PRAYER


“Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life.

Isaiah 53:3

Dear friends,

I leave tomorrow for Sunriver, a retreat area in the mountains of central Oregon. There I will open my heart to a group of women who are longing to hear God better and clearer and more intimately.

I’ve packed and prepared, studied long hours and written more notes than I should have in preparation for this weekend.

Yet, still, I am afraid.

Afraid of failure. Afraid to let them in. Afraid of being boring, of talking too long, of talking at all!

I am, after all, a raging introvert. Content to love from far away, to sit curled in my chair by the window and think away my days…

This standing in front and talking is just plain painful for one such as I, a peeling away of protection.

And yet I go because God has given me a story. And though the story is about me, it’s not mine.

He wrote this tale of rescue and redemption.

He has taught me to hear, to love His words, to crave His presence.

And so I go with His words in my ears.

I’ll stutter and stumble and try to tell these hungry women how He has met me in the silence and spoken words of healing and hope to my brokenness.

Will you pray for me?

I just cannot prepare enough to do this well. I need God to do what He is so faithful to do and yet facing the fears, my faith wavers.

What if He doesn’t? What if it’s just me up there, all alone? What if I choke? What if I bore them all to sleep? 

Can you hear my fear?

And so this morning, I felt the Father nudging me to ask you, my fellow God-followers, to hold me before the throne for the next few days.

My own faith is pitifully small when it comes to fear-filled things.

Will you follow me up the mountain in prayer?

Will you ask the Father to show Himself strong to me?

In me?

Through me?

And even more, will you ask Him to speak to these beautiful women who are giving a weekend to learn to listen to Him?

Will you ask Him to send them home filled with Himself?

Thank-you!

I feel better already, as if the Father is smiling as He senses all your laughter at me- the laughter of women who know and care and love so well.

From my heart,

Diane