Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God...
1 Thessalonians 5:16
I was having a conversation with a friend who was encouraging me about prayer. He reminded me that there is nothing too small to talk to God about. Should I make this appointment for this day? Should I wear this outfit? Should I reply to this email?
I thought about that for awhile because I really do have conversations with God all day. (I'm even learning to listen every once in awhile! Ha!) But there are some things that I hadn't really thought to pray about... the friend's examples were all "Should I" questions... but I started thinking about "Please help me" prayers. How often had I asked for help on big things. If God can do that, He can probably help with other stuff too, right?
As a single mom of four busy kiddos who runs a business, as well as a million other things... you can imagine that I can get pretty exhausted.
So this week I asked God to help me get my house in order. Help me cook a good dinner for the kids. Help me get up when the alarm goes off at 5:01am instead of "snoozing" every 5 minutes until 6:15... and as other little things have come up, I have asked God for help with those as well.
Monday evening, as I was preparing for the kids to come from their Labor Day activities, I looked at the unused "Chore Chart" on the wall and went over and erased the old chores and wrote in new. Only this time, instead of writing particular chores, I divided the apartment into sections and gave them each one. I showed them how, if their section happened to already be clean on a particular day, they could organize a shelf or straighten a cabinet.
The kids came home AND WERE EXCITED about having their own sections. They liked not having to ask every day what their chore was. Really? That was way easier than I thought it would be... then I remembered... I prayed about this.
Tonight, for the second night in a row, I had dinner ready at dinner time... without exhaustion, without wondering how much they will whine if I declare it "cereal night", and without running through a drive-thru. Is it particularly because I prayed for help with dinner? That would be a hard question to answer. But I do know that as I have started this week praying about everything... so many things have fallen into place. Including dinner.
Now, did that keep my two youngest from missing the bus this morning after I was already gone to work? Nope. This is still life and life isn't perfect or fair or easy... but when I pray about something as simple as housework and realize that the new plan I came up with is an answer to my prayers, it makes it pretty impossible to argue with praying through everything.
There is ALWAYS someone will to pray for you if you are in need of anything. You can email me here at [email protected] if you would like me and/or the other housewives to keep and your situation in our prayers. You can also visit a place that I love to go when I want to pray for others or when I have a prayer request myself... WCIC PRAYER CENTER