Miracles

(I completely understand that not all of my friends believe as I do - and as I've mentioned before, I'm down with that.  If you aren't comfortable reading about a Christian's struggle with her faith, feel free to just click away now.  It won't offend me at all.  I just ask that you respect my choice as I respect yours.  This is a part of what I'm going through now.)


Sara.
Becky.
Allison.
Dr. S.
Diana.
Nancy.
Mike from NM.
Lynn's mom.
Megan's mom.
L.
M.
The sweet lady who likes my scarves.
The man who likes to gamble.
The man that Monty knew from  his old job.
The professor from BA who's name I've forgotten.
The sweet lady who had the trees last year that she had to keep in her garage to protect them from the freeze.
The nice lady I met in WalMart who had the cool head wrap.
And myself.

These are the people who I pray for healing every night.  Then I pray for continued health for a slew of others - people in remission, or who are recovering from other ailments.  Not everyone listed up there have cancer - some have other chronic illnesses.  But I pray for them all.

Sometimes in the morning.  Sometimes it's at night.  Whenever I have some quiet time to go through my list.

I also pray for my boys - that they continue to meet good people, and make good friends as they move into adulthood.  I pray they meet women who can love them as they are, and yet inspire them to continue to try to be better people.  Women that will respect them as I hope they respect those women.  That they find a job or career that they love, that makes going to work a joy rather than a chore.

I would love you to believe that I do this every day without fail.  But that would be a lie - I try.  It's my intent to do this every day.  But some days I run out of time in the morning.  And some days I forget to say my prayers before I go to bed.  And some days I fall asleep as I'm working through my list.

I always try to start my prayers with thanks for the day before, or the day that just finished up - to remember to be thankful for the good things that have happened - whether it was checking items off my to do list, or seeing a beautiful sunset.  Whatever I can think of to be grateful for, so that I don't always focus on the negative, the scary.

As  work through this Beth Moore book, I'm learning new things to consider as I pray.  One of those is not being afraid to ask for the big things.  I think a lot of the time I figure it would be presumptuous of me to ask for things for myself - I tend to instead ask for health, healing, etc for my family and friends.  I'm learning that may be the ultimate conceit - a falseness that doesn't so much show how humble I am, but rather my lack of faith.

See where I list myself on that list of people that I ask for healing for?  Why is that?  Why do I put myself last?  Don't I deserve to be a little higher on the list?  Aren't we told as mothers that we should take care of ourselves first so that we are able to care for our families?  Not that we do that.  Nope - it's always worry about the rest of the family first - we'll rest when we're dead.

That's just a wee bit close to home for me.

So I'm working on that - on trying to find a way to work myself up that list.   To accept that my health, my cure, is just as important as anyone else on that list.  To accept that there is nothing wrong with taking care of yourself first.

To accept that it's ok to ask for help.  For a miracle.  For long remission.  For a cure.

To really believe in miracles in this age of science and disbelief.  To have the faith of a child.

Easier said than done.