miscarried her baby after several months trying to get pregnant.  Whew! With my heart burdened by so many prayer needs I am thrown to my knees crying out to a Father who hears.

         I have been asked by some friends lately what it looks like to guard our minds from anxiety. It’s in the storm of all of this that I recognize my choice. A choice to walk in anxiety, fret and be overwhelmed by each persons need. I could do this, however, the list is quite long today and frankly, I can’t carry that kind of burden! I can’t make it better for any one of them. Sure, I can bring a meal, deliver some flowers, send a card. Often I do these things. However, without the God of the Universe… the Creator of Life, uplifting their spirits and giving them peace, my thoughtful outreach will be only bring a seconds worth of, “That’s nice someone cares,” to their minds. It might bring a temporary smile, but at the end of the day it’s going to take a lot more than a card to find healing through such hard things life can throw at us.

Thankfully, I know my God. I know through good times and bad times HE is the one who carries us through. He does not let anything come into our lives without filtering them through His hands first. And yet, sometimes people we love more than anything die. Sometimes bad things happen and we are punched in the stomach unable to breathe. I don’t pretend to claim being a follower of Jesus is easy. With or without God in your life, hard things happen. I just don’t understand how people who don’t know God get through them. Walking through infertility, loosing my father-in-law so unexpectedly to cancer, all of these recent hard times would have been impossible to bear without God’s Word and Spirit sustaining me.

So what do we do when life does punch us in the stomach and we begin to gasp for air? You know, that sobbing so hard you’re hyperventilating and snot is flying everywhere kind of cry? We’ve all been there or will be there at some point in life. It is often in these rock-bottom seasons where God picks us up, draws us to his chest and rocks us until we can catch our breath again.

It’s not that our lives weren’t fragile before, it’s just that lately God is letting me see these needs of my family and friends as He sees them. His heart aches as He watches us grieve, get scared, frustrated and weary. He longs for us to put our full weight on Him.

Philippians 4:6-7 says:

6 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

         Sometimes this is easier said than done. But today for me, it’s a choice. I am going to replace the heavy heart I have for the overwhelming prayer needs of those I love with the truth that God is able to handle our greatest concerns. I will tell Him each of them and thank Him for the ways He has provided in the past. And finally, I will ask Him for His peace & trust that He will guard my mind and heart from worry (and also the minds and hearts of those I’m lifting up in prayer).  Because at the end of the day, my card or flowers can only do so much. It’s going to take the Spirit of the Living God to handle the rest. 

-What is worrying your heart today? Have you talked to God about your needs? 

-Ask Him today for peace and to guard your heart from worry.

By the way: 1) Apparently, I once started a blog back in 2010 with 9 posts in it. Haha, no but seriously, has it really been this long since I last blogged? 2) Please tell me some of you have done this before too? "I'm gunna start a blog!" Start it then drop it a few months later. 3)No one even reads this anyway, so who cares.