Friday, September 9, 2011

My Life Today - in Prayer

by Bethany Lashbrook

Today's Verse: 2 Chronicles 6:19, "Yet, LORD my God, give attention to your servant’s prayer and his plea for mercy. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence." (NIV)

Dear Lord, May your blessings continue to flow on my family and my town and my church as you have always let them. May you continue to find favor with my friends and family and keep your ever present arms around us. May you continue to guide and lead us in the direction we are to go. Thank you for being there. Thank you for the good times. And thank you for the bad in which I could grow.

Please be with my work friends. Help me to show them the love that I have in my life, and not the nastiness that a long day brings my way. Please continue to watch over my church family and help me to remember to pray for each of them - specifically by name - when they have entrusted a prayer request to me. Send something my way (a reminder if you will) if I am not holding up my end of the bargain. Help me to pray YOUR prayers and not MY prayers. Please guide me, Holy Spirit, in my life. Guide my words and my actions. Help me to be the Lord's hands, feet, ears, mouth, LIFE!

Continue my growth in you Lord and when I am headed down the wrong path, help me to turn around - to repent - and go about the right way. And thank you for being there with open arms (once again) when I walk towards you. Help me to find joy in you, life with you, and forgiveness through you. Remind me when I can't love, that you can. Thank you for healing within when I didn't know it could be possible.

Remind me to smile at someone when it looks like they need a smile. To hug someone when they need a hug. To shut my mouth when they just need an ear.

And when I come home after having all these thoughts swarm my head all day, remind me to be nice to my family, to be the mom who makes everything "just right", not perfect, Father, but just right for my family. Help me to walk through that door reenergized, full of life, and definitely full of YOU! Give me compassion towards my children; to give time to kiss the booboos, to give the 30 second hug that makes them push me away, to listen to their fun-filled stories about school. And when my husband walks through the door, fill me with a longing to talk to him, to share with him, and to LISTEN to him (you know that's hard, and not because it's not interesting, but because I don't shut up). Help me not to bombard him with my issues but to be the mate that listens as well as shares.

Thank you for keeping us happy, healthy, and for the roof over our head. Thank you for air-conditioning, heat, refrigerators, carpet, grilled food, corn on the cob, and smiling kids with full bellies as we tuck them in. Thank you for this blessed life in this blessed country where I can speak freely. Thank you for those that have served so I can live and love as I please.

Please repair those friendships with which I have failed. Please be with those family members who don't believe in You and with those who do believe in You but struggle everyday with convictions and aggravations towards themselves. Please show me tomorrow what I can repair in which I have ruined.

Please give me the time, the energy, and the will power to either get up early or stay up late to learn about you, read about you and give you the time in prayer, quiet study, and concentration that you deserve. Then guide me in sharing it all with my children. Help me to be that brave warrior that you call for. Thank you Father for listening to me complain, for listening to my excuses (even when there shouldn't be any) and for being there every step of today, even when I didn't acknowledge you.

And as I go to sleep, Father, help me to wake up, and to think of Creation and thank you for the awesomeness of it. And if you so choose to take me before I wake, help my family to know that I love them, more than they will ever know.

Please help me get rid of all the worry, the regret, and mistakes I made today and remember that you sent your Son so that I may wake up, start afresh and begin anew. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

So be it. Amen.

1 Samuel 12:23, "As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right." (NIV)


3 comments:

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Bunny said...

I just happened onto your blog today. Thank you so much for posting this. It is so true of how I want my life to be, Christ filled. I feel that I fail so often as a wife and a Mom and just pray that God will use me anyways. Thank you and may God bless you as you continue in His love.

Christina

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