It’s Time to Pray: 33 Days of Prayer

Have you ever had a nagging feeling that you should do something but continue to procrastinate? Me, too. Last year, I had an idea—33 Day Prayer Journey. Daily, I blogged a prayer and posted it on WordPress, Twitter and Facebook without knowing who would read, or what was the need. These prayers were not all happy, as my friend Wade at laughoutloudloveourlord.com said, yet they were prayers from my heart.

During those 33 days, emails and private conversations had been about the prayer journey. “Thanks for those words, I needed that.” All I could say was thank God, I had no clue.

The prayer journey was one of the hardest task I had embarked upon since deciding to say, “I’m a writer”—and then turning it into a profession. Writing is hard, the more I write the harder it gets. Frustration mounts, rejections hurt, yet I keep at it—honing and learning the craft.

Prayer is the same. Sometimes God’s answer is no, not yet, or I have something better—wait. Either answer requires patience and trust. (Patience is not one of my virtues. You know how the adage goes, “God ain’t through with me yet.”) But I can’t stop; I have to keep at it. And I try to continuously prayer like a cascading waterfall. When my eyes open in the morning, at night kneeling, in the afternoon, while driving my car, before a class, or sometimes before, during, and after a phone call, at the altar, in a journal or while walking. Whether it’s five minutes or fifty, a day or a week, I press on.

Like my writing, obstacles get in the way and I don’t stay focused. When I pray, and don’t get what I think I should have, I feel rejected. Still I ask because I’ve realized—after many years­—I have more to learn, I need better preparation, and God actually knows what’s better for me than I do. My mantra has been and always will be, “Anything I have in life that is good, is from God. All the other stuff, I messed up trying to do it on my own.” Whether I write or I pray, I have to make the time.

So, as hemmed and hawed about embarking on a prayer journey, one of my first blog followers, Sharla at catnipoflife.wordpress.com, replied to one of my post: Ang, Even though, I have devotionals and bible study, I miss those prayers.

I knew what that meant. Yet, I dilly-dallied. Then, a Facebook friend posted that reading prayers and inspirational quotes on FB was truly a testimony of God’s goodness. Next as I read a few Psalms, all I noticed were prayers, the same thing occurred while reading Marilyn Robinsons’ s novel Gilead and then Howard Thurman’s autobiography With Heart and Head. And finally as listened to Cece Winans last chord “It’s Time to Pray,” for a week, my procrastination ceased.

So, I will embark on another 33-Day Prayer Journey: May 26-June 27.

Join me.