HER PRAYER

I was looking through my past journals and a note fell out onto my lap. She’s someone really close to me back at home in philly, someone who’s seen me through a lot of my immature spiritual battles growing up throughout middle school, high school, and college still. It’s dated May 28, 2008 and it’s in the form of a prayer:

Dear Lord, 

I pray for my sister Christina. Lord, I praise and thank you for bringing her [here] and for blessing my life with her presence. I pray that as she is in a transition period, and as she often feels that she is in a transition period, that you would be her stable foundation and Rock. The one thing that always stays the same. I pray that you will be her satisfaction and that you would sustain her. I pray that she will grow in knowledge and relationship with you and your Son and that she will in turn grow as the woman you made her to be. May she find herself, her identity, worth, her all in You. Provide her with a community of believers and a Church where she can be used by you and also be edified and sanctified. Reveal your love to her and heal her from her past. We praise you for your faithfulness. 

In Your Son’s name, Amen.

It made me realize how blessed I am to have people in my life praying for me. There’s people living in this world who’s never been covered by someone else’s prayer, let alone experience the power of prayer personally in their lives. I encourage you to just take a minute out of your busy, busy day and pray for your loved ones, your parents, people you see everyday… shoot, pray for people you hate. That you’ll change to love/forgive them as you’ve been forgiven ten folds over. Because no matter how long (or immediate) it takes, one day I'll look back on her prayer and know that God Answers.

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

— 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

STAFF 2009

I’m giving you my heart,

and all that is within.

I’m laying it all down,

for the sake of you my king.

I’m giving you my dreams,

I’m laying down my rights.

I’m giving up my pride

for the promise of new life.

I’m singing you this song,

I’m waiting at the cross.

And all the world holds dear,

I count it all as loss.

For the sake of knowing you,

the glory of your name.

To know the lasting joy,

even sharing in your pain.

And I surrender… all to you, all to you.

DEAD & ALIVE

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

— Ephesians 2:1-10