Amazing Day Three

It's only day 3 in this 30 day journey of giving God some intentional prayer time. I don't know if I'll ever get to that place of praying like my Mom has prayed all of my life - but I know that I want to get there, now, more than ever.

Yesterday seemed like a horrific test of some kind as one by one, little triggers that often discourage me, were pulled. It was stupid little stuff that probably wouldn't trip up anyone who might be watching my life on the sideline, but to me, the day seemed loaded with an arsenal of pinches and pokes aimed my way.

Each pinch tempted me to pick up the phone and complain to my husband, you know, wearily lay it all on his patient ears, but I resisted the urge to purge on him or anybody else. Instead I prayed in my mind and asked God to help me shed the hurts without allowing them any additional insult.

Not only did praying work, I felt at the end of the day like I was rewarded beyond belief when I spoke on the phone with my Mom who is now 84 and lives hundreds of miles, away.

It was just supposed to be a "How are ya doing today, Mom?," call. Little did I know that Mom had had a rough morning. A severe headache out of nowhere caused her to go to bed.

'The pain had hit like never before, right across the eyes and a weakness set in", she shared.

She was going to call my sister in law and wanted to find that list of stroke warning signs I had sent her, but the pain was too much. As she lay down, she called on the one that she's called on so many, many times before... Jesus.

She said she started feeling better but felt she had to rest and so she did, peacefully, until I called.

To make a very long conversations a little shorter, together we figured out that she had stopped taking an important medication to help in the prevention of strokes. When the bottle had run empty, she'd thought she was finished and had neglected to refill.

A phone call or two later, her medicine was on its way to her via my brother who had just happened to be two minutes from the pharmacy when I called him. He said typically he wouldn't have been around that area at that point in the day but he had given a man a ride home.

The closing words with my Mom will ignite my faith for the rest of my own days.

Her parting words with me were,

"Renee, God takes care of me because I talk to Him. I talk to Him every day,

you know that I do.

I talk to Him about everything that I'm thankful for and I tell Him

all my worries about my family and friends.

Because I talk to God, God favors me.

I know that God cares deeply about me because I show Him

that I care deeply

because I talk with Him

every day."

To a daughter feeling an increasingly urgent need to get closer to God through genuine old fashioned, conversational type, prayer, those words played like music to my ears, light to my path and an indescribably empowering wind beneath my spiritual wings.

Dear God, I know that you hear me.

Thank you for those precious words from my 84 year old Momma. Her confidence in claiming your divine favor ran a surge of recharging faith from my head to my toes that I will surely never forget.

The love that you so generously poured out through a difficult Monday was like a natural hot spring that makes me just want to stay inside of it, forever. Hearing my humble little Mom, who never brags about anything at all regarding herself, proclaim without an ounce of hesitation that you are with her in an especially close and comforting way because of the heart for prayer that you gave her and she has been obedient to, spoke to me a in a measure of truth that I know nothing else could ever compare, so I thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making your desire to be close to me, so real.

For today, be ever closer. Especially watch over Mom and every other person facing the challenges of aging or sickness, alone.

Watch over Sydney as she faces the stressful FCAT's this week as you know how standardized tests tend to freak her out. Be with Michael and help him finish up his last few senior credits with gusto and help him keep sight of the bright future you have planned for him druing this typically confusing stage of life. Take care of Iz and make all of the Charisma redesign issues flow like rain from that creative mind that you gave him and give him peace about his decisions at every turn.

For me, please keep this desire to talk with you, alive like never before.

Again, thank you for the reminder that you really do want to hear from me through daily prayer and that you want to hear from everyone else, too.

Absolutely, without a doubt, thank you for my beautiful and amazing, Christ following, prayer talking, Mom.

Where would we be without you? May I never, ever know.