Today, dear reader, this prayer is for you.  This is a gift for you to receive and take in for refreshment.

Maybe your day has been a rough one, filled with exhausting twists and turns, where nothing is going how you imagined or expected.

Perhaps it is your week.  You find yourself looking at the calendar and wondering how it is possible this week is not over yet.  Not that you are necessarily wanting the next to begin, it would just be nice if this one was over.

Possibly your rough season has been going on for many weeks, for months, or dare I even say for years.  There have been struggles and setbacks.  Each day you try to have an action based faith, getting up to try again, and again.  Your hope that this day is going to be different from the plethora of days before it is quickly wanes through the passing moments of the morning.

This prayer is for you today.  It’s not a devotional to dive into, not something to study, and is not meant to be a work for you.

This is my gift to you, meant for you to receive it and take it in.  You are on my heart today.  You are a beautiful treasure!  You are a precious gift!  Your willingness to take your time to read my words, means more to me than you will ever know.

Thank you, from the depths of my heart.  May these words wrap around you like a hug.

Pray Through It 

Beloved Lord, 

It feels like there are so many in the midst of seasons of struggle.  Hard, straining, arduous, demanding, complicated, emotional, extenuating seasons.  We feel the exhaustion of it all in the days we face. 

Lord, we will never be able to fully understand the struggles of another in intimate detail, but we can identify with the symptoms of weariness, waning faith, and weakening hope.  Lord, there is darkness.  There is mourning.  There is despair.  There is destruction.  There are those who are downcast, brokenhearted, lonely, and afraid. 

But, in it all, through it all, You are there.  You are ever present.  You are all knowing.  You are all powerful.     

Lord, I pray for each of us today.  I pray that You would show Yourself present in our circumstances, revealing that You are there.  I pray by Your hand that these seasons of struggle would be purposeful in their ability to fortify and strengthen each of us.  

Please give us the words we need to hear, the words that would bring new life, and the growth of a harvest bountiful and nourishing.  Brace and bolster our areas of weakness with Your anchoring support. 

Remind us that Your gift of salvation immunizes us, supplying us with a dose of resistance and with Your divine protection, to strain forward and press on, no matter how much of a doozy this season is.  

Lord, for our hearts, I pray that we would be encouraged, uplifted, and filled with a concrete hope anchored to You.  May there be a gentle mending to wounds we have so we may have a message of healing sealed upon us by the scars that remain.  May the story of the scars point to Your merciful care.    

Lord, for our minds, I pray we would be more than conquerors in taking deceptive thoughts captive, creating an place for that which is noble, pure, and true to fully flourish.  May the words we silently speak to ourselves be an echo of the words You speak over us.  We are wonderfully made, a reflection of Your image.  Truths that will dissolve and melt away shame and disgrace.    

Lord, for our bodies, I pray supernatural strength.  May we fuel and care for these temples out of our love from You and love for You, which helps us love ourselves.  Help us to break chains, end cycles, abolish addictions, and run with the freedom of youth.  When we face the temporal nature of these bodies, in brokenness, in affliction, and in disease, may we hold fast to Your promises of eternal life. 

Lord, for our relationships, I pray a spirit of forgiving tenderness.  May we value all who we interact with be it intimately or in random passing.  May our families receive the strength to overcome the pressures from forces attempting to break and destroy, to remain unified in love that would lay its life down for one another. 

May we have communication within our families that heals, brings hope, and creates a welcoming, sheltering harbor from the harshness of the world.  May we never take for granted the opportunities before us to speak words of love to those in our families. 

May we overcome assumptions that others can read our minds or clearly interpret our actions.  May we speak words into light instead of brushing them into darkness.  May this honesty with one another, create opportunities for grace to weave us closer together.

Lord, for our finances, may we have a healthy relationship and understanding so we may be faithful with the talents we have and generously steward what You give to us.  Help us to measure ourselves through the sight of the Spirit and not through the containers of comparison with those around us.  Help us to truly rejoice with gratitude in Your goodness with others, trusting that You are an infinite God.  

Lord, for our emotions, may we be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.  May we have a maturity to filter our emotions through the sieve of scripture and the Spirit so we may separate out the impurities which need to be disposed of from the kernels of truth which remain to be processed. 

May we seek the wisdom of those around us, and those who have gone before us, as we process, learning tips in the active work of others that is not always documented in handed down recipes. 

Lord, as I close this prayer, I beg of You, please, please, please, bless my readers.  Please help me take all of my eager enthusiasm and passion for giving them encouragement, to make sacrifices to the outer limits of my abilities.  At the end of my territory may I make it all an offering to You so that You may bless, multiple, and reach where I can not, in ways I can not, so that they may be blessed and You may be glorified.

In the name of the ever encouraging Jesus Christ, amen.