Day 1: Reminiscing & the Weekend

Verse of the Day - Day 1: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the
world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world." - 1 John 2:15-16

Well, my weekend got off to a great start...and it just kind of stayed in this state of awesome greatness. Jason works a lot of weekends, but every three weeks or so we get a weekend off together. This was one of those weekends and it did not disappoint.

Friday we saw my favorite band at the Boutwell Auditorium. Before the show, we ate at the Bottega Cafe - which was a new experience for me. I've eaten at Bottega once before, but that was when I was still in high school and visiting Samford. Then we went to the Needtobreathe show, and we even ran into some friends! This was my third time seeing them live, and Jason's fifth. Interestingly enough, they're MY favorite band, not his. Hehe, guess he'll have to keep taking me every time they're close by ;-)

Jason & I between sets

Needtobreathe

My new hoodie.

Saturday Jason drove me around what is now my "dream" neighborhood (emphasis on the dream). We also loaded up on fruits and veggies for this week! Yay for Aldi. We only spent $56 and that included some normal food for Jason. That night we ordered Tazikis to go, stayed at home, and watched The Impossible - which was super intense but good. I can't believe Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress over Naomi Watts. Nothing personal Anne, Naomi was just that good. We also caught up on some of our TV shows, one being Person of Interest. When we were in NYC, we saw them filming an episode and we were about three feet away from Jim Caviezel (aka John Reese on POI and Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) and Michael Emerson (aka Harold Finch on POI and Ben Linus on LOST). Well, this past Thursday, "our" episode was on! We finally got to watch it on Saturday and we literally both freaked out!

If you own this house, I'll be your best friend forever if you sell it to the Morales' for $10.

Cleanse groceries.

The top picture is what we saw in NYC. The bottom picture is what was on TV Thursday.

Sunday we went to church, relaxed, and then went to a wedding to see one of my friends from work get married. I spent a little bit of time answering the "Personal Reflection" questions in the Made to Crave book (which I finished on Friday...YAY). In keeping with vunerablity throughout this process on my blog, I wanted to share this with my blog readers. I hope and pray that maybe just one person can halfway identify with me on this.

Question: What fantasies do you have about what life would be like if you were at your ideal weight? Do you imagine everything in your life would somehow be better—your relationships would improve, your confidence would soar, your problems would fall away, you’d be respected, admired, obeyed? Why do you think your weight has so much power to influence your outlook on life?

My Answer: "I think that I've always thought that if I were skinnier I'd have more friends, find a really great and good looking guy who would want to date me, get a super awesome dream job, and have better relationships with those who are currently in my life. But now that I'm married to the perfect guy for me, and I'm not skinnier, I know that skinny does not equal happy. Even though I may not be happy with myself, I am more than happy - in fact I'm overjoyed - with the life that God has given me. My weight battle is now more about loving myself and being confident in who God made me to be. I feel like my weight holds me back from accomplishing things that He may be calling me to do - not physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually (I know that I'm not obese or even really fat...I'm just uncomfortable). I want to find my worth in Him and follow ANYTHING He calls me to do. I've found that being married and still being my version of overweight, I find a lot of my self worth through the eyes of my husband...which I think is good in many ways...but I want to find ALL of my self worth and confidence in Christ - internally and externally."

I'm not sure how well I actually answered the question, but those thoughts have been on my heart for a while so it felt good to get them all out.

This morning I got up at the normal time, made a juice, and packed an ice chest (yes, I have an ice chest at my desk today) full of fruit.

1 Granny Smith Apple, 1 Kiwi, Some green grapes.

Please excuse the piled dishes. We were in a hurry this morning. Ahh...Mondays.

My bag-o-fruit to take to work. It's a few layers deep.

My goal is to write a blog post that will go up before lunchtime that gives an overview of the previous day and the prep for the current day.

