What Happens When Women Pray written by Evelyn Christenson #2 & "We Value Peace Over Connections" quote from my Hubby

The following are thoughts that stemmed from reading Evelyn's book: as vital signs are key to our physical lives, so are the things God lays on our heart critical to both our communion & effectivesness with God in our prayer life...

ME: I am God's pen...my job is to simply ALLOW Him to use me...

ME: the VITAL pieces:

1) Praise & Worship then Prayer ~ I will chirp on this in detail when I review the book Glory by Ruth Heflin, but this truth keeps catching me: if we worship first, we will see what is important to God's heart and can then pray accordingly; many "worry" requests will fade away during worship and we can then pray with confidence and hope versus in fear...Proverbs 9: 30,31 is my happy regimen in my communing with Jesus (this is actually Wisdom speaking about her & God during creation): "Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause, always enjoying his company, delighted with the world of things and creatures, happily celebrating the human family." 

2 things about these verses:

a)  There is mutual enjoyment of each other: Ms. Wisdom as God's greatest fan and God delighting her with his genius creativity...it is not a one-sided homage but pleasure in each other...this should be the way it is between Jesus and me...

b) We are 3 parts: body, soul and spirit: according to my pastor, the soul is what makes me, me...my personality, my emotions, my quirks; and the spirit is that part of me that is dead before I come to know the Savior and becomes alive when I accept him. The spirit is that perfect part of me where the Holy Spirit resides and it affects my entire being, body & soul...I love music, especially Worship & Broadway and these two verses helped me see how each of these genres relate: Worship is the first part of these verses: the vertical joy in my Lord building up my SPIRIT-SELF; and the second half of these verses is why I learn from Broadway (or any other music that involves relationships with other people and the world around us). It is the horizontal nourishment to our SOUL: helping us deal with emotions and other ways we relate with each other...

2) Our pastor's wife told me that our weapon against all the forces of evil is the Word of God ~ our Sword and that Jesus' example of refuting the lies of Satan was to attack back with Scripture: out loud and boldly in the face of evil, "It is written...", Jesus said!!!

3) 1 Corinthians 13 ~ Love:

 always hopes, in constantly grateful for exactly what God have given me ~ without pride or jealousy, doesn't force myself on others, has a regimen of consistently walking in others' shoes, always looking for the remnant of God found in his creatures, and mostly, having mercy for them that are unlovable...

4) Philippians 4:8 ~ Thoughts:

a) the Truth, the Word: what C.S. Lewis refers to as "The Deep Magic";  

b) the Authentic Self in people, enter into lives and get down to their core then stay there, be there and support them...

c) Peace: I can't get this quote from my husband off my mind and I feel that here is where I need to address it. Speaking of the connections that our kids have with people that don't treat them well, I told my husband that if it was me, I would just forget about the relationship and move on. And he said, "WE VALUE PEACE OVER CONNECTIONS." I have been mulling this around in my mind since then and, as an introvert, really like it...there are some relationships that seem so hard and this doesn't mean that we are to shun those people, but I guess it does sometimes mean that our connections with them preside primarily through our prayer life...I always feel guilty when I don't want to be with others, but so many times it is because of an uneasiness in my soul and maybe the physical connection is okay to not exist at this moment...I don't know, just an idea...