"I WILL PRAY FOR YOU"

“I WILL PRAY FOR YOU”

“I will pray for you,” I said in the final text to my college BFF of 36 years.  After many texts going back and forth and a brief phone conversation in my parked car (Praise Him for heated seats!), I did so with my eyes so clamped shut, they hurt to open when I was finally done pouring out my earnest prayer to God today on her behalf. 

In my younger more energetic days, I forgot those prayer offers of “I will pray for you” as my active day of “to -do” list items wore on.  I can safely say that I may have only followed through with those prayer offers about half the time.  I used to say this mindlessly like someone who says , “God bless you,” to a person who just sneezed. Of course, I said it to give the other person comfort and hope that I would summon the ear of God to help them in their situation, whatever it was.  But truth be told, I would forget completely or remember in the middle of the night when getting up to use the restroom and then say a quick prayer just to ease my conscious upon returning back to my bed.

I take it very seriously now.  When I utter those precious words, “I will pray for you,” I mean it with all of my heart and then write it down to pray later so not to forget or stop my day to say the much needed prayer right at the moment the offer leaves my lips or is typed in a text/email.  When did this prayer paradigm change?  I remember the exact day almost 18 years ago.  It was the day our third child/second son was born.  My final pregnancy was so dangerous and complicated that I swore to never pray for myself again and only for others if God answered my constant incessant prayer that I and my son survive healthy and well.  We both did and to this day, I ask others to pray for me because I do not pray for myself anymore.   As you end your day today, offer up a prayer for me and send me a prayer request and I promise, as God is my witness and Jesus my Savior, “I will pray for you.”