A few things to know if you're doing the cleanse along with me:

1. You can't have coffee. Now, I don't really use super bad stuff in my coffee, or at least I don't have to. I can do black coffee with a little skim milk and Splenda, so there may be a day that I have to break down and drink a bit of "gray" coffee. Tea is a great alternative in the mornings.
2. After day one and two, you may feel a little "swimmy headed". I honestly don't know how else to describe it. This went away for me after the first few days once my body got over the shock that I was actually eating natural foods. 
3. If you're hungry, you need to eat. Maybe eat a little something every 90 minutes or so.
4. Drink LOTS of water.
5. Stick to the plan as best as possible. This is done best by not putting yourself in temptation of breaking the plan. Don't go "sit" with your bestie at Pizza Hut, it won't go well. 
6. Don't try to exercise. If you do, go for a brisk walk or something, but don't try to do heavy weightlifting or intense running or anything. 
7. The recipe soup on Day 7 makes a TON. I actually didn't buy stuff for it because last time I ended up throwing a lot of it out. I may end the cleanse at lunchtime on Day 7 this time because I got really really weak on this day last time. After eating protein for a few days, it was really tough to go back to eating only veggies at the end of this. So, I think I'm just going to make about 1/4 of what the recipe calls for and then I'll eat protein at dinner.
8. Don't try to eat anything fried for a few weeks after the cleanse. It will make your tummy feel verdy uncomfortable. 
9. Get lots of sleep! 
10. Pray through this thing! Cleanse your body of toxins, sugars, and bad things, but also cleanse your heart of the nasty-ness that clogs it up on a daily basis.

If you have questions, please feel free to blogbacktome by commenting below or sending me an email! Thanks in advance for the prayers and encouragement :) 

That's all for Day 1 folks.
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Eat Your Heart Out

Remember last year when I did the cleanse before I went wedding dress shopping? Well, I'm going to do it again - minus the wedding dress shopping.

I've almost finished Made to Crave (I took on another book while I was reading this one, so it's taken me longer to finish it) and I feel as though the Lord is prompting me to do something drastically obedient.

Interestingly enough, I just finished reading all of the laws that God gave to Moses about what the Israelites could and couldn't eat, about their sacrifices, and how they are to conduct their lives as God's chosen people.

I don't believe in coincidences, but I believe in answered prayers. I feel like everything that I've been reading, praying, learning, talking about, and writing about is all coming together - converging roads if you will. I know that God has allowed me to come to this place in what I'm learning because I've been begging Him to teach me.

This is how I feel.
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Teach me to trust.

Teach me to be obedient.

Teach me to crave His glory.

Teach me dependence.

Teach me to pray.

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These have been my prayers over the last four weeks or so, and God has been faithful to answer each of them. I'm on a journey - and if you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that.

I've always tried to be healthier to lose weight. While I still want to achieve a healthier life and I'd love to fit into my old jeans from college, this is the FIRST time that I'm doing this as a spiritual journey in which I am more focused on what God wants to do inside of my heart.

As I did last time, I'm going to attempt to blog about my cleanse each day. You can read the posts from my first cleanse here:

Preparing for the cleanse

Day 1: Fruit

Day 2: Veggies

Day 3: Fruits and Veggies

Day 4: Bananas and Milk/Yogurt

Day 5: Thoughts so far

Day 5: Poultry and Tomatoes

Day 6: Poultry and Veggies

Day 7: Weird Soup

I will begin on Monday, April 8th and, Lord willing, end on Sunday, April 14th. I really liked the "Modified GM Cleanse" (or the "Eat Your Heart Out" diet) so I'm going to stick with that. If anyone would like to do it with me, I'm posting the plan below for you to reference. I would ask this though: If you're planning on doing this cleanse as well, please let me know so that we can encourage each other along the way. Just send me an email or text so that I know :)

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Please be in prayer for me as I prepare for this cleanse and as I embark on this challenge. Pray that the Lord would be faithful to allow me to forget my hunger and cravings for delicious sugary foods and yummy crunchy, salty snacks. I'd also love encouragement along the way. If you think about out, a little shout out of encouragement would be a wonderful gift to receive next week.

Alright, that's all of today.

Thanks for reading!

Have a good weekend everyone!

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Well, this is awkward

When I decided to do Guthrie's bible reading plan, I also decided that I'd listen to the sermon from Brook Hills that coincides with the reading. A few years ago, Brook Hills walked through the bible in one year (following Guthrie's plan) and so there is one sermon per week of reading. Since I started attending Brook Hills about 2/3 of the way into this series, I wanted to get the full effect and go back and listen.

