Moms in Touch

About a year ago I felt the Lord nudging me to work on my prayer life. Up to that point I kind of just prayed random prayers. Most of them consisted of struggles I was going through or prayers for other people I knew were going through a trial of some kind. A lot of my prayers were (and still are) pleading with the Lord for patience for my kids or a long nap time. My prayers were simple and straightforward, which there's nothing wrong with that, but I really never realized the power in praying the scriptures.

I went to MOPS one day and a woman got up and said she was starting a Moms In Touch group. It's a group that prays once a week for their kids while they're in school. They pray for an hour long using different methods and scriptures. I was drawn to this because I wanted to learn how to better pray the scriptures (ok, yes I wanted to pray for Rylie too, but it was mostly a selfish ambition at this point) but at the same time I did NOT want to go. Praying for an hour sounded torturous to me, plus praying out loud is a whole other obstacle I had to get over. Praying out loud is intimidating! Especially in front of people who know how to pray the scriptures and pray them well.

I found several excuses not to go, so I didn't. (My daughter's just in preschool, Monday mornings are too busy, I'm too scared, and the list goes on). But, I couldn't escape the voice of the Lord prompting me to go. I knew I had to schedule this time because in the life of every mom...there is no time unless it's planned. So I got up the nerve and told the leader I wanted to join second semester. I was sweating it when I first walked in...there were only 3 of us. I couldn't decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing. On the upside only 2 other people would know that I was horrible at praying, but on the downside they would hear me praying a lot.

So I'm not going to tell you that heaven and earth shook after the first meeting, but it did go a lot better than I thought it would. We were given verses to pray and we prayed them for our kids and for each others kids. We prayed for specific teachers and problems the schools were facing and also difficulties our own kids were having. The hour actually went fast. As the semester went on I began to grasp how to incorporate scripture with prayer. Verses I had memorized would come to mind as I was praying. I'm still not an eloquent prayer by any means, but there's something powerful about claiming and verbalizing the Lord's promises in prayer. This kind of praying takes discipline and practice...people who are good at this are good because they've been memorizing and praying scripture for years. It just flows naturally out of their mouths because they live it. They breathe it.

As a result of this time spent in prayer, I began to see small changes in Rylie. I prayed a lot about Rylie and Austyn's relationship because they had been fighting a lot. I prayed Ephesians 4:32 for them that they would "be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another. Just as God forgave them." I saw Rylie's attitude toward her sister soften and I know this was a result of praying because all the disciplining in the world was not phasing her. I feel like this is slipping already because I haven't prayed about it since school got out. Without scheduled time, it's so hard as a mom to have time to sit and actually pray a full prayer without interruption or spend time in the Word at all for that matter.

I'm still not 100% comfortable going to Moms in Touch - I actually kind of still dread going. But ultimately, it's not about my comfort. It's about listening to the Holy Spirit prompting me, it's about disciplining myself to be as close to God as I possibly can, it's about becoming the person God wants me to be. Every time I left a meeting I felt rejuvenated and close to the Lord because we had been speaking the same language.

If anyone wants info about MIT let me know and I promise you...you won't be the only idiot there. I got ya covered.