Thank you for your prayers! Or, Prayer is my love language

You know, this weekend I had really hoped to spend some time writing a few blog posts.  Time has truly run away with me. However, I cannot let the weekend pass altogether without saying “Thank you for your prayers!” Because I have strongly felt the effects of someone’s prayers upon my life, to the point where it was absolutely unmistakable that someone was definitely praying for me. I felt this very strongly last Friday that has gone, 17th February.

You know, in general, it feels as if things are truly coming together in my life anyway. On Friday it was as if so many things in my life just slotted into place. I literally went around with a huge smile on my face the whole day.

– Emotional maturity:  this may have happened before Friday, maybe starting on Wednesday 15th? I have been trying to understand emotional maturity for years now.  I have been asking myself why I go around incurring so much aggro with so many people.  I have been watching others, including members of my own family, and asking myself what it might be that they know, that I don’t know. And I feel as if I finally get it! You can firmly shut the door to people to keep them out of your life, or to minimise interaction with them, but you can be kind and gracious about it at the same time. Why have I never understood that?! To be honest, a number of things had to come together, my understanding of choosing excellent friends, maintaining boundaries with my time and effort. This understanding could arguably be “just” the consequence of my own ruminating on these topics at length, thinking about particular people. But I must admit, that it excites me to think that someone could have noticed this very obvious shortcoming in my maturity, and decided to pray about it for me.

And then Friday happened. And you know what, tears are coming to my eyes even as I am writing this. Because it feels as if on Friday, someone just released a flood of positive prayers on my head.  This might sound really small, but to me it felt really big:  I eat quite modestly. And yet I am so happy with my food and I am grateful and I know that I am so blessed compared to so many other people in the world. And yet on Friday, I felt a divine empowerment to move to the next level with my food. That is, to not just wait until I get married to enjoy more exciting meals. And as implausible as this may sound, it felt as if someone was praying into my life the enjoyment of Valentine’s Day that we might have had if we had gone out on a date together. And I can’t help noting that this happened just a few days after Valentine’s Day!  And the irony is that theoretically those things were always possible. The money was available. I could always have eaten in that way, if I had so wished. But it was truly as if I could feel God releasing me from my usual frugal reservations and fears and authorising me to go out and buy myself some delicious food. My mind was buzzing with exciting and creative food ideas! So that very Friday I went out and I spent money that I never usually spend on things that I never usually buy, and I had a great time eating it. At the time I thought that I could be doing that every weekend, but my innate frugality has reasserted itself, and I am thinking now once a month. Actually no, there are certain aspects which I do plan to carry on every day, other things once a week, other things monthly.  Once again, if I wanted to, I could carry on doing these things every weekend. However I currently feel that once a month would suffice.

And there were so many other things that just seemed to happen on Friday, and I went around with a huge smile on my face. Also, from henceforth, I plan to be blessing myself with at least 8 hours of sleep every day. Once again this might not seem like a big deal. To me though, and my current lifestyle, it is huge! And it actually happened before Friday, so I actually got 8 hours sleep going into Friday. But I am happily bundling it all into the package of Friday blessings! Perhaps this was the prayer that God answered even before someone prayed it, because God is so big, He can do that!  Ooh, which also reminds me –  humility, focusing on God, gazing on God’s splendour, His glory, these are all things which hit me anew and afresh all through last week.

You know, I am tentatively allowing myself to hope that there might be someone male, holy and romantically available extending these prayers to me as a way of reaching out to me. In fact the truth is that I am also “tentatively” [confidently]  hoping that if indeed someone is praying, I just might be able to guess who that someone could be!

Please please be who I think you are, and please please be single!!!  If indeed you are the person I hope you are, I ahem, have ahem been trying to think of a subtle way to find out if you are single, wondering whether it is feasible for me to simply just ask you outright!  Part of me is thinking “Surely, no man in a relationship would pray that way for someone else?!”  Many men will not pray like that even for their own partners, and you know it was quite intimate. I happily thought to myself that these were the prayers of a hopeful, would-be lover…

You know what, prayer is real, and prayer works, and I can scarcely begin to say how excited I was at the prospect that I and an amazing guy could be exchanging exciting prayers for each other’s lives, and looking on and seeing them happen in each other’s lives. What an amazing gift to have access to the power of God, and what an incredible gift to be able to give ourselves, to pray the power of God into each others’s lives, and to see that power of God actually at work! And the way everything just seemed to break forth on my head, from nowhere, it was as if this person had just grasped the incredible power of prayer, and realised his own power in prayer, and was exercising it with relish. A powerful husband is a phenomenal husband, and consistently and boldly walking in the power of prayer instantly elevates a husband above any other seeming advantage, truly!  And it was as if the person who was praying for me had just realised that!  I guess what I am trying to say is that if you are potentially my husband and you are a Christian and your life of faith has perhaps led to a few sacrifices of your life goals, as it has equally led to a few sacrifices for me, and perhaps you had been unsure how you might be regarded, speaking for myself, if you are a prayerful man then that is already the most incredible thing (alongside Christlike character, of course!) and I would fall over myself to win you and your prayers into my life.  Other women can chase whatever they want, please give me the prayerful man Lord!

You know what?  I truly, truly do want a husband, and this year I have made up my mind that I am going to be serious about this. I am going to be serious about my prayers, I feel like I am ready to talk. I want this, and I am ready for this, and I am ready to talk, and eager to move forward! So if you were to drop me a message, for instance…then I think I would finally be able to admit a number of things, although, there might likely still be a “but”, and a significant one, “but” likely not that obvious disagreement that you might imagine!

You know what, I am so bold on this blog.  And yet I am shy even in my prayers with God. I can spell out exactly what I want in marriage. I even have “hot prayers” detailing our ahem – hoped for ahem – certain aspects of our marriage, in which I am not remotely shy about spelling out everything.  But to actually articulate an individual’s name in my prayers, to even be able to frame the prayers in a way that says “Lord, I am starting to get exciting ideas about – [his name]. If this is of You, if this comes from You, if this would be a good idea and if this would glorify You, then please make it happen!” Can you imagine, I was too busy blushing even in prayer, and it is only now that I have been able to think of phrasing it like that! (By the way, I’ve been thinking of this individual for months! Actually, waaaaaaay longer than that, but it’s complicated!)

AND so it happened, in the course of writing this post, that it finally occurred to me for the first time ever, that you/he might be romantically shy too!  If this is true, then oh my goodness, you have hidden it well.  And yet, considering a few things, I see that it is entirely plausible. Oh my goodness, that is actually it, isn’t it?! You are actually as shy as I am – perhaps even more so! That would explain a few things. Why have I been so blind?!!!

OTHER POST IDEAS
– Emotional maturity – Yep, this is simply a post spelling out in more detail what I have written above.
– Stop gaslighting myself with this idea that men are “more rational”.  If someone is considerate and compassionate, I can understand them. If they are not, then I can’t understand them.
– Humility – once again as above, I watched  a Jentzen Franklin sermon. I usually don’t give much credence to megachurch pastors, but this message was on humility, and wow, it struck home.
– A crush is a lie – and why