So, here I am sitting here listening to the sermon about Exodus, and I feel like a complete idiot. After my grumbling and complaining about reading about cubits and all of that stuff, this is what I hear:

"God was delivering His people. For what purpose? So that they might serve and worship Him. And what this is pointing us to today is that the ultimate purpose of salvation is worship. God saves us for worship. God delivers us for worship. Did you know almost 50 times in these first four books of the bible alone, almost 50 times, we see the phrase, and you see it over and over again in your reading, “[either you or they] will know that I am the Lord”. God is delivering His people for His glory. It’s the whole point of why, here at the end of Exodus, we have from chapter 25 all the way to chapter 40, with this brief little interlude in between that helps us understand worship, from chapter 25 to chapter 40 the majority of this portion of Exodus is all dealing with, what? It’s worship. It’s the tabernacle. It’s detail after detail after detail. You’re wondering why all these details are in here. Someone “twittered” me this week and said – yes, I have sold out to the Twitter world - so I got a tweet this week and someone in our faith family this week said, “Shekels, and cubits, and pillars, oh my! The tabernacle is the greatest!” This is the picture we’re reading through when we start to skim through some of those details, but the reality is God is prescribing how He is to be worshipped. It’s the point of why He has delivered them out. Worship of God is important to God. God is God-centered. God exalts God. And the beauty of Exodus, the beauty of the gospel is how God exalts His great name."
- David Platt, Where Glory Dwells
 

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I'm officially humbled. I just feel like I need to apologize for my post yesterday. While yes, I did end up confident that God was teaching me through my reading, I was extremely negative, and for that I am sorry. So, spend some time in worship today. Spend some time in Exodus. Spend some time in another part of His Word. Spend some time in prayer. Just, whatever you do this evening, make sure that you take advantage of the fact that because of Christ's death, we have the Spirit of God dwelling in us!

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Colossians 1:19-20

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The Exodus

I feel like I've been reading the book of Exodus forever. In reality, it's only been nine days, but it feels like I've been reading it in real time. I'm trying diligently to learn from it - but when cubits get involved, I feel like I need to go back to seminary (or have my former seminary-student roommate move back in with me for a few days). This morning I found myself  looking ahead to what's next (Leviticus) and wincing.

Before beginning this bible reading plan, I'd never read through Genesis from start to finish. In fact, I'd never read through any Old Testament book from start to finish. Now, I've read all of Genesis, all of Job, and I'm almost finished with Exodus. I learned A LOT in the first two books, and I've been praying for God to reveal things to me that I probably missed when I watched Prince of Egypt at age eight (just to clarify, that's a joke). I feel like an idiot for getting caught up on the technical side of one of the greatest stories in the bible - aside from the life of Christ. I'll even go so far as to say one of the greatest stories in all of history (secular history included). This is God making a covenant to His chosen people and getting them the heck out of harms way! He's delivering them. He's sanctifying their faith. He's giving us the most well known and important set of rules and biblical laws. Why can't I get into this book?

Before you start rolling your eyes at me, I will assure you that this post was not written for the sole purpose of just updating you on the book in the bible I've reached in my (slow moving) reading plan. I want to share how amazing our God is and how faithful He is.

I'm trying to finish up the book, Made to Crave, that I mentioned in one of my previous posts. As I was reading today, I came across this paragraph:

"A few years ago, the words portion control took on new meaning as I studied the book of Exodus and noted the curious emotional response God’s people had after Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt. They’d just seen God do miracle after miracle to help them escape their captors, but they panicked when it came to food. In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, 'If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.' Then the LORD said to Moses, 'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.' (Exodus 16:2 – 4) In other words, God planned to use the Israelites’ food issues to teach them the valuable lesson of daily dependence on Him [this sounds familiar]. Don’t you love how applicable this is to us? Ancient biblical stories have taught me that history certainly has a way of repeating itself, so I’d be wise to pay attention. Because these recently freed Israelites continued to grumble against God and turn their hearts from Him, God took them on a forty-year detour. Instead of heading straight to the Promised Land of freedom, they had to wander in the desert for forty years while they learned how to truly depend on God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend the next forty years of my life learning this lesson. I want to stop grumbling about my weight, apply this valuable training about God-dependence and portion control, and keep walking toward the victory that can be mine."
TerKeurst, Lysa (2010-12-21). Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food (pp. 131-132). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Wow, on a day when I woke up early, sat at my dining room table, struggled to read Exodus 33-36 and left asking God to please allow me to learn from my reading, this was a huge answered prayer! Maybe I'm too dense to see the reality of what God has been teaching me on my own, and I am thankful for the common grace of books and literature to wake me up with His truth.

