How do you Pray?

Over the past few months, we have had a couple of wonderful series/sermons at church. Ideas that have resonated with me well beyond Sunday Morning. A few themes that have come up time and time again are:

1. Am I loving people well?
2. If I want to make changes in my life, I have to just START.

In some ways, I've been stuck in a rut since we began our infertility treatments. Some of you may understand what I mean.

It's a waiting game. Timing the ultrasounds, the blood work, the medications, the procedures. I'll be the first to say that's it's consumed our lives. Other things have fallen to the wayside. The last few months we were "On a break" (And no...I dont mean a "Friends" kind of break!) It's been a good time for me to reflect and reassess. But now we are about to embark on one last twist and turn in the infertility journey and I dont want to go back to the place that I wound up in before.

So the sermons have been so helpful. (Thanks Bruce!) I dont want a cookie-cutter, bullet-pointed type of existed, but I have kind of come up with a new philosophy moving forward.

"Feel better, Pray better, Love better"

The feel better part is about me (eating, exercising, taking care of myself despite the medications that make me want to do otherwise.

The Love better part is obviously about my relationships with others. (again...possibly another post for another time).

But the "Pray Better" part is what has been on my heart lately.

I do best with structure. I KNOW this, and its not a bad thing. However,  you can't STRUCTURE God. Recently part of the prayer that Dan has prayed each morning with Hollister and I, is that we would our words would be HIS words. That others would see HIM in us. If you are structuring time with God, then how can He be a part of everything you do?

And yet, finding time each morning to pray has become essential. I HAVE to structure this part of my day, because quite frankly...I Suck at Praying. :)

Really!

I've struggled with prayer for years. I am one of those people that gets so distracted, falls asleep while praying and tries constantly to "word" things correctly.

So over the past few weeks, as I have started to make very specific goals for myself and to purposefully make changes in my life, I have begun a morning routine.

I've been waking up at 5:15 and going walking. It's helped in many ways, but one is that it's given me time to start praying.

Something I have found that works is playing a specific song on my iPhone.  I use that one song to picture the people and circumstances in my life that I want to pray for. Kind of like a mental video in my mind. I keep it in the same order because it helps me stay on task. It usually goes something like this:

1. Me and God.
2. Dan and I.
3. Hollister
4. Another baby
5. My dad
6. My brother
7. Buck
8. Buck's Mother Michelle
9. My Gig
10. My Family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc...)
11. My girlfriends (I walk through the my bridesmaids list and then add on my other close girlfriends at the end).
12. My Camp CARE family
13. My small group
14. And then anyone else that pops in to my mind. (Patients I have worked with, special families, people I have read about or been asked to pray for).
15. My mom

I dont spend a ton of time on each person. I just picture them and the situation that I am currently praying about. At the end, I ask God to draw each of these people closer to Him.

I've found that this really helps me. If it's true that God knows exactly what is in our hearts, then I am certain that he knows what each person needs.

After I get home from walking, I do a short bible study and then come upstairs and work on my prayer journal. I've moved it from an actual journal, to something online. I've found that I just type so much better than I actually write. So, now I just get open up the file and start typing-focusing on specific people/circumstances that my mind kept returning to after my "song."

Then I spend whatever time is left perusing some of the inspiration blogs that I love to follow. Many times I read something that impacts me for the rest of the day.

So for now, I've found something that has drawn me back to God in the midst of some of the craziness. The structure seems to be working and it's helped me with Loving Others Better and Feeling Better too.

How do you pray? Do you have any other suggestions? I would love to hear them...

And if you have a few moments, and want to add me to your prayer list this week-I would really appreciate it. I'm starting my medication again, and my prayer is that it wont affect my relationship with others. Specifically, in my interactions with Hollister and Dan on a daily basis. My boys deal with a lot when I am on them. :)

Oh...and one more thing-I just wanted to thank my sweet friend Alicia for walking in the" Race for the Cure" in memory of my mom yesterday. Sweet girl. She said she had committed a few years to participate every year since she missed mom's memorial service. Another example of something that can just get us up and started on changes we want to make in our lives. Glad mom got you motivated to working out yesterday Lee-Lee!