When God Answers...

Mark Batterson, Author of The Circle Maker, says that "prayer is a habit to be cultivated, a discipline to be developed, and a skill to be practiced.

Sure I pray.  I have prayed my whole life...I have prayed for myself, for others, for needs, for wants, for my husband, for my children, for my church...I have prayed.  But cultivating?  Have I cultivated a life of prayer and seriously developed the discipline?

All these are questions I began to ask myself as I picked up a book that my husband bought for the staff to read.  God has used this book,The Circle Maker, to totally transform my thoughts on prayer.

So I made a commitment to the Lord.  I committed that I would begin praying...really praying.  Praying intentionally.  I began by making a list in the back of my journal and praying through each need, person, or situation on the list daily.  I started finding scriptures in the bible that I could pray over specific needs or circumstances.  I even committed to the Lord that I would "pray through".  I learned that although praying through can be long and boring, some of the greatest miracles come from some of the longest boring prayers.

As I began the journey I admitted to the Lord that I am weak.  I am a child of the microwave generation.   Waiting on things is not my strong point!  In fact I absolutely loved the book until I got to the chapters about praying long and praying through...I even asked the Lord if those chapters could somehow not be for me!  I like immediate answers.  So I was honest with the Lord and just asked if He would give me some small answers along this prayer journey...some encouragement to continue when the praying long just felt, well...long. 

The truth is, HE IS GOD...he did not have to answer my request.  But yesterday He did so much more than give me a small answer or just a little nudge of encouragement.  Yesterday He did what only he can do.

You see one of my prayers during this prayer journey has been about funding for our adoption.  I have been praying that the Lord would provide the rest of the funding we need to bring our sweet girl home.  I have not known where it would come from but I have been praying and really trusting that he would do it!

Yesterday we received an email from Abba Fund saying that they were giving our family a $2,000 grant in conjunction with the Chosen Marathon that we ran in last year!

But it didn't stop there...we serve a big God who does BIG things.

Abba fund also decided to grant us a $5,000 interest free loan!

And to top it off the Chosen Marathon is going to let us put together another Kenzi for Keeps team together to run in this years race to go towards paying back the loan!

I read those words and just wanted to scream from the roof tops...MY GOD ANSWERS!!!!

"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all your wonderful deeds" Psalm 9:1

We are praising the Lord here and continuing to prayer long for our baby girl!  Thank you for being a part of this journey with us!