So, today as you go through your routine, or go about the abnormalities that may or may not be causing you strife, take heart in the fact that we most certainly serve a faithful God. Even when we feel like our prayers are hitting the ceiling and we're just not getting it, not hearing Him, or whatever, He is with us. He is loving us. He is caring for us. Trust in His Word. Trust in His promises. Trust in His truth.

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Sin vs. Salvation

One of the podcast that I subscribe to is Desiring God's Author's on the Line. Back in October, the host interviewed Michael Reeve, author of "Delighting in the Trinity". In the 24 minute interview, Reeves presents this paralleled comparison between sin and salvation. 

This is what he says concerning sin:

"Why is it that Eve takes the apple? The action of her sin actually flows out of the affections where her heart is. That she desires wisdom, she wants to be more like God, more than she wants to trust God. So, she's got a love for something else rather than a love for God. And that's how sin works in us. The reason I act sinfully is because I've begun to desire sinfully. I've begun to desire something else more than I've desired God. And this is James 1 - it's desire gives birth to sin; sin gives birth to death."

And on salvation:

"This is how we're built. So the same thing works for salvation. I naturally don't desire God. I desire myself. I desire other things. But what the Spirit so kindly does, is the Spirit opens my eyes to see the glory and beauty of God - and so wins my  heart...I want people to see that the living God is more beautiful and more desirable than our sin. And that's the Spirit's work through the Word. The Spirit opens our eyes that we might see Christ."

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May we focus today on what we desire for. Are we desiring success, money, material possessions, food, love, or other things of this work that are temporary? If so, let us fix our eyes upon Jesus. Let us fix our desires and our affections on the cross. Let us focus on the God who loves you and sent His son so that you and I might live eternally with Him.

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Jesus is the bread...so take those rolls off the dinner table!

Sitting in a booth, sharing a bagel with my mom, I was faced with a new reality. We drank our coffee, shared a snack, and caught up with each other - this was nothing out of the ordinary. Since my junior year of high school, this was our routine. Even so, there was something different this time.

Here’s a little background information -

Two years ago (and around the time of this mother/daughter coffee date), as a recent college graduate, I lost about 20 pounds. Standing at only 5 feet tall with a curvy frame, 20 pounds made a huge difference in the way I looked and felt.

I was the girl crash dieting and forcing myself into the gym since early high school. I was the girl constantly tugging at her clothes and explaining my weight anytime I got the chance, just to make sure that I acknowledged my less-than-perfect body before anyone else did. So after months of cutting out all the wrong foods and fueling myself with all the right foods, my mom was curious as to why a bagel was my choice of snack that warm August afternoon.

I don’t think that my mom meant for her words to impact me very much or change my whole outlook – but I’m glad that they did. I truly believe that she had a genuine curiosity about the maintenance phase of my weight loss plan. But as she questioned, and I answered back with some vague excuse, her next words hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Have you ever considered that your battle with self-esteem, food, and your weight is more of a spiritual battle than anything else?” she asked.

Quietly, I muttered, no. Over the next few weeks, I contemplated this question almost constantly. I obsessed on it because I felt so silly for never even considering that all of these years that I’ve struggled and been overly self-conscience, I never once thought to give this “issue” to the Lord.

Why I hadn’t I? When I began dating my husband, which was about a year before this, I prayed daily that God would allow us to connect mentally/intellectually (when we began dating), spiritually (as we grew together as a couple), emotionally (as things became more serious and we started talking about marriage), and physically (after we wed). Now, all four of these things are all extremely vital to building, maintaining, and enjoying our marriage. I think that at some point in my life I just concluded that these four things made up every aspect of our person. So why then, did I not apply these same principles, including the spiritual aspect, to my only real consistent and long-term strife?

Although the answer really doesn’t matter as much as the subsequent action, I realized over time that the answer really boils down to a deep rooted fear. I feared letting go of control.  But, as I just said, identifying the problem is really only the first step. The important thing is how to change the problem.

Therefore, in a day where young women are living in an over saturated, media-based culture that forces us to see its idea what beautiful looks like, I want to extend a white flag of surrender for those who are just tired of trying.

My advice to you is not to quit, but rather, loosen your grip a little bit; let go. Here are some ways that I’ve learned to balance my struggle in a healthier way.

