The Prayer Warrior Life: Revising Your System

An updated note on prayer jars: 

Each family member here had their own prayer jar for a time. The first person done with dinner would start on their jar, praying each prayer aloud, and then the second person done with dinner would do theirs, and on it went around the table. Husband and I helped the three- and five-year-old, neither of whom read independently yet.

Peter, always the first one done eating, had trouble listening politely by the time the girls started praying. The whole process tortured him, rather than blessed him--ants in the pants, so to speak.

Also, the jars took up too much room in the center of the table, which is also home to pencil, crayon, eraser, and napkin containers.

And lastly, we tended to wait too long to throw away or file old prayers, and the jars become quite packed, making the process take too long.

So this week we revised the system.


Now we have just three prayer jars in the middle of the table--a breakfast, lunch, and dinner jar. Daddy is only with us for the dinner prayer jar, but that's okay. It still works out better to have a shorter process, three times a day.

Some prayers, such as those for our Compassion children, and health prayers for our friends and ourselves, are in all three jars so we can pray them three times a day.

It works like a charm this way, except that each child wants a turn to pray. I solved that by having Paul pray the breakfast-jar prayers, Peter the lunch prayers, and the girls share the dinner jar prayers, when Daddy is here to help me with everything that goes on at the table.

My husband and I follow up with impromptu prayers, which are not in the jars.

Praying for Internet Friends:

Most of my friends are online friends. Since moving to Ohio nearly seven years ago, I've added two more children and homeschooling to my schedule. We avoid over-scheduling, so we're not a busy family in the running-around sense. But the care of children? That keeps us hopping, leaving little time for anything else! Even if I had a friend here, I don't know how I'd connect with her, except through e-mail.

Hint: When the cell phone rings I head for the bathroom or go outside the door, praying it's a short call. Being on the phone is so hard, with little ones around!

Meeting people is difficult through church because we've either been in a mega-church, or in smaller churches that don't schedule many potlucks or other mixers. Small-group Bible studies are the main thing nowadays in the church set, but husband's schedule makes those impossible to manage.

All that to say, I cherish my online friends, probably more than most people.

Some I've grown to love because we've shared joys and sorrows and read each other's blogs or e-mails for a few years now, and others I've come to love because our stories are so similar, that true understanding exists between us.

Some online friends drift away, like in real life. But praise God, new friends come along here too, once in a while! Thank you!

On a weekly basis at least, new prayer requests come in from the online world. Some are direct appeals for prayer, and others are prayers the Holy Spirit prompts me to pray. Nursing a child at least three times a day makes it fairly easy to remember these requests, but lately the volume increased.

So my new method is to keep a piece of paper taped to the computer and a pen handy at the desk here. Some of the online-friend prayers get transferred to our prayer jars at the table, and others, more private, are transferred to my personal prayer journal.

Taking the time to really make prayer happen for you? It's priceless. Prayer truly changes things. Not only for your friends, but also for you.

Prayer teaches love. It gives birth to love. It is love. Giving of yourself always = love.

For other posts on prayer--there are a lot of them--find my label prayer series on the sidebar.

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