Good Morning Friends!

During this season, we often equate how much we love someone by the gifts under the tree. We think we have to spend a lot of time, money, or effort to prove to our husband, kids, family, and friends that we really love them. Just this week I’ve spent hours cruising Amazon for the perfect gifts. The ones that will make my children’s eyes light up as they come running down the hall Christmas morning and help my friends to know how much they mean to me. The quest for the perfect gift can be exhausting!

I realized recently the times I’ve felt most loved by my friends and family weren’t the ones when a gift was involved.

Just this past week my friends poured love out on me. I felt it running down my face and dripping from my fingertips, but it had nothing to do with gifts. On Monday I sent out a request for pray warriors to pray over me as I worked on the second draft of my Choose Freedom Bible study. Within moments my phone was chiming repeatedly with “Yes!” “How can I pray for you today?” “You frequently make my prayer list. I’d be honored!” One of my friends, who I haven’t even spoken to in five years, since she lives halfway around the world, even called me to to learn more about the project and tell me she would love to pray for me. Since then, I can feel their prayers holding me up and helping me put one word behind the other, especially on the days when I have little time to write.

This whole week I have struggled to find time to write. I’ve been grading stacks of papers, caring for sick kids, feeling sick myself, but I still kept writing. I’m even here now, at 10:30pm on a Saturday, writing this post because of their prayers.

I’ve felt this love waterfall at other times, too. Times when I share my heart with a friend and she asks right then, “Can I pray for you?” and we stop right then in the moment and go before God together. Pure love.

So if praying for each other means so much, why don’t we do it more? I’m not talking about the quick “Praying!” as a comment to a Facebook post. Those are good and needed, too, but why don’t we stop and pray specifically for others more? Why don’t we send them notes or emails saying, “This is how I’m praying for you today” and then pray for those specific blessings or struggles?

Lately, I’ve felt such a burden to pray. For my kids, husband, family, friends…It’s like God is just weighing on me the burden to bring them to his throne. To lift them up to him and bring them to his throne.

Would you join me? This week ask your friends how you can specifically pray for them. Then let them know through a note, email, or text the words you spoke over them as you brought them before God. If a friend shares their heart with you, even though it may feel awkward, be courageous and ask, “May I pray for you right now?” She will feel loved, I promise.

Let’s love one another not just in gifts but with specific prayer during this season. Let’s not worry that the words aren’t right or we might sound strange. Be brave and take your friends and family to the Father and pour pure love out on them. It’s a gift costs nothing, but the benefits are eternal.

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Some of my favorite prayer resources right now are:

 I love this resource! It is my go-to book for praying for my sons. You can pray straight through its short chapters, or you can look up specific areas of struggle in the moment and pray scripture over your sons. For example, are they struggling with kindness? Flip to that chapter and you have many verses and prayers to pray over them right then! Love.

This book is good whether you have boys or girls. However, if you are a boy mom, the MOB Society (Mothers of Boys) has a monthly Tribe subscription that gives you access to daily scripture prayers over your boys, a daily prayer journal, organizational resources, and a community full of godly boy moms at all stages of life. They have helped me out so much in my walk as a boy mom. If you’re looking for strategies for prayer and a loving community check out the MOB Tribe here. 

If you’re struggling to connect with God, check out this book. It’s not a therory book on prayer, instead, it get you praying, now. Gerhardt has many different suggestions for how to pray and connect with God, so if one way doesn’t fit your situation, another might. Reading this book helped deepen my prayer life in ways I hadn’t connected with God in years.

The hands folded book is her Prayer Journal for kids based off of Prayer, in Practice, and an adult version is in the works. So not only can you connect with God yourself, but you can encourage your children to do it, too. I like the children’s book so much, I bought it for all three of my boys (7, 5, & 2) to have for when they get older. It is recommended for ages 7-12.

These two books are by a sister writing duo, Betsy Duffey and Laurie Myers. They have written a variety of children’s books, however, I really enjoy these books on praying Psalms 23 and the Armor of God over my children. The Psalms 23 book brought out aspects of this well loved Psalm that I hadn’t even considered before. So good!

These are affliate links. Click on the pictures to purchase great resources and help support our ministry here at Overacup.