•  Physically - The most obvious way to take action on a struggle with self-esteem, food, and weight is by taking a physical action. I’m not a medical professional, so I’ll just give you basic ideas that I’ve learned from experience. Eat foods that come from nature. The means a diet that contains higher protein and fiber and lower in carbohydrates, sugar, and processed foods. Exercise as much as possible, but make it fun. If you like running, add some fun music to your workout playlist. If you hate running, join a gym that offers classes like cycling, kickboxing, or step aerobics. Exercise with your friends or your significant other and challenge each other; a little competition is always exciting. I’ve even started wearing a pedometer to work, and I try to compete with myself each day to see if I can find ways to walk more just by showing up at work.

•  Mentally/Intellectually - For me, this is the easiest way to conquer my issue. I read a lot of health blogs, exercise blogs, and articles on health and wellness. Sometime I enjoy reading books on health and exercise, but many times books promote fad diets, and I try to steer clear of those. Find a few blogs that you like, and follow them regularly. The beneficial thing about a blog is that it’s a real person writing, so usually it offers encouragement as well as tips, advice, and ideas. I’m reading a book right now that was suggested to me by one of my friends/blog readers called Made to Crave by Lysa TerKeurst. I recommend it to anyone who struggles with “eating your feelings” as I like to call it. Here’s one (of many) quote from it that truly stuck out to me: “But, if I allowed my brain to park in a place of dissatisfaction about any part of my body, it would give Satan just enough room to move in with his lie that strips me of motivation: ‘Your body is never going to look the way you want it to look, so why sacrifice so much? Your discipline is in vain.’” Honestly, I could probably quote the whole book, but that would make this post completely irrelevant – so go buy the book and read it for yourself!

•  Emotionally - Incorporating an emotional aspect to battling against my weight and food is almost as hard for me as incorporating a spiritual side. It’s really tough for me to be vulnerable enough with myself to face what I like to call, “The Why’s”. Why am I so drawn to eat things that I know in my head are not good for me? Why am I sitting on the couch talking on the phone or watching TV when I can be walking around the neighborhood talking on the phone or listening to music? Why do I crave unhealthy foods when I’m mad/upset/hurt/sad? Why do I buy things at the grocery store that I know will be tempting to me, even though I’ve been eating so good all week long? Honestly, this list could go on and on, and I’m sure that everyone’s list will be a variance of “The Why’s”. Many times it’s easy to find a surface level answer, but to dig beneath the surface gets messy. I for one don’t like to face the reason for why I turn to food for comfort, or why I remain sedentary when I get home from a sedentary job. It’s painful, and many times the conclusion that I come to is that my strength, will power, and efforts will never be enough for me to make real progress in this area of my life. Which leads to my next point...

•  Spiritually - If you look throughout the bible, there are subtle, but clear references to food in relation to sin. Eve ate the apple and the Israelites freaked out because they were running out of food, just to name a few. But, as a beautiful picture of restoration, the bible also uses images of food to encourage us. When Jesus is tempted in the desert, the adversary tempts him with food, yet Jesus says that no man can live by bread alone. In the gospel of John, Jesus declares, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Jesus also meets the physical need of people when he feeds the 5,000 before he feeds them spiritually in Matthew 14. So, why then do we not cast our burden - our answers to “The Why’s” on our Lord and Savior? Do we think that our food issues or our weight issues are too petty for God? Do we think that we should be strong enough to accomplish our weight loss goal on our own? Or, do we deny that we even have a problem? Something that I’ve learned is that the moment I replace God with food, I’m not only sinning, but I have a problem that needs fixing by the Holy Spirit. When I’m offered a job, my husband and I celebrate by going out to eat. The last time that this happened, it took me almost a day to stop and praise God for providing a job for me. When I’m upset about something, I’ll justify a bowl of ice cream after dinner and a skipped day at the gym, but it might take me hours or even days to bring whatever I’m upset about before the Lord. Does any of this sound familiar? This issue of self-esteem, food, and weight is intricately connected with our relationship with God. Treat it that way and give it the validity in your prayers that its due.

As I look back on the last two years of my life, I almost start to laugh at how it looks. I’d love to tell you that I’m where I want to be and that the truth that my mom presented to me that day over coffee and a bagel has whipped me into shape and now I’m exactly where I want to be. But the reality of this truth that she spoke is that it’s a journey. It’s a spiritual journey, and I don’t pretend that I have all the answers. But I will admit that since that day, things have been different for me because God used my mom as a vessel to reveal something important to me and it finally clicked. My hope and my prayer is that, at the least, is that you’re encouraged by reading this. I’d love for this to be that epiphany moment and you’re literally staring at your computer right now with your hand on your forehead saying, “Man, why didn’t I see this before?!” If that’s the case, I’m thankful that God has used a simple girl like me, and I pray that he receives glory for it all.

That seems to about cover all I had to say today.
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Forget-Me-Nots

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Wow, it's be a while since I've blogged to you...I apologize for my absence. The past few months haven't been too particularly busy, but I've just been focused on a lot of other things. So, I sincerely apologize for my lack up life update via blog - but it hasn't been too incredibly interesting. My hope is that over the next few weeks, the fruit of my blog silence will reveal itself through some new posts.

I've been trying to intentionally spend a lot of time reading God's Word. I started using Guthrie's One Year Chronological Reading Plan a few weeks ago. I've also started listening to a lot of sermons on podcast. I've randomly tried to unsuccessfully do this over the past few years, but I've focused on how to carve out time in each day to accomplish this. Why, you might ask? Well, I want to fill myself up with the Word so much that what I speak about, think about, dream about is God's Word. I literally am aiming to eat, sleep, and drink truth.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not there yet; I'm not even close. I still have to make myself listen to a podcast rather than turning on fun music at work. Then, I have to make myself pay attention. I have to make myself keep up with the reading plan...and I'm really not good at that. It's a lot easier to keep pressing snooze in the morning until I run out of time to read before work...and it's really easier to turn on the TV or just keep talking to Jason until I fall asleep instead of intentionally making time to read before bed. But, I'm working at it...and as always...God's Word has not returned void - but more on that later :)

Last week I was listening to a sermon by Matt Chandler that was preached the Sunday after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary. The sermon as a whole was a great hour of truth, and as I expected, it was full of emotion due to the circumstances. I didn't listen to this sermon on purpose, it was just the next "unplayed" podcast on my iPhone, but as a drove to work on a sunny almost Spring day, I believe that God opened my eyes to something.

As I drove, I started thinking about many of the tragedies that I've heard about in my life - big and small. I thought about 9/11, Columbine, and Sandy Hook. I thought about friends who have lost a parent or sibling. I thought about struggles that I know are going on around me and hardships that friends, family, and acquaintances are enduring each day. I thought about the many times that I've told people I'd be praying for their circumstance, or the times that I've gathered with a church or group to pray for nationally recognized tragedies. I asked myself, have I really prayed? In many of these situations, the answer was yes, yes I did pray. But then I believe that God forced me to go a step further and think about those individuals now - am I still praying? I teared up a little, and I muttered a reluctant "no" aloud in my car.

At almost 24 years old, I finally came to realize that prayer is an act that must be sustained. The friend who has lost a parent or sibling still misses them every day. They need prayer. The family member who struggled with depression or an eating disorder is still fighting the temptation to turn back even five years later. They need prayer. The parents of those children who fell victim to a senseless tragedy in Newtown, CT still walk by their child's room each day and experience pain in the depth of their soul. They need prayer. Twelve years later, families who lost someone on September 11, 2001 will still have an empty seat at their dining room table. They need prayer. Just because the media coverage ends or the funeral is over does not mean that prayer for that circumstance should cease - in fact, it should increase.

In Novemeber/Decemeber 2012, Brook Hills did a series on prayer.
To listen to the podcasts from this series, click here.

Our sinful, human nature causes us to forget things that don't necessarily benefit or effect us directly. We're selfish, and that causes us to focus on ourselves rather than fix our eyes upon Jesus and cry out to Him on behalf of our brothers and sisters. I urge you to change that in your life. Let us be an outward focused people who intentionally continually pray for others' circumstances. Today, before you go to bed, I challenge you to make a list of people or situations you have prayed for in the last year or the last two years. Leave that list beside your bed, and pray for those people each night. Keep adding to it - your prayers will not return void.

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"so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

{Isaiah 55:11}

"The Lord is near to all who call on him,
    to all who call on him in truth."

{Psalm 145:18}