Saturday, October 28, 2017

Praying Consistently

For years, I struggled to pray with any consistency. I knew I ought to, and felt guilty, and tried various approaches, none of which stuck. I wanted to pray for certain people, such as missionaries and government officials, and I'd start, do it for a few days, but then forget. Before I was married, I made a big list of everyone I wanted to pray for, and went through the whole thing every morning - for about 2 weeks, when going through the same list in the same order became so boring and time-consuming I just couldn't get through it. After getting married, life encroached and my prayer life really slipped. I particularly wanted to pray for my husband and all my children daily, but I'd get sidetracked (repeatedly) and forget who I'd been praying for before the distraction occurred. I found it easy to commit to daily Bible reading, but prayer tended not to happen, or at least not much. But now, I finally have a system that, while not perfect, has helped me achieve more consistency in prayer than I've had at other times in my life, and I want to share it in the spirit of possibly helping others be more consistent in prayer, too.

The first part of my system consists of a set of 6 bracelets. I got the idea from a magazine article I read (by a mom with more children than I have!) and it's my "bare minimum" daily prayer goal: pray for my husband and 5 children daily. I have a bracelet for each person, with names spelled out in alphabet beads. I used white alphabet beads and blue and purple glass beads, which match pretty much everything I wear, so I can wear the bracelets daily. In the morning when I get up, I put all the bracelets on my left wrist. Then, even if it's a crazy busy day, I can pray for one person at a time as I do other tasks. When I've prayed for someone, I move the bracelet with their name on it to my right wrist. Sometimes the little ones will keep me on task, as E3 demands that I read the names on each bracelet (serving as a reminder of who is still on my left wrist).

The second part of my system involves a set of note cards. I started making them after buying and trying to use the book The Busy Mom's Guide to Prayer, by Lisa Whelchel (available from Amazon). The book guides you through 20 days of prayer in each of six categories: Praise, Self, Husband, Children, Personal Influences, and Reaching Beyond. A different aspect of each category was featured each day (for example, in the Husband category, different days might have you praying for his priorities, role as husband, role as father, or work). Something particularly helpful about the layout was that for each day's prayer in each category, a Bible verse was quoted, so that you could be sure you were praying out of the truth of God's word. However, note that I said "trying to use". There were items - particularly in the "Personal Influences" and "Reaching Beyond" sections - that really didn't apply to me (such as associate pastor, which our church doesn't have, or coworkers, which homeschool moms kind of don't have by definition), and things that I really wanted to be reminded to pray for more than once every 20 days (such as missionaries and friends). I also simply couldn't make myself pray the scripted "Praying the Word" prayer that followed each Scripture reference - a conversation with God in which my part is already written down for me is not appealing! So I took the basic idea and adapted it to my needs. I took a set of 4x6 note cards and cut them in half (resulting in cards that are a comfortable size to hold in my palm), with some of the halves having a part that sticks up higher than average so I can write a category name on it. I included some of the book's categories (Praise, Self, and Husband), and added some of my own, including a separate category for each child, and expanding "Personal Influences" and "Reaching Beyond" into categories including Missions, Ministries (Christian activity within the USA), Persecuted Church, Extended Family, Local Friends, Other Friends, Leaders, and Thanksgiving. On the basic cards, I wrote out verses that serve as a launching point for prayer. As I do my personal Bible study, sometimes a verse stands out to me and I think, "I should pray that for myself, or for Ari or one of the kids," so I copy it onto a note card and add it to the deck. I have verses for Praise, Self, Husband, and each of the kids, and then just names of specific people or organizations in the rest of the categories. As I receive updates from people, I can jot down specific prayer requests on their cards. Even with all those categories, if I spend a minute or two on each one it only takes about 30 minutes, which easily fits into the time I spend running 3 mornings a week. As I pray inspired by each Scripture reference, I move the card to the back of its category (or, in the case of the children, to the back of the next child's category), so my prayers are different each day and I don't get bored. It makes the prayer more of a conversation, as I'm hearing God's voice through his word and responding in prayer. Over the course of a few weeks I'm praying for everyone and everything I want to, I'm praying based on the Bible, and I'm staying on task. I'm still hoping to move more toward "praying without ceasing" - but at least I'm no longer "ceasing without praying"!

