I use to
only pray when I needed something and I would pray once. It would usually be a
quick prayer with a bunch of big words that I’m not 100% sure I knew what they
even meant. Then I would wonder “why is God not answering this” or I would get
frustrated and think “why do my prayers not work?” “why do people always say
pray about? It’s not like it’s really working for me.” Then instead of continuing
to talk to God about things I would just rely on other peoples prayers and hope
that would work for me. It wasn’t up until really this last summer I finally
got it. It didn’t happen right away. I for sure did NOT wake up one morning and
think “Today is the day I will make prayer real in my life, today is the day I’ll
make Jesus my best friend, my go to.” It was more a process of failing, hitting
rock bottom, and then slowly turning to God for help.
I would have a couple days in row where I felt really good about my prayer life, then I would have a couple weeks that were awesome! Then, my life would get all sorts of crazy, I’d get stressed and get my panties all in a wad and instead of praying I would usually end up thinking. “ Great. I hate life. I hate work. People drive me crazy and you sir, yes you, at Wal-Mart in aisle 10 you’re looking at me wrong and taking too long to pick your cereal! Move so I can get some captain crunch and eat my feelings away…” Then of course everything would calm down my life would be going great again and I would be like, “Yeah I got this all together. Thanks God..."
I think when I started to see a little change in my prayer life was right before I went to Africa this last August. My friend, Andrew was telling our team that
while we were in Uganda we were going to really just talk to God, ask him to
direct our days and show us what to do. I remember thinking “yeah, you’re
crazy. We need a plan.” But then I also remember thinking “I guess that makes
sense, who am I to tell God what I’m going to do for Him while I’m in Africa?”
THEN I remember starting to pray a little more. I remember thinking to myself. “Um
what if God doesn’t talk to me… What if they think I’m not a good little Christian...”
Then it kinda hit me. Why does all that matter? What I need to focus on is how
does God see me? I felt so small and humbled. I wanted my life to be different.
I wanted Jesus to be seen in me. I wanted Him to be my friend.
Fast forward to the trip, here I am in Africa,
living life. Feeling that peace I always feel in Uganda, that overwhelming
sense of closeness to God. I don’t know how to explain it but I always feel
closer to God in Africa. I meet these 5 sweet kids in Uganda who turn my world
upside down and show me what prayer is all about. Here is this girl who has had
more hurt in her 12 year old life than I’ve had in all 24 years of mine, yet
she prays with such intensity, such passion, that it brought tears to my eyes.
During a service my friend Robert was preaching and had us hold hands with the person
next to us and pray for them. I looked over at sweet Rose and she was pouring
her heart out to God, but not for anything for herself, but for me. Wow. Talk about
humbling. At that moment all I could think about was how blessed I was to be
there, to experience life with such amazing people who love God.
You would
think that after Uganda and all the answered prayers I saw there I would keep
it up. But no, I still have those weeks where it feels like God’s not right
there with me and usually a few days later I realize it wasn’t that God’s not
there for me, it’s that I’m not there reaching out to God to help me. I'm there
reaching out to my friends, putting all my burdens on them instead of going
right to the one who wants to hear from me the most.
This past
month God has brought me to me knees so much. He’s shown me that saying “hey
lets prayer about it,” isn’t cliché it’s legit. It’s not easy though. I had to realize I can’t just pray for rainbows and sunshine, I have to pray
for the hard stuff too. It’s the asking God to take all of me, to make me come
to Him for everything, even if that means having nothing. That was probably one
of the hardest prayers for me because I knew it would require me to make changes
I didn’t want to make. Do things I didn’t want to do and give people money that
I thought “I needed” for myself, my own fundraising needs. But what I’m
learning is, living everyday talking to God and constantly seeking him,
everything really does just start to fall into place. Sometimes maybe it’s not the
exact outcome I would want but I know, I have this peace that I’m right where
God wants and doing what God wants, I feel like the only way to describe how I
feel is saying my heart is full…
Most of you
know I’m trying to raise money to go back to Uganda in January and stay for
three months. If you want to read more about “my story” or feel like God is
asking you to give a donation here is a link to my go fund me page.https://www.gofundme.com/hs78yvp4
