A Week of Prayer

Hi all!

Today, I have something weighing on my heart. Still, I'm a little scared, since I'm worried that this will fall flat.

Still, I believe that God puts things in my heart when He wants me to do them, so I'm taking a leap of faith.

I'm making this week a Week of Prayer, and I invite you to join.

Today, I want you to look at your life and decide what you need a prayer for. This can be anything, one thing or ten. From needing a blessing, to your children, to you going through a tough time.

Then, from today to Wednesday, I'll have a linky list open. Write a post about what you need prayers for and link directly to that post. That way, it'll be easy for your prayer-buddy to find your prayer needs.

After midnight GMT on Thursday, go to the link left by the person directly above you. If you're number 1, go to the last name on the list. That person is your prayer buddy for the week.

Pray for your buddy until Friday. Someone else should be praying for you too.

Finally, on Friday, I'd like to read about your experiences. Was there some sort of break-through on those things you needed prayers for? How did you feel, praying for someone else? Any other things you learnt this week?

That's pretty much it. Simple in theory, but who knows. Maybe this will make quite a big difference to quite a few lives. Now I leave it to you, if you want to join.

Stretch and release

I decided to finish up with NaNoWriMo, this time with another story. Still, I'm taking things slower and not pushing myself so hard. 

It's just not always so good for me. 

Yes, there's a commitment to getting things like writing done, but I just can't see how it's good to push myself too hard. 

I mean, there is a definite advantage to pushing limits. We learn a lot about ourselves by doing it. But once you cross the limit of what you're capable of, it's not wise to go too far too fast. 

Why? Well... I think about it the same way as I think about stretching my muscles. Stretching is good. Really good. It works best by stretching a little further every time you stretch, but not beyond that point. 

If I stretch too much too soon, I'm actually damaging the muscles I'm trying to strengthen. 

It's the same with life. It's not good to go through life without testing yourself and stretching your abilities. At the same time, it's not good to go too far too fast, because you might actually do more harm than good. 

That's what I seem to be doing now. I've been stretching myself out for a while, now it's time for a rest. So I'm pulling back from every non-essential activity I'm involved with. 

I'm quitting choir singing because it's not good for my voice. Also, it puts too much of a strain on my patience .

I'm backing away from involvement in church activities because it's stretching me and my faith too fast and too hard. This was of course, done with a lot of prayer, but God seems to be with me on this one. So I'm going to try and focus on learning more again. 

I'm not buying more orchids until I'm absolutely positive that the ones I have are doing well. 

I stretched my writing skills and determination and wrote a draft manuscript in 16 days. Now I know I can do it, but it makes me tired. Still, I'm continuing to write, but in a sense, as a warm-down to my intense stretching session. 

Luckily December will give me a break from all of my stretching activities. Then I get to do the exercise again and stretch in wonderfully novel ways. 

Do you also make a point of stretching in your life? Do you make sure you don't go too far too fast? What have you been up to, lately? 

Why my faith choked out.

This post is long overdue, but every time I picked a date for it, I was unable to post on that day. So here it is.

As I mentioned before, I had been struggling to keep my faith alive for months until recently and it took a revival in my spiritual life for me to figure out why.

And the reason is frighteningly simple.

James 2:26 (King James Version): "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."

So... yes... works is necessary. Not to get into heaven, but simply to keep your faith alive and thriving.

Does that mean that I could have saved my faith months ago by giving money to beggars in the street? ... Not necessarily. Because I haven't been called to give money to beggars in the streets.

I've been called to help the kids in my church's youth. To help the "newly" converted find their feet. To use my voice to praise Him.

In the past year, I for all intents and purposes was blocked in every way I tried to do the two former works I'd been called to do. And the latter... well, made me feel hollow. Because it's a bit hard to focus on praising when there's always someone trying to pull me down whenever I refuse to conform to their standards.

So yeah... I spent a year basically unable to do what I was meant to do and that knocked my faith down. Badly.

That changed a few weeks ago when a new youth pastor arrived. Although I'm sensing resistance yet again, I now see it coming, so I'm going to fight it with everything I have. And if that fails, I'll go around. But what I won't do is lay back down, because it's so not worth the aggravation caused by choking faith.

The fact is, my faith coming alive changed my life again, because I got the opportunity to serve under one of the three choir women most intent on bringing me down, and because I did it in a nice way, a peace seems to have been declared. So now I'm actually enjoying the choir again.

And I joined the Youth Band.

And I'm more actively involved in helping the youth.

My faith is thriving.

Does your faith have purpose? When you're young in the faith, your purpose is to learn as much as you can. After that, you'll probably discovered what you've been called to do.     Is something keeping you from doing it? Are you/your doubts holding you back? Is there something you can do about it? Pray? Change your outlook? Move through your doubt?

I hope this gives you some help and answers, and if you want/need some prayers, please feel free to let me know.

Have a blessed weekend!