What's neat is that, by being more consistent in prayer, I can see specific answers to specific requests I've made recently. Ari and I had been concerned about one of our children having a constant sense of grievance - nothing was ever good enough for him. As I prayed for that child daily, I asked God to work a sense of gratitude in his heart. A little over a week ago, he came up to me, and said, "There are big happinesses that happen every year, like Christmas and my birthday, and little happinesses that happen every day, like yummy food, and tiny happinesses that happen every second, like having a shadow." It was so encouraging to see his attitude change as a direct result of God's work in his heart!

What have you found helpful in seeking to be constant in prayer? Let me know in the comments!

Saturday, October 7, 2017

First 5K

This morning, E11 and I ran our first 5K. Ever since he started, a few months ago, running the equivalent of a 5K every morning, he's been wanting to run in an official race. But I was reluctant to get up before the crack of dawn to go to something an hour's drive away in Honolulu, at least for his first race ever. Then I saw that the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center was holding a 5K starting at the Waianae Mall, just a 10 minute drive from our house, and that it was a run/walk, not just a race.

Since getting a smart phone back in May, I've discovered a number of useful apps, one of which is a run/walk timer. I like the idea of running, but I have a special-needs left knee. (That's what happens if your car hits a tree at freeway speed and God is super-gracious to you and you don't die, and your husband and unborn baby are perfectly fine, but pieces of your kneecap are visible through the gaping hole in your knee). Almost 14 years after our car wreck, I still have metal in my knee and occasional pain after long walks, so I really didn't think I could run non-stop for any significant distance, let alone over 3 miles. I've tried running a few times since the accident, but always ended up stopping for one reason or another (pregnancy, usually, but the knee pain was annoying too). However, I stumbled upon this site, http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/run-walk/ and thought it might be worth a try. When E11 started his daily long runs, I started adding very easy runs to my walks a few times a week. I started with 10 seconds of running for every 50 seconds of walking, and at that pace I had no knee pain at all. Then I increased the run times and decreased the walk times by 5 seconds each every week or two, which was a gradual enough increase that I am still not experiencing pain when I run, and I'm doing 30 seconds of running and 30 seconds of walking. So when I saw the WCCHC 5K run/walk, I decided to go for it: I didn't expect to place, but with lots of walkers I certainly wouldn't come in last, and was curious as to how well I could do.

E11, of course, was hoping to perform well. He said that if he could be in the top 10 in his age group (12 and under), he'd start working toward a 10K. The race course was to a certain point and back again, so as I was run/walking toward the turnaround point I started to see the fastest people on their way back. I kept a mental tally of how many of them looked younger than teenagers, and the third boy in that category was mine! So I knew, probably before he did, that he was likely to get a medal. The course was hilly, starting out with a downhill (which meant an uphill toward the very end), but it wasn't as steep as the street I've been run/walking up and down on days I run, so I didn't feel completely spent at the end. I felt the "runner's high" during my walk breaks, and even toward the end I was eager to run again after each walk break. I ran 3 miles last Saturday and it took me 37 minutes, but with the less-steep hills I completed the 5K in only 31:25. E11 had been waiting for me long enough that he was no longer out of breath, and when the times for the first 50 finishers were posted I looked only at his results: 24:51, fifteenth overall, 1 second faster than the fastest female racer, and 3rd in his age group. I didn't realize I had finished in the top 50 overall until they posted the next page of results and I saw the 51st finisher had been slower than me. I actually came in 45th overall and 6th among women 20-64 years old (and the 15th female to finish - there are some fast teen girls out there). So without even expecting to, I met E11's criterion for deciding to start working toward a 10K. And you know what? This was so much fun, I think I'm going to do it!




Here's the young man, in the blue shark shirt and blue shorts. The envelope contained his prize: two $5 gift certificates to the farmer's market just behind me. While I looked for fresh produce for this week's meals, he bypassed the technicolor popcorn and lilikoi haupia (passionfruit dessert) and went straight for a coconut and a dragonfruit.