The Gift That Keeps Giving



The texts and emails looked like these:
“Sending love and prayers”
“Keeping Lynn and you all in our prayers. Big hugs.”
“Praying sweet friend…2 Chronicles 16:9 The eyes of the Lord search the whole world over to strengthen the hearts of those fully committed to Him.”
“We are praying fervently for this.”
“Praying.”
“We have you in our thoughts and prayers.”
“Been praying for you and family without ceasing! Love you.”
“JPFY”—code for “Just prayed for you”

These and many more were flooding in as the emergency happened last week. People from all over the country were on their knees taking Lynn before the throne of God. 

We welcomed each and every one of the prayers and knew that we were blessed beyond measure to have the hundreds of people who cared enough to speak to God on our behalf.
It made me start thinking about prayer as a spiritual gift. Although it is never mentioned in the lists of spiritual gifts along with things such as teaching, prophesying, service, encouragement or healing, I feel that it is a gift. 

Not everyone has the gift of teaching. And certainly not everyone has the gift of shepherding or even encouraging, but anyone and everyone can have the gift of praying. You don’t have to be a certain age or social status. You don’t have to be educated or wealthy. You don’t even have to know what you are doing to be able to have that gift or to give it.

Prayer is a gift to the person who is being lifted up whether they know it or not. It is a gift to the person who is doing the praying since they are in the presence of their Father. And it is a gift to God, because He desire for us to bring our concerns and cares to Him.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who have been praying. 

For those of you who have no idea what has been going on, here it is in a snippet. My daughter, Lynn is 15 weeks pregnant. Last weekend her defibrillator went off shocking her twice. At first we were worried that it was her heart causing the problem, but found out that the wiring leads in the device were faulty and were the reason for the shocks. That was good news, but due to her pregnancy, they are unable to go in and repair the device. So for now she has had adjustments made to the pacemaker and will have to wear an external defibrillator vest for the duration of her pregnancy. Beyond that we are not sure about the next steps, but are sure that God already has the perfect plans in place. We saw how He went before us in the last week and so we are confident He will continue doing so as we go forward.

Romans 12:12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

www.hearthope.org

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Christy said…
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July 27, 2014 at 11:24 PM
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