Giving Thanks Day 12 ~ Power of Prayer

 Today I am thankful, and truly grateful for prayer...the answered and the unanswered. Watching the sunrise this morning and praying for my niece Adalynn, who is going into surgery this morning to have her tonsils removed...I knew instantly what I was thankful for most today. What a powerful thing prayer is, consoles us when we are weary, brings us peace when we need comfort....and in abundance when we ask others to pray for us or a situation. And in  this time of "Thankful posts" spreading over Facebook, with everyone sharing what they are thankful for, and seeing the quote "what if we woke up today and only had what we thanked God for yesterday?" makes me step back and really think about prayer and giving thanks for the blessings in my life. Everyone prays in their own unique way, