Usually in our family prayers at night I ask each of the kids to say something they are grateful for that can be added in the prayer. Tonight that changed to, “Who needs us to pray for them?” I made this switch for 2 reasons: 1, Prayer is a powerful tool, and 2, we need to get outside of ourselves for other people.
Communicating (really communicating – not just mindlessly going through the motions) with Heavenly Father is a sacred experience. It is powerful. In that moment, I know He is there. I know He hears me and my concerns and understands my heart. He feels me. And I feel Him. Sometimes praying for someone is all I can do for them. My heart ached the other day as I listened to a lady who I adore and look up to tell me about her recent struggles. She and her husband battled COVID, then got in a serious car crash (several months ago). She has still been dealing with the effects of that accident; just finishing physical therapy for her injuries and still needing to get dental work done for the teeth that were knocked out – which, mind you, the insurance won’t cover because teeth are “cosmetic” apparently, haha (so ridiculous). And on top of that, she hasn’t been able to go back to work since the accident. But I had no idea that she was suffering in this way and that all of this was still going on. Her words weren’t defeated, which is typical of her upbeat nature, but her body language and spirit were. It broke my heart. And suddenly I felt so selfish for not having included her and her husband in my daily prayers all this time. Heavenly Father loves us so much that whatever is important to us, is important to Him. He is here to bless us, all of us, to the extent He is available. If you pray for someone, with real intent and feeling, and the Lord has no reason in His infinite vision and wisdom to not bless them with what you ask, He will do it – even for the littlest things. I 100% know this. So when you know someone can use your prayers in their behalf, offer it, pour out your heart to the Lord for them.
The second reason I made this switch is because my kids are all too often engulfed in a self center world, which concerns me deeply. Service is everything. “Feed my sheep,” is what the Savior asked of Peter. To survive the madness in this world, we have to be able to see other people as children of God. We have to love them the way He loves them. We have to offer helping hands of kindness and guidance back to our loving Father in Heaven. We have to be available in mind, body, and spirit, which means getting beyond ourselves. Attention management is a real thing with which we struggle (my kids especially) in this day and age. Our attention has to be available to the whisperings of the Spirit so that we can have eternal eyes and eternal hearts to see and love in the spirit of service. Having my kids identify someone who could benefit from us praying for them, I’m hoping, will also help them to see that people genuinely need their help and service.
We are on this earth for a purpose. Some of that purpose is selfish, yes, as we do need bodies and to gain experiences for our own knowledge etc. But beyond those initial selfish purposes lies the greater purpose, assisting in the Lord’s work of bringing back His children to Him. The Lord needs us to have ourselves in a place where we are ready to serve Him and to help those who are lost find their way back to Him.
Forever grateful to know the Savior, to have the truths of the gospel literally at my fingertips, and to know that my sincere prayers are heard and felt.
