prayer

So I have been thinking a pretty great deal lately about prayer.
I have always felt a strong emphasis on prayer in my life.

It is amazing to think about praying in a picture form. A Christian has an all access pass to God's throne room. Imagine this beautiful room with a throne and on it is God. But we can go into Him whenever we want to. We just say Heavenly Father, or God Almighty, or Creator, or whatever you want to say to address Him. And we are welcomed into Him. Now it is up to you how you proceed. If you feel guilt you may just stand in the door way and fall to your knees hiding your face and crawling begging Him to look on you with forgiveness. Perhaps you feel joy and leap into the room and jump onto the arm of His throne wrapping your arm around Him as a friend. Maybe you are sad and lonely and you walk up to Him and wrap your arms around his neck and allow Him to scoop you up onto His lap. Sometimes you are in awe of Him and just stand or kneel amazed in front of Him just taking in all the beauty. And the thing is that no matter where you stand, sit, or kneel there is this film that covers you (or perhaps it covers the eye's of God) that is crimson. It is only because of this film (or lens) that we can be seen and heard by God. Jesus' blood and sacrifice is that film. We can boldly come before the throne of Grace because of that sacrifice! So beautiful.

Prayer is so powerful and important. You can converse always to God and you can always count on Him to hear you, to listen, and to answer. Now I am not saying that you should loose any respect for Him in the process. A child can ask a father for anything in the world and it doesn't mean the father will give it to them. Even the most attentive and generous father will not grant a child everything he asks. Also, just because the child asks lots of questions or gets scared or confused, it does not mean that the child has forgotten who their father is or that he is their leader and guide. God is our Father. He is the Perfect Father. We can talk to Him at anytime, about anything. I think that is pretty amazing.

In my journey right now we are at a standstill. Still waiting on Him to lead the way. We have a date in March for a church in Michigan to see if that might be the door he opens for us. The other step we have taken is to visit the youth department of our church here in Missouri to watch how the youth pastor runs his department and see his style of ministry.

I have been praying a lot about my heart in this whole situation. In my life it has been my desire to work with children or ladies in a foreign field. To my dismay my husband feels that youth is his passion whether here in the United States or abroad is not a factor. My experience as a teenager and my abilities now to connect to that age range are not very good. Especially when it comes to connecting to the teenage girl in today's society. I have never been a shopper or into purses, make-up, and fashions. I don't know my music artists or my celebs. So I have prayed, hard. I have always had the belief that I would follow my husband to anything and any place. I vowed to do my very best at whatever I needed to do. I told him that youth was not my passion right now, but I was willing to do it if he believed it was his. Lately, though, God has been working on me. After my first visit with the youth group at my church here in Missouri I felt a relief. I realized that connecting was going to be an issue no matter what type of teenager I had been in my past, and no matter what type of adult I am now. Teenagers are a vast group of people with a even greater array of personalities. The problem was that I wasn't supposed to connect with them. I am supposed to connect them with Christ. That means I don't need to try to be like them. It means I need to strive to be as much like Christ as I can be and pray that I can get them to follow Him too. I just need to keep working on my life and be open and loving to them. And I already know I have a passion for that.

I suppose, in my head, I had discriminated against teen girls in a way that wasn't Godly. I had categorized them into a clump (stereotyped) and that was wrong of me. I was so worried about not living up to the ideal teen girl, when who in their right mind wants to be categorized as a teen girl when they are 26 years old!

Now all this I got from praying openly to God about my feelings and my fears. And God answered me. This is what prayer does for me.

Keep praying and keep listening. God will hear and answer you. He can work on your heart and He wants to. Just be open and honest to Him. Remember that He already knows anyway, so spill your heart to Him.