Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Being Blessed Was NOT My Intention

Some of you know I have written something I call the Irritable Mother's Survival Kit, and moms who visit my website can sign up to receive the Kit and my newsletter. In order to send out these items, I had to buy a service which allows me to do mass mailings. Yesterday I logged into my account just to check on some things.
As I was looking over the names of these women, God prompted me to pray for them. So I spent the next hour or so praying for each one by name. Many of them are women I know personally, or with whom I have interacted over email, so I knew specific things to pray for them and I brought those things to God. I thanked God because He is fully aware of the needs of each woman and I asked Him to meet those needs. I asked Him to make His presence clear to these women and to cover each one with His love. And I prayed Paul's Ephesians prayer for them - as I do for you now: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
It simply delighted my heart to consider God knows and loves us all. And though most of the women I prayed for were familiar to me by name only, it brought me joy to realize God is intimately interested in each one.
Sitting at my table, looking at my computer screen, praying for His daughters, I became aware I was a part of something way bigger than I could really understand. I was truly blessed to pray for my sisters, and being blessed was NOT my intention.
After I finished praying I sent a message to all of the women for whom I had just prayed, telling them what I had done. In the hours that followed, God really began blessing me.
My inbox started filling with emails from women thanking me for praying for them. They told me how much they needed to be prayed for yesterday. Many of them shared specific requests and I prayed for them again. They told me of the ways they experienced God's protection and comfort yesterday and I sat here thanking Jesus, nearly crying because He is so good!
God knows what we need. He knew these women needed to be lifted up yesterday and He moved in me to pray for them. He was even perfect in the timing for when my message was delivered to their inboxes.
My desire was simply to pray, but God poured out blessing on me as He allowed me a glimpse of His goodness and power. And I am so thankful.
Praying that today, you will draw near to Him and experience the blessing of His love and presence.

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10 comments:

luvmy4sons said...

Awesome! I love it that He asnwers before we pray. I love the family of God...how connected we all are. I love how true scripture is that it is in giving that we receive. I love what praying does to chang our hearts and trasform lives! You go girl!

Jodi said...

Prayer is such an amazing thing! I was struggling with some things and when I opened up my email I saw a message from you, it made my day. Thank you for being you.

Heather {Desperately Seeking Sanity} said...

i didn't get a chance to email you yesterday and tell you how much I appreciated your note and your prayers... yesterday was a little hectic... but i attribute much of my sanity to you... :)

i posted about it... your note came right after all this happened...

thank you...
http://www.desperatelyseekingsanity.com/2008/03/18/heather-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-days

kreed said...

Awesome!

Anonymous said...

Prayer is awesome! The more I pray the more I see God working in my life!

Unknown said...

I just posted about prayer today too! God is so good!

Stacey said...

Thank you, my dear sister.
The battle is fierce right now and I appreciate your prayer. It is so like our great God to bless us for what we think is only intended to bless others!

She Rose Up said...

Words just don't express...so good! Thanks, Karen. Another good reason why I visit!

happyhome said...

God never ceases to amaze me! He works in ways I often don't imagine. Yes, I think we are all part of something so much bigger. I look forward to the day we will meet not only our Savior face to face, but our wonderful internet friends as well. What a day that will be! In the meantime we'll keep praying for one another.

Thank you for being obedient to His prompting.

Jenileigh said...

I was one of those women. We had a family crisis that there are not words to explain. By afternoon I had peace, enormous profound undeniable peace that comes only from the Lord. Thank-you Karen for being obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and praying for me. God is so faithful. He answered. Today the crisis was over....it was a simple misunderstanding. There will still be
some mending needed for my folks but how is that for answered prayer?!!
I love you lady! Big Hugs!!!