Turning 28

Last week I turned 28. Not really a monumental birthday, but it kind of has been for me. I've been reflecting the last couple of weeks about my life. Am I living it the way I want to? Am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Maybe a kind of 1/3 Life Crisis, I don't know. It's sobering to me in many ways to realize that it's no longer, "When I grow up, I'm gonna..." I AM grown up now. I'm doing this thing called life, whether I'm ready for it or not. I don't get do-overs. I need to be doing it NOW; living it out fully NOW! Not living for the weekends or when Matt gets home or when the kids are a certain age and on and on. This may sound morbid, but our pastor has said, "You begin dying the second you're born." Sobering and true. I was reflecting on that recently while giving the boys a bath. Something about their exposed bodies always takes me back to the hospital room when they were born and it strikes me how quickly they've grown. Why do I wish my precious days with them away? As I reflected on all this... this "am I living the way I want to/ should?" I decided two things.

One, I must be getting old. I've never given much thought to this kind of thing before. I'm pretty sure only old people do. :)

And two, YES!

I feel I'm exactly where I want and need to be. That was so refreshing to me! Usually when I go into "over-analyze mode" I come up with some huge shortcoming that I begin to feel guilty about and work on. This is not to say I've arrived by any means. I have SO much room for improvement, but since Silas' birth, I have felt like a new person. Like I'm becoming me. I'm not perfect, but my heart is tender (at least more than it was) to the Lord. I desire Him in a way that I haven't in a long time. I'm embracing my role as a mother whole-heartedly. I'm letting go of the regrets of not being on the mission field or in ministry or doing any number of other things. I am in love with where God is taking my life.

I am truly, deeply happy.

It's been a while.

Motherhood has changed me, but not in the way I thought it would. I grew up always feeling like I had a "spotlight." You know, a place where I could look good. With church, I was usually considered a pretty good kid. My dad was a pastor for a while when I was young and my mom led the Children's Ministry at our church while I was in middle school and high school. With academics, I was usually one of the best in the class. I graduated as valedictorian in a class of about 450 (nevermind that there were 11 of us who claimed that title). Bottom line: people usually liked being my partner for group projects. :) My bosses always liked me. I did choir, track and was given numerous opportunities to earn a little praise in those areas. I've always had many avenues where I could put on a "show" and get a pat on the back. Motherhood isn't like that. I think it depressed me. No more pats on the back when I accomplished amazing feats like changing a diaper while talking on the phone and checking dinner. No one sees. Honestly, no one really cares. No one has come to me for advice on parenting, 'cause guess what? My toddler acts like all the rest of them! I realized I've been living my life for the praise of man rather than God. This has been a hard pill to swallow. But when I live for God... my audience of One... He's all the audience I need! Who better to get a "pat on the back from" so to speak. Oh to hear those words, "Well done, good and faithful servant" someday. I have purpose back. I have happiness back. I have my life back.

Wednesday was my actual birthday. It snowed... again... and church was canceled and I was inside all day and cleaned all day for our playdate on Thursday and ate grilled cheese for dinner... and it was one of the best birthdays I remember having in a long time. I don't feel like I have some sort of giddy happy, but this deep-seeded happiness that I've really rarely, if ever, felt before. I guess I just took one more baby step toward getting over myself. I have a feeling this is going to take a long time, but I'm so glad I've begun the journey!

Valentine Playdate Party!

Yesterday I had some friends over for a little Valentine Party and it was SO MUCH FUN! My friends Clarissa and Michelle came from church and Jen (our husbands work together) and Mandie (I met her through Jen and as it turns out she only lives two streets away from us!). I am so blessed to call these wonderful Christian women my friends and love having other girls around who are at similar stages in life. I love watching them parent and hearing their ideas and just having fun with them. They are all totally into their kids like me and don't think I'm completely nuts for my crazy, scheduled party I planned for them and their kiddos. (Okay, they might think I'm a little nuts. :))

I've loved doing some organized days for Isaac over the past few months, but have been hesitant to include others. One, because I'm embarrassed of how I get when I'm in "teacher mode" with Isaac. And two, because I wasn't sure that it would go the way I wanted it to if I threw more toddlers in the mix. Sometimes Isaac and I take a leisurely pace with our activity days and work it around naps, feeding schedules, meltdowns and poopy diapers. I was pleasantly surprised with how much fun it was with a group and how much longer Isaac slept afterward! :)

This doesn't always happen, but for some reason I was super organized and this all came together with little stress and lots of fun! Isaac and I did a little decorating to spruce the place up a bit. He painted the hearts below and I strung them together to make garland over the kitchen entryway.

I got the idea for this "heart chain" online. Isaac couldn't really help me with it and it wasn't quite as adorable as the pictures had made it look, but oh well. I doubt I'll be doing it again.

After a few minutes of introductions and mingling, we read a Bible story. I wanted this to be a fun playdate that was Christ-centered. My Grandma got this Bible for Silas for Christmas. It has 5 or 6 stories in it and each one is about 20 pages long with only a couple of sentences on each page. Translation: SUPER toddler friendly. We read the story about Jesus letting the children come to him and talked about how much he loved them.

Then we talked for a minute about how BIG God's love for us is. So big that it reaches all the way up to the heavens! What an amazing truth for all of us! We did this little verse activity where each child brought me a heart with the next word in the verse and we used the clothespin to attach it to the line. I had a little kit prepared for each child to make one of their own when they got home. Ours is hanging in Isaac's bedroom and he likes clipping in the hearts and trying to say the verse. This morning we sang the beginning of the Third Day song with these words and he kept saying, "Again, again." By the end of the morning he said the verse several times with a little help on the first word, LORD, and the reference.

Next it was time to prepare lunch. I used Silas' plastic baby food containers and filled them with cheese and a layer of turkey heart pepperoni at the bottom. Yes, this is where I went a little crazy. I had a super tiny heart fondant cutter and I cut the pepperoni out with it. I kind of had fun. Matt thinks I'm weird.

Everyone did such a good job of prepping their pizza!

Hard at work!

Major concentration by my adorable little man. I got a little side-tracked during all of this and by the time Isaac's made it to the oven he had eaten half of one of his pizzas cold and uncooked. :)

While our pizza cooked, the kids came back to the living room and played file folder games and with random toys that I had set our earlier. I got all the games from http://www.filefolderfun.com/. It's free and I just used card stock to get a sturdy set of pieces. I also laminated the playing pieces with my new laminator Matt got me for Christmas. Yes, I asked for it and yes, I'm a nerd. :)

I gathered up some items to give to the Mommies as my Valentine gift. These were things that I had received as gifts and had never used. There was nothing wrong with any of them, just generic gifts that I thought others might put to better use than my closet. (Don't worry girls, it won't hurt my feelings if you re-gift too! :)) My goal was to catch each child showing love toward someone and let them choose a gift for their Mommy. This proved to be more difficult than I thought, not because the kids weren't loving but because while trying to multi-task as host and a Mommy myself I had a hard time catching them in the act. But, everyone left with a gift (well, except Jen, who left hers... but she's 7 months pregnant so it doesn't count. :))

Lauren helping Jen open her gift. She got to open one because she used kind words. Her words: "Me wuv Isaac." Awww! Definitely gift-worthy. :)

Time to eat! I LOVE Henry's sweet face here!

Isaac and Kyler having a deep conversation about apple slices.

After lunch the kids went on a scavenger hunt around the house to find their dessert while I quickly cleaned up the lunch mess and put out their cookie stuff. Unfortunately, I got no pictures of the decorating process, but here's Isaac's finished product... and his sweet face. Man, I love that kid.

Next, we decorated tin mailboxes that I found at Target in the $1 section. They stuck Valentine stickers to them and then collected their Valentine's in them. It was slightly crazy and this is the only picture I got of it... thirty minutes after everyone left. Oh well. Picture taking is not my forte. The candy train at the top of the post is the Valentine that Isaac handed out to everyone. If you know Isaac then you know that to call his love affair with trains an obsession is an understatement. I didn't intend for it to be the first picture, but I forgot to add it with the rest and my mom wanted to see it and apparently, Blogger is not my forte either because I couldn't figure out how to move it down. :)

We ended the playdate with balloons. Mandie and Jen have both hosted playdates recently and both ended it with balloons. It proved to be the perfect way to end the morning, so I followed suit. They had lots of fun and most reports I got from Mommies afterward said that naps were extra long that afternoon! :)

Silas loves balloons! As usual, he was a perfect baby. He took a nap for a little bit of the party and ate green beans and watched all the commotion with great interest. He makes my life so easy and I love him so much!

Hannah with her adorable pigtails and sweet, little face.

My vain attempt at a group shot... hehe... toddlers don't do well with sitting still.

All in all, we had a great time and I was reminded anew what a blessing friendship is. All of these girls invest whole-heartedly in their children and it shows! I will definitely be trying to do stuff like this more often.

Taking 1 step back so I can take 2 steps forward

I think so far this year I've taken one more step toward getting over myself. My ultra-spiritual self, that is. Somehow over the years, I put myself in a spiritual category to which I never live up. An intellectual Christian, or something like that. I like to read the works of these amazing men and women of the faith and imagine that by reading their stuff, somehow we're on the same level. These people set the standard high and I look up to their example. They are super-heroes in my book. They don't memorize Scripture by the verse or by the chapter... they memorize entire books at a time. They don't sit down to do their quiet time out of the NIV, they read it in the original language. They don't do touchy, feely, emotional studies, they parce Greek verbs, read scholarly commentaries and find the true meaning in the Text. Deep down THIS is who I WISH I was. And for a VERY brief time during my college years, it's who I was on the path to becoming. God put some amazing and very intellectual girls in my life whom I love dearly to this day. They challenged and encouraged me in these endeavors and it was a great time for me. Then something terrible happened. I graduated. I left my little bubble of security and had to wake up to a job serving coffee or decorating cakes everyday. I didn't sit in class and get spiritually fed and challenged all day anymore. I wanted to continue what I had begun, but felt paralyzed by the thought of it. I couldn't sit down to do a quiet time with the Lord without my Greek Bible, a good commentary and 2 different translations of Scripture. Then I'd sit there and journal as I read and feel numb. What if I were misinterpreting something? I didn't have my Greek partners to bounce questions off of anymore. I didn't have professors to correct my erroneous thinking. I wasn't ready to be out on my own. I felt I had just enough knowledge to be dangerous. I couldn't "go back" to the way I'd done Bible study before because now I "knew better;" yet the thought of continuing down the path I had begun paralyzed me. Fast-forward to today and not much has changed. Sure, I've had some times of growth, but the overarching theme of my last half decade has been a sense of dissatisfaction and guilt. Guilt that I'm not doing more. Not doing it the "right" way. But God is working. At the beginning of this year, my pride reared it's ugly head, only this time I recognized it for what it was. Hideous sin. My dear friend, Jen, asked me to join her and some of her friends in a commitment to memorize 24 verses this year. We would be joining Beth Moore's Siesta Scripture Memory Team. The first awful thought that raced through my mind, "Ha! Only ONE verse every TWO weeks! That's for amateurs!" Seriously people, I've got issues. To top it off, I got an e-mail shortly after encouraging me to start a plan to memorize the book of Ephesians over the course of the next year. Ooooh... very spiritual sounding and very tempting! In all seriousness, I do think that memorizing entire books at a time is an incredible goal, but the last time I memorized a verse was either through one of Isaac's kiddy cd's or one of the verses that our Awana kids have repeated to me about a millions times. I can't quite say which. The last time I actually made an EFFORT to memorize? Hmmm.... I'm gonna need a while to answer that one. So, I heartily agreed to join Jen and I'm so glad I did! I'm on my second verse and am already seeing the fruits of my labor. I'm trying to choose verses to challenge me where I'm at right now and let me say, the Holy Spirit has been (sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently) reminding me of what I've hidden in my heart. I took a "step back," but now I'm definitely moving forward. Another area I'm working on is taking time to be in the Word again. I'm pretty hit and miss to say the least. Another one of those things where since I can't do it "right" I just don't do it at all. Today I got up when Matt's alarm when off and read Philippians. No journaling. No commentary. I just read and savored the words. It was good... I plan to continue getting up and beginning my day with Him. I don't know what all that will always entail. I can guarantee I won't be whipping out the Greek Bible at 5am (though I am taking small steps to freshen up on that rusty area a bit), but I will strive to start my day with my Savior. Not super intellectual of me and I've taken a step at "step back," but am definitely moving forward. So, I guess the sum of it is: I'm simplifying my "growth methods" so that actual growth begins taking place again. Sigh. That feels much better!

5 years into "Happily Ever After"

Fourteen years ago I sat in 8th grade Algebra with this shy guy whom I never talked to. Eleven years ago, as a Junior in high school, I became good friends with him in French class. Ten years ago, I began trying to find a girl for him because he was "just such a great guy." Seven years ago, I began hoping maybe I could be that girl. Five years ago today, I married him. Matt and I celebrate our 5th anniversary today and I cannot put into words how grateful I am for this man. I figured that when I went to a ministry minded college, I'd find someone there that I would connect with and marry. I was SHOCKED when God had other plans and led me right back to my hometown to a guy that I'd known for years. NOT what I had planned, but I'm so glad that it's what HE planned. There were a lot of things that I knew and didn't know about Matt when I married him 5 years ago. I did know that we connected in so many ways. Yes, we're normal and we argue. I'm not sure if God could have put two more stubborn people together, but fortunately for us, we see eye to eye on so many issues, that our arguments usually end up being about stupid things. A recent example is during our Christmas decorating we had a knock down, drag out about which topper would go on the tree (angel- his preference or star- mine) and where exactly the nativity and Christmas houses should go. Life changing decisions, people. In the end, we got over it peacefully and moved on. Although I don't like that we disagree at all, I'm thankful that it's over things like that and not how to raise our children, spend our money or issues of our faith. He is truly, 100% my best friend in the whole world and I don't know what I'd do without him. I also knew that he was a godly man. I like almost everyone, but there are few people that I connect with on a deeper, more satisfying level. I am so thankful that my husband is one of those people. He challenges me and encourages me. When I'm wondering about something from Scripture, he can often give me an answer off the top of his head. While I was in college reading theology as my textbooks, he would borrow them and read them so that we could talk about them. The main difference now: He's a genius and can remember many details from those books we read and all of that has become painfully fuzzy for me. He's my walking biblical reference who not only KNOWS his stuff, but puts it into practice. I knew that he was good with money. People kid that he's tight, but I am SO thankful that he's a "budgeter." He has kept us on track financially and made what he brings home enough to provide comfortably for his family so that I can stay home with the boys. And honestly, though he rarely spends money on a whim, he is very generous and I get to see first hand his heart and priorities as his master-mind creates formulas and spread sheets to keep it all organized. As much as I knew about him, there were a lot of things I was about to learn. I learned that he is awesome at loving me as Christ loves the church. I tend to be a little bratty and don't like to admit when I'm wrong. When we do have arguments, this can make them difficult to resolve. Time and time and time again, he's stepped up, swallowed his pride and shown me love and grace to bring peace back into our home. He sincerely puts me first. And Ladies, don't be jealous, but my man helps me keep the house clean, do laundry and helps keep this place (somewhat) organized. AND he doesn't do it because I ask him to or because he's trying to make me feel bad. He just helps, no strings attached. He treats me as a beloved bride that he enjoys doing things with and for. I never doubt his love. I learned that he is an incredible family man and father. I could not ask for a better daddy for our boys. He invests in them whole-heartedly and comes home with a fresh burst of energy to get us through the night when I'm all "played out." He gives them a great example of how to treat a woman and leads our family through his example and words. He makes work a priority, but he never puts it before us. I never knew how much I wanted a family man until I found out I married one. I learned that I got a much better man than I thought I did back in 2005. I knew I had done well, but I did much better than that! I am so grateful to be married to someone that I still count down the minutes until he gets home from work. Someone that I can's sleep well without on the rare occasion that he's out of town. Someone who still gives me goosebumps all over when he kisses me soft and slow. I love you, Matthew Steven Miller and I am so glad I get to spend the rest of my life with you!

Happy Holidays and Merry X-mas!

If you read my last post on Christmas traditions, then you know that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Christmas! So I've been thinking about a couple of popular Christian topics around this time of year and thought I would share some thoughts on the issues and maybe offer a little bit of a history lesson. Our pastor is one of the best preachers I've ever sat under and it seems like he's always got an aside in his sermon that is more profound that many pastors' main points. Seriously. He's that good. Anyway, a couple years ago he made a comment about all the commotion that's been raised in the recent past about being politically correct around Christmastime. "Merry Christmas" has turned into "Happy Holidays" with a lot of businesses and on Greeting Cards and in songs so as not to offend those who don't celebrate Christmas and to encompass those who celebrate other religious holidays. I'm very used to hearing Christians grumble about this and take offense, but he didn't. In fact, he said something along the lines of, "The world isn't celebrating Christmas anyway, so why would we get mad about it? The focus on commercialism and Santa has nothing to do with the incarantion of Christ, so it really doesn't need to be called Christmas." (This is a major paraphrase people.... he's much more eloquent and I should have written it down when it said it, but I didn't.) At first it was so contrary to what I was used to hearing that I didn't absorb it right away. As I thought about it though, I became more convinced that what he said was right. Why do we (Christians) get so caught up in expecting the world to act like Christians? Why would we expect people who don't love Jesus to feel attached to the word "Christmas" and feel compelled to call what they celebrate "Christmas"? Even if they do call it "Christmas", if Christ is not involved in their celebration, then that's not really what it is they're celebrating. It's merely a pagan celebration involving fun and good will towards others, but there's nothing sacred about it. In fact, one may be able to go so far as to say that embracing what the world calls "Christmas" in many ways defames the name of Christ. His name is part of something that often has nothing to do with him. So, I've resolved that when someone tells me "Happy Holidays," I'll respond with "Merry Christmas" but I won't get mad. I'll pray that someday their vain-attempt-to-bring-true-happiness "holiday" will turn into a blessed-celebration-of -the-Word-made-flesh "Christmas." Which leads me to another hot topic. The supposed removal of Christ's name from the word Christmas, found penned as "Xmas," often gets Christians up in arms. Here's a bit of history that you might find interesting. As a child I had always heard that "Xmas" was a non-Christian's way of taking Christ's name out of Christmas. One day my Grandpa Cooper (who was a bit of a history buff) told me that "Xmas" wasn't bad and that the "X" actually stood for Christ. I found it interesting enough that I never forgot it; however, I never heard support of this statement growing up, so I became skeptical over time and assumed he must have been wrong. As a Greek student at Moody, we talked briefly about the issue and how the Greek letters "Chi" and "Rho" ("X" and "P") became a popular abbreviation for Christ because they were the first two letters in the word "Christos" or Christ. (Click the link to the article below to see pictures of how this looked) We talked about how sometimes just an "X" was used and thus the abbreviation "Xmas" came into being as a way to represent the word "Christmas" but we didn't talk about details of how that came to be. I decided to make a "tricky" Christmas quiz for our AWANA kids this year and added a question about this issue on it. I decided to do a little more research on it so that I would have clear answers if they asked any and found this explanation from Dennis Bratcher fascinating! (www.crivoice.org/symbols/xmasorigin.html) Here's the part that was new to me:

In any case, by the fifteenth century Xmas emerged as a widely used symbol for Christmas. In 1436 Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with movable type. In the early days of printing, typesetting was done by hand and was very tedious and expensive. As a result, abbreviations were common. In religious publications, the church began to use the abbreviation "X" for the word "Christ" to cut down on the cost of the books and pamphlets. From here, the abbreviation moved into general use in newspapers and other publications, and "Xmas" became an accepted way of printing "Christmas" (along with the abbreviation Xian and Xianity). Even Webster's dictionary acknowledges that the abbreviations "Xmas" was in common use by the middle of the sixteenth century.

So there is no grand scheme to dilute Christianity by promoting the use of Xmas instead of Christmas. It is not an modern invention to try to convert Christmas into a secular day, nor is it a device to promote the commercialism of the holiday season. Its origin is thoroughly rooted in the heritage of the Church. It is simply another way to say Christmas, drawing on a long history of symbolic abbreviations used in the Church. In fact, as in other abbreviations used in common speech or writing (such as Mr. or etc.), the abbreviation "Xmas" should be pronounced "Christmas" just as if the word were written out it full, rather than saying, "exmas." Understanding this use of Christian symbolism might help us modern day Xians focus on more important issues of the Faith during Advent, and bring a little more Peace to the Xmas season.

This is just the end of the article and the whole thing is really worth reading if you want a better (much better) explanation on the other stuff. All this is not to say that there are not some who use "Xmas" as a way to avoid the name of Christ, but I find it kind of funny that if that is their intention, they are unsuccessful. :)

I especially like what Bratcher says at the end of his article and thought his encouragement to focus on more important issues of the faith during Advent were dead on. So here's to keeping the focus on Christ and not "issues."

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Having Fun Celebrating Jesus!

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!" Every time I think about Christmas, I can hear Andy Williams singing this song in my head. I SERIOUSLY love Christmas! Even more than birthdays. I like every part of it! I like the parties and the lights and the food and the music and the smells and the weather and the bell ringers and the presents and deep down I don't even mind all the craziness and people in the stores. I get a warm fuzzy feeling from Thanksgiving until December 25th and I LOVE it! But amidst all the hustle and bustle and fairytale feelings, it can be easy for me, even as an adult, to lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas. Last year Matt and I spent a lot of time talking about ways that we can make sure that even though all this other stuff is fun, Christ remains the focus in our home. Here's a few Christmas traditions we came up with or copied off of others: The day after Thanksgiving gift- We like to decorate and get all of our Christmas stuff out the day after Thanksgiving. That's when Christmas officially starts for us. One thing we decided to do is to give a collective gift to our children on that day that focuses on Christ and that they can enjoy the whole season and help them focus on him. Ideas include: books and videos about his birth, ornaments (I just saw a super cool set at Hobby Lobby today that could be used to decorate a tree in their room... maybe next year?:)), toys (Fisher Price has a toddler Nativity set), advent calendars, activities, etc. Each year that stuff comes back out and you add something else to it and the idea is that they'll be surrounded with fun things that celebrate Christ and will remind them of the meaning of Christmas when they see and play with them. Three Gifts- Several people gave us the idea of giving 3 gifts to each child to represent the 3 gifts the wise men gave to Jesus. Nothing spiritual about it, just another reminder. This year with Isaac, we got him some "smaller" gifts (puzzles, videos and board games). Because none of them were super expensive and our budget this year allowed it, we got him several of each and we're wrapping them as "themed" gifts. Silas is getting 3 "bigger" items. Santa- How can you not love that big, jolly guy? We struggled with how to allow Santa Claus to be a part of our holiday season without him stealing the show. We finally decided on stockings. We got these super cute stockings last year with Santa on them and each year on Christmas morning they will find it stuffed full of fun things from him. We really don't want to be Scrooges, but we do want to be Christ centered. Everyone has their opinions on this, but this is what we've decided for our family and I'm super excited about it. Isaac's getting some Thomas trains in his this year and I'm pretty sure he'll be more excited about those than anything else he gets. Silas, well, he's getting a rubber ducky and some socks. :) Breakfast- This year we'd like to implement a fun breakfast tradition. To minimize stress on an already crazy morning/week, I think we're going to do cinnamon rolls out of a can. When it's time to eat we'll light a candle and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. Quick and fun and one more way to bring it back around to the reason we're celebrating. Reading the Christmas story- Of course we'll be reading the story of Jesus' birth a lot over the next month, but when I was growing up, we always read the story out of Luke before we opened presents as a family. I like that idea and think we'll continue it with our family, though we may use a more toddler/baby friendly version for the next couple of years. Theme days- I'll be doing 1 or 2 themed Christmas days with Isaac to reinforce what he's been learning about the birth of Christ. So that's how we're going to try and stay focused this year and how we hope to pass down to our children the amazing Gift that was given to us by our Father at Christmas time. What are some of your traditions that help you celebrate Jesus? Does anyone have any good traditions between them and their spouse? I'm all about getting some more good ideas and tweaking or changing or adding to what we already have!

Looking AT the windshield instead of THROUGH it

Prayer. It's been my focus as of late. I think I may have had a mini-breakthrough. I've already lamented about how prayer has always been a struggle for me and that I've been fighting to make it a more vibrant part of my life. I recently finished up A Praying Life by Paul Miller and found it to be a fresh perspective that left me feeling hopeful that perhaps progress can be made in this area of my life. In his chapter on listening to God, Miller uses a word picture that really struck me. He was actually using it in reference to elevating an experience with God over God himself but he said, "Without realizing it, we can look at the windshield instead of through it." All at once it hit me that that's what I've been doing with prayer. I want to pray "right," so I study the topic of prayer. I read books on Scripture. I read Scripture itself. I have books that give amazing testimony to the power of prayer. I get all "motivated up" and then give it a shot. I think, "Okay, now I know what the Bible says about it and the effects it can have, so let's do this!" And I fizzle out again and come out on the other side discouraged. Okay, so then Miller talks about how a "praying life" can look and gives some practical advice to get there. He focuses on Scripture and how it is such an important part of praying. He talks about finding passages of Scripture to help you "pray biblically" about specific circumstances. Not an idea that's completely foreign to me. Then it all came together in my mind: I left Scripture alone once I learned what the Bible said about the topic. I used my intellect and my emotions, but rarely the Word of God. Sure, I occasionally prayed through a Psalm as a praise offering or lament or let a passage (such as the Lord's Prayer) guide my praying, but for the most part, Scripture was not a part of the praying process. Enter confusion. I second guess myself as I pray because I don't know whether to pray "in faith" or pray "your will be done" or give it up all together because deep down I don't believe it does anything. Doest that make sense? I'm looking AT the windshield (theology of prayer) instead of THROUGH it? I then become paralyzed by the idea of praying correctly. Aiyayay! I've seriously been doing this for years!!!! He suggests something that I've embarrassingly never even thought of. Make my "prayer list" using Scripture. Novel idea. Here's how it looks: He has an index card for specific members of his family and areas of his life (people who are suffering, friends, non-Christians, church leadership, missionaries and ministries, cultural issues, work, co-workers, repentance, hopes/dream, etc.). He considers the things they need prayer for and then finds a verse or passage in Scripture to guide his prayer for that person. Brilliant! No more second guessing! (Or at least less of it, anyway!) I think it will make more sense if you read the book or look at my cards, so I'll give some examples. Isaac, as most two year old are, is struggling with obedience and whining right now. So here's what his card says: ISAAC Obedience- "Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right." (Eph. 6:1) Whining- "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation..." (Phi. 2:14-15) Salvation- "For 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'" (Rom. 10:13) These are things I am praying for Isaac right now. Instead of just praying that Isaac won't whine (which in reality would really be a prayer for me because I can't stand listening to it!!!), I can pray that he would not whine for his character's sake and for God's glory; that he would grow up to be a blameless and pure child of God even in the midst of the evil going on in the world around him. Here's a personal card with areas that I struggle with and am continually coming back to the Lord for forgiveness and help. REPENTANCE Selfishness with others (especially Matt)- "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." (Phil. 2:3-4) Laziness in household responsibilities- "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." (Col. 3:23) Pride-When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. (Prov. 11:2) That's about all the dirty laundry that I'm willing to share, but you get the idea. I have a lot of friends from Moody who are either on the mission field or are getting ready to go and this is my prayer card for them (some names are X'ed out because they're in sensitive areas and I'm not sure that it's good to have "missionary" next to their name on a public site). MISSIONARIES XXXXXX and XXXXXX Matt and Pam XXXXXX and XXXXXX Kevin and Alyssa Nate and Kelley "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Gal. 6:9) I LOVE it. My "prayer list" items don't change much, but the WAY I pray for those things do! Such a breath of fresh air! Miller doesn't pray through every prayer card everyday and he suggests using your designated prayer time to make these cards if you don't feel you have a lot of extra time (which is what I'm trying to do). He also gives a sneak peek into his prayer life and gives a real life representation of the 20-25 min. he spent in his "set aside prayer time" and what it looked like with interruptions and all. It was encouraging to me to see a guy who takes prayer so seriously yet doesn't spend hours in a prayer closet uninterrupted before God (not that that isn't AMAZING if you do it, but not extremely practical for me right now unless I were to get up in the middle of the night.) I'll once again recommend this book. It's not perfect, but it sure is a fresh perspective and unlike any other book I've read on the subject. That's all for now. I am still very open to suggestions and would love to hear how your prayer life works. For now, I'm grateful for the mini-breakthrough and pray that the Lord continues to work on me in this area of weakness.