Are Your Prayers Proactive or Reactive?

When Ms. B asked me about my journaling, this made me think about all of my old journals. I have a few on my bookshelf in my bedroom, but where are the others? I remembered I packed them when I moved into my home and unfortunately that box was missing. I found it in the craziest place. It was in a box with wine glasses under the shelving in my linen closet. Weird huh? At any rate, I just wanted to share something I had written. It looks like I started this particular prayer journal on 1/6/06 and ended it on 3/3/08. Here's a prayer from 1/11/06.

Dear God,
Today I am fasting. My goal is to fast and pray and focus on living a life that is pleasing to you. I've suffered financial bondage for TOO LONG. I know that God can and will work on my discipline. So I'm focusing on you and requesting that you give me wisdom and the resources to get my finances on track..

Very short prayer huh? I continued to read through the entries and on 1/18/06 and this was next prayer.

Dear God,
I have been offered a new position with additional income comin in each month. Thank you for answering my prayers. Thank you for giving me a great start in turning around my finances. I am thanking you in advance for financial breakthroughs. I'm just going to list some of my desires and ask that you bless them. 1) emergency fund to begin with $700, 2) pay all of my bills before the due dates and 3) start paying myself first.

Of course I can look at these two prayers and see two things: 1) I had made a mess of my finances and was asking him to turn it around for me. 2) I was praying AND fasting and not just sitting around wishing things would change. And 3) It was only about two weeks after my prayer that it was answered AND it seems strange to me now to only desire $700 as an e-fund, but at that time it seemed like such a lot to ask for.

The other day I was selecting my benefits for next year. When I finished entering all of the benefits I wanted, I looked at the total cost of how much health insurance, dental insurance, short term, long term, life, etc. would cost me. The amount seemed steep. But I'm already paying something similar to this and these things are what I would consider MUST HAVES. I am a single mother with one income. And while I know my job is not my source, I do need to make wise decisions. If something were to happen to me and I could not work, I'd need insurance. So, rather than play a game of "gambling" with my financial wellbeing, I am proactive when it comes to making sure I have things covered for me and Tyler - just in case.

It made me think about my prayer life. If I were to read through all of the prayer journals that I have to date, I'd see a pattern. The pattern would be "I've went out and made a mess of some aspect of my life and now I am asking God to fix it for me." Sure that worked for the most part, but after completing that workbook, I decided no more reactive prayers. I am going to pray in advance!

Instead of waiting til I'm in a relationship with somoene who ain't good for me, I'm praying about who God allows into my personal life. Rather than waiting til I'm in a mess at work, I'm praying daily over my day. Praying that I can be the best employee I can and also praying for management (even though I detest them). I''m praying for God's protection over Tyler everywhere he goes throughout his day. If yesterday's shooting at Ft. Hood wasn't a wake up call it made me really think about my daily prayers for him. Tyler asked me one day why do I always pray for his protection, what am I afraid of? I told him I'm not afraid of anything, but he doesn't realize it yet but there are evil people in this world who have evil hearts and will harm children and my prayer is just to ask God to send angels with him while he's walking to the bus stop and back home and when he's on the play ground at school, etc.

Rather than asking God to help you fix a mess you've gotten yourself into, why not start praying in advance????????? Nobody said you weren't going to have any problems or troubles if you do this, but I guarantee if you do pray in advance your life would operate much more smoother. You can pray for wisdom in your decisions, discernment when dealing with others and guidance on how to be a good steward. It seems like such a simple and small thing to do, so why'd it take me 31 years to figure this out? Hope it doesn't take you as long!

Proud Mommy

This morning I was running late to drop Tyler off at school and I had to go in the office to sign him in b/c he was tardy. One of the ladies in the office knew his name and for a minute that caused me to raise a brow. Like um, he should not be familiar with the office people unless he's up in here getting in trouble and it that's the case, I'm gonna show out on his behind right here. She told me she wanted to talk to me b/c she volunteered in his class last week and I have done a wonderful job teaching him about African American history. She said Tyler was able to tell her all about slavery and Martin Luther King, Jr. and his noble peace prize. She said he even knew lots of things about Barack Obama. She said she was supposed to be reading to him about Coretta Scott King, but Tyler already knew that stuff and so she just held a conversation with him about historical things.

I looked down at him and just smiled and gave him a hug! In that very moment I can't tell you how that made me feel! If you follow me on twitter, most days you will see that me and Tyler are constantly going at it. Just yesterday I had to tear him up for being disrespectful and throwing down a photo b/c he was mad with an answer I gave him. But then there are other days when he makes me sooo proud to be his mother! I intended to pick him up some warm clothes this weekend while there was a sale going on, but somehow only walked away with maybe two or three items. But one was a button down shirt for church. This morning he pulled it out and wanted to wear it to school, so I said sure. He looked so cute! Here's a photo!

PS. He's also in the kid's choir at church now and they will be singing for the public in a few Sundays. IF you live in Charlotte and want to come, shoot me an email for the details!

Interesting Conversations

I am taking a New Testament class at church. The instructors are a husband and wife team that are sort of older. There's a young newly married couple in the class. They appear to be mid twenties and both just finished law school. The wife is also in my writing class at church. She saw me the other niight and told me that she appreciated my questions and discussions in class b/c I brought up things that she's wondered about but was too shy to ask. I had been thinking to myself about the idea of "soul ties." I've been told numerous times that when you have relations with someone you are in essence tying yourself to that person or making a connection. I've even heard that if that person that you slept with has any "spirits" on them, you will start having some of the same issues. An example of this would be say you slept with a person that had violent tendencies and you continue the physical relationship, those same tendencies may began to show up in some form in your life." Also, we had a discussion here where Ladylee wrote the post about tearing away the spiritual connection with people after a breakup.

I've wondered about these things and so I decided to email the instructor (the wife) and ask her if she could point me to some biblical verfication of these things. She immediately responds and asks if she could talk to me on the phone rather than through email. So we set a "date" and she called me last night at around 8. When we began the conversation she asked if I was asking for a "friend" or for myself. I don't know why that mattered one way or the other, but I told her no, this is for me. Now I'm not sure if she's used to women beating aroudn the bush or what, but I wasn't going to do it. I told her that I know fornication is wrong and I'm very aware of that. What I want to know is what are some of the repercussions of it, spiritually. After it's all said and done and you've decided "Hey, I'm not going to continue fornicating, but I’m sure even after you've ceased an activity, there are still some consequences/repercussions."

So we had an indepth conversation about this topic which included her describing a sexual act and what was going on emotionally and spiritually with the two people involved. She told me there was no biblical basis for this soul ties thing, but that there are references to "familiar spirits" in the Bible and also we've all read that when a man and woman are married, they become one. But afterwards, she started asking me about how I date. She told me that she has seen me at church and always wanted to talk to me, but I always disappear after service. LOL! I thought I'd share some of the things she told me. Now I didn't at any point ask her for any dating advice, but I guess by the fact that I'm single, she decided to give me some.

She told me that she knows I'm a pretty lady and don't have problems meeting men, but that I need to set standards on the outset. She told me it was great to date, but that I should not allow men to come to my house b/c that's just setting myself up for "sticky" situations to occur. She also told me that she's sure I'm a great cook, but there's no need for me to be cooking for someone. If they want to eat dinner with me, they should be taking me out. She also said that she didn't think single women needed to simply go to church and stay home. How is your mate supposed to find you if he doesn't go to yoru church? She told me that she doesn't know what I do for fun, but that I probably should get out more. I laughed so hard inside and thought "If she really knew how much I got out, she'd probably tell me to stay my azz home." She told me it was great for me to volunteer in the nursery, but I needed to do some other type of service at church where I'm "visible" b/c we have a lot of handsome and professional men and they can't see me if I'm hurrying in and leaving church like lightening. She also told me that I shouldn't limit myself to going only to my church's single's ministry functions, plays, concerts, etc. She said that we have tons of churches in this area and they have their own active single's ministry and I should attend some of their events, conferences, etc.

All in all, I was glad I emailed her and glad she chose to share some of her dating wisdom with me.