Steven and I decided to attend the worship and community night that 12Stone Sugarloaf was having on September 10. (Elijah stayed home to watch SmackDown, and that's ok. LOL) It was a wonderful time of worship of Jesus, our Savior. During that evening, the campus pastor, Michael, told us about something God had prompted 12Stone Church to participate in. It was Seven Nights of Prayer. All campuses to gather together at Central Campus every night for seven nights for no other reason than to pray. Because God told them to. Normally, that is not something that I would think to attend. Prayer and I have a love/hate relationship at times. I do it. I know it's important. And quite often God shows Himself to me in it. But rarely. I don't see the power in it that PK does.
Let me explain. My mom died of cancer 20 years ago. It devastated me! My only son was just 5 months old. We had spent four years praying. Four years asking God to heal my mom. Four years pleading with God to not take my mom and allow her to get better so she could be a Granna to my son. My mom believed, and told people often, that she would be healed. We knew God could do it and we believed it! Then, on February 19, 2001 at 7:45 pm, she took her last breath. I was blessed to be with her then and all that day leading up to it. But this wasn't how it was supposed to happen. God was supposed to heal her. We had prayed! My mom KNEW she was going to be healed! She was supposed to get better! Thus began a long bout of me being angry and disappointed with God for not showing up how I wanted Him to.
So, for the last 20 years, I have struggled with prayer. I do pray. I talk to God and thank Him for what He's done or pray for the boys, of course. But deep down I always wondered if it was doing any good. I did it because that's what a Jesus believing mom does, right? But I didn't necessarily believe what I had heard over the years that "prayer moves the hand of God." In my experience, God is going to do what God is going to do. My praying doesn't change that. I pray to stay close to God and he helps me deal with whatever He chooses to do. That's how I saw it.
God, of course, know this. And as soon as Michael starting talking about the Seven Nights of Prayer, I knew that God was telling me to go. But not just go whenever. God was telling me to go on Tuesday specifically. Why Tuesday? I had no clue! Standing there, in the sanctuary, God told me that Tuesday was my day. Not an audible voice, but a deep feeling that I knew that had to obey. (Note: I am not one of those people that often feels that God is speaking something so specific right to them. It hasn't happened often, if ever. But this time I just knew He was talking to me!) So I told Steven and he, of course, encouraged me to go.
Tuesday came. I had been texting my small group to see if anyone else was going. It turned out that they were all planning to attend that same night. So we made plans to meet up and sit together. I figured we would sing, worship, and pray and then I would go home. But God had slightly different plans.
PK had asked someone to come speak to us that night. He was formerly on staff at 12Stone and was now pastoring a church in Bethlehem. He stated that he was grateful to be asked by PK to come speak and that he had learned a lot during his time at 12Stone. (God often has people at a specific place at a specific time to teach them something. THAT I know well!) He proceeded to tell a story (that I won't go into too much detail about) about how his mother was diagnosed with cancer when he was 15 years old. His dad was a pastor and they were a family of believers, so they prayed fervently for healing for his mom. They knew that God could heal her and they prayed believing it would happen. She died when he was 17. That was me! Different age, but that was me! He was speaking directly to me!
He explained that his prayer life was crippled that day, though he didn't realize that until years later. He still prayed, but he finally realized that something was missing. That's when he discovered that the death of his mom and God not answering his prayers of healing the way he wanted God to had wounded him. He stated it like this: My prayer life was like me limping to God when God wants us to run to Him. He further talked about how it's ok, and necessary to talk to God not just about disappointments with life, but also about disappointments with Him.
That was me! He was basically telling my story! I couldn't believe it ! But now I knew why God had wanted me here Tuesday, This very day for this very reason. God was using this pastor to talk to me and help me get over a hump that I just couldn't see to traverse.
Afterwards, with the encouragement of a member of my small group, I went down front to have the prayer team pray over me. I explained to them my whole situation with my mom and how God had told me Friday that today was the day I was supposed to come to the prayer gathering. They listened and praised God for bringing me there that day. I can't remember all their names, but they laid hands on me and prayed for me. Big, powerful prayers. They prayed that I would know the power of God and that my prayer life would become greater than I could ever imagine. I left feeling so blessed.
So now my journey of prayer begins. I'm not sure what I should "do" to make a better prayer life. I just know that God had told me to believe in His power and to expect Him to do great things. So often I start my day and expect ordinary things. God has told me to instead always be expecting Him to do something great. So I plan to walk through life with constant expectation. Always being on the lookout for what He may be doing and how He wants me to join in.
