“Prayer warriors” took on a whole new meaning 2 years ago after my brother-in-law’s farm accident. He had a tractor drive over his back. The odds of him coming out of that alive, let alone able to walk again were slim. He is a miracle. We called on everyone we knew to pray. For those first several scary days, that’s all we could do. Pray. My sister and I stayed up all day & night for a few days. Our slogan became, “we are running on God and coffee.” I’m not one to stay up all night, yet I didn’t feel tired (not like I would normally be) the whole time I was there. We could feel the prayers. If you’ve ever gone through something traumatic and let people into your personal life, asked them to pray for you, you might have experienced this. It’s amazing and life changing. It makes you look at prayer in a whole new way. Intentional…

Intentional prayer is different. Instead of saying, “I’ll pray for you,” you pray specific, intentional prayers. I like to think that God likes it when we have a conversation. When we are more specific and intentional, I feel like it makes it easier for him to help us. After I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I felt that same feeling again. I felt people praying for me. The best way to describe it, for me, is like a warm blanket covering you… wrapping you in peace. Given the experience from before, I asked for specific prayers. I opened up & shared what I was going through, in order for people to help pray specifically & intentionally. It’s hard to let people in and be vulnerable, but I was glad that I did.

If you want to help someone and you don’t know what to do, this is one of the easiest ways to help. Take a few minutes & have a chat with God. Include a prayer for peace for them. Offer some kind words to your friend… not advice or judgement or questions, just tell them you are praying for them (& maybe what your specific prayer was.) There are a lot of people I know who are going through some crummy stuff right now. It seems that the older I get, the more common that is – health issues, marriage issues/divorce, and death of loved ones. Aside from possibly bringing them a meal or sending a care package or card, I try to pray for them.

Faith is an important thing to me, and it’s become something I’m more open to talk about than ever before. It doesn’t make me perfect or better. It makes me more at peace. I feel that part of my journey is to share it with others – to share my faith journey, stumbles and all. Remember friends, you are enough!