Prayer, Purpose and Faith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prayer is something I stopped practicing for over 40 years when I could not reconcile the churches’ support for terrorists in many parts of the world with the teachings of Jesus. I may have turned away from the church and prayer, but I did not turn away from God.

My periods in the Rhodesian bush on army service seeing God’s animal and vegetable creations unaffected by humans made me believe in Him. Seeing my two boys soon after birth and watching them grow through infancy, childhood, the difficult teenage years and then into adults and now fathers themselves, reinforced that belief. Watching my crops and cattle grow during my farming years, seeing hundreds of runners striving to complete ultra-marathons for no material gain, just the knowledge that they had given their all were all gifts from God.

As were the many hours of my life spent on the back of the wonderful horses I have been privileged to enjoy.

I wrote about preparing for my first church attendance for over 40 years in this post.

Since that first visit, I have been a regular churchgoer and believer in the power of prayer.

Today I am privileged to publish a guest post by a writer who I admire greatly, I have been reading her blog for many months and I strongly recommend you do so too.

Nancy Lou Hendersen is far more knowledgeable about Christianity and prayer and faith than me. She has faced her share of adversity too. Here is her post.

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Prayer, Purpose and Faith

For as far back as I can remember God has made His presence known to me.  As a very small child, I remember talking to Him and feeling the warmth of His touch.

My true heartfelt belief is that we are all born into this world remembering God because we have just come from His loving arms uninhibited, innocence, and still feel His lingering, loving, and protective care which stays with us.  Small children are not worried about what others think which enables them to speak openly about God.

I had the absolute privilege and God-given gift to get to teach a Sunday School class for two and three-year-olds. Their openness totally touched my heart and reinforced my memory of being so close to God as a very young child of their age.

One Sunday after reading a Bible story to them, I asked them what they thought about God.  It still makes me feel blessed and teary-eyed as I remember what one little boy said to me.  He said, “When I was talking to God yesterday He smiled at me and I know He loves me.”
After quickly composing myself, I looked into his big brown eyes and told him, “Yes, God loves you very much.”

Of course, is only one example of the beautiful words from these tiny children.  This always reminds me of the Bible verse when Jesus spoke to the disciples.
Matthew 18: 3  “Verily I say unto you. Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

As we grow older our memory fades of being so close to God because of the challenges we face in life,  others having different beliefs around us, and talking about God to others may begin for some to be hard to do. Some may even lose their communication with God.

When this happens because of God’s love for us, He has given us the freedom of will and as the perfect Father, He will step back waiting, protecting, and catching us when we fall.
What is Faith?  To me, it is believing in what you can not see but in what you feel in your heart to be a truth.  Even if our faith in God is as little as a mustard seed, His faith in us is pure, complete, and infinite.

My belief is that God created us all as unique, special, one of a kind, and with a great purpose that he has for each of us in this world.

I believe God always answers our prayers.  Sometimes it isn’t an immediate answer or the answer we want but the answer that is right for our purpose.

In prayer the hardest thing to do is to let God take our troubles as we pray.

Giving it totally to Him, and letting go of our worries. Not long ago, I finally learned to do this which being a worry wart was very hard for me to do.

Now I pray and immediately thank God for His answer to my prayer which brings me back to Faith, faith in God,  that the answer will be the His will and not my will.

As a widow who suddenly lost her soulmate at forty-seven years old,  I have been asked if it made me angry with God.  The answer is “no”.  God totally blessed me with a man I loved who loved me for just being me and who also loved God as much as I do.

God has continually taken care of me and has allowed me to feel my husband’s love encircling me every day for the last twenty-one years.

A few years back, I asked God what my purpose was.  What was it that I needed to do for Him.  I was getting older and growing weary of the humdrum everyday path that somehow had overtaken my life.

That night I had a dream and in that dream, my husband told me to go look in the cedar chest.  When I finally figured out what cedar chest and where it was, I opened it to find a box which was full of letters.  These letters were written to me by my husband while he was in Vietnam in 1971.

I shared excerpts of these beautifully written letters on Facebook and the comments from all were for them to be in a book.

I wrote the book then extraordinary things happen. God began sending people into my life who have given unselfishly of themselves to help me get to where I am today.

God answered my prayer and has given me a purpose that I do not know the reason for and may never know, but I will do what He has asked of me.

God is real. God’s love for us all is real. Heaven is real and Angels are among us.

Nancy Lou Henderson

A snippet from Nancy’s about page,

I was born in a little town in the hill country of Texas called Hico on October 6, 1949.  

praying man photo courtesy geralt /pixabay

Jesus graphic courtesy Nancy Hendersen