Friday, October 10, 2014

Hand Written Fridays pt. 2

HOLLA! Today is Friday! Which means a look into my prayer journal! I know, you're dying for your Friday peek. 


When my husband and I got married we lived ten minutes from our church, a church we had both been at for years, and we lived 20 minutes from several college friends we were close with. We were surrounded in community. Three months after our first baby was born my hubs took a job at a church about an hour away from all of that. 

Losing our community was a big blow for us, we are relational people. We're still close with so many of the people from our old stomping ground but just by virtue of the distance it's different now. I spent months feeling isolated and lonely, and especially as a new mom it was scary. 

I'm not sure there's ever been anything I've prayed for as hard as I prayed for a new faith community. Guys. Looking back through these prayers, reading my own desperation and heartbreak, I was again completely brought to tears at God's faithfulness. Today I see the women and men who have surrounded my family, our extensive and irreplaceable faith community, and I can't believe I ever didn't have them, or doubted that they were out there. 

The best part about this prayer and how it was answered is that it taught me so much about community, but also about prayer. So often we approach prayer like a genie lamp or a magic spell, let me say the right words in the right way and I'll get what I need. I'm guilty of it, I think we all are, I certainly was regarding this. But slowly the Lord spoke to my heart and gently explained that sometimes when we need something, even when it's something the Lord desperately wants for us, He doesn't just give it to us. I didn't walk into a faith community, and the Lord didn't just give it to me, instead He gave me boldness, and a sense of urgency an a heart for other people in need of community. It was through those things He answered my prayer. I worked hard for my faith community, I built it brick by brick, I refused to back down when I was discouraged or scared, not because I'm awesome, but because God is awesome. The strength to step outside my comfort zone, the boldness to go from being strangers to friends, these were not my characteristics, this was how the Lord answered my prayer for community. 

I'm so SO thankful not just that my prayer was answered, but for how it was answered. What have you learned from how your prayers been answered?

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