Prayer

Last Wednesday night, we had the seniors over to the house for youth group. We do it every week, and we always have a great time with them.  After Eli died, the high school kids were the easiest people for me to be around. They were sorry, they were sad, but they didn't avoid us. They just talked to us like we were still the same, which no one else did.

Of course, we weren't the same, but sometimes it feels good for people to treat you like anyone else.

We have been going through Acts verse by verse for a while. Kind of a long while, actually. Sometimes I get lost in Acts, and all the ways it reminds me of what church should be and so rarely is anymore.

But anyway, last week. We were talking about the power of prayer, that when Peter was imprisoned, the entire church got down on their knees and prayed. They didn't try to break him out, they didn't attack the guards, they just prayed.

And an angel walked right in and released Peter, even though sixteen armed guards surrounded him. It was so easy Peter didn't even think it was real...he thought he was having a vision.

It's just so cool. Prayer is truly the most powerful tool we have to do God's will. Sometimes I forget that prayer is more than me thanking God for the things I have and asking him for the things I feel like I need.

We are supposed to pray unceasingly, and to be perfectly honest, I didn't even realize what that really meant until Eli died. Although I definitely prayed unceasingly that day, I didn't pray the way I should have. I didn't pray for God's will, I prayed over and over and over for God to save him, to make the doctors wrong. I bargained, I begged, I screamed out to Him to give my baby back, before was even born. I never once gave him up to God. Maybe if I'd had more time to come to terms with it, I would have. I'll never know.

I am a controlling person by nature. I'm used to things going my way. But I cannot control God and his choices! I never learned that until that day. I have always struggled with keeping myself from bargaining, to giving myself and my family and my life up completely to God's will. Nothing that bad had ever happened to me. I had a happy childhood. I had good friends. John and I got married young and things went our way. We were blessed with two healthy kids and I had no reason to think that Eli's pregnancy and birth would go any differently.

But it was, and it did, and I couldn't control it, no matter what I did.
God alone is sovereign. God alone makes the hard choices. We just pray for them. Whether they're answered in the way we want them to be or not, they are always answered, and we are never left hanging.

It's easy for life to get in the way. Life here is imperfect. We live in a fallen world, and it can be easy to get caught up in the day to day here. Some days, when I've let life get a bigger piece of me than God gets, I feel an urge to hit the floor, right there, wherever I am. In Target. In Starbucks. Anywhere. Everywhere.

I want to get better at listening to that urge, and letting prayer be a bigger part of my life, no matter how crazy or exhausting my day was.  I want to be able to be a part of that church that prays unceasingly. Won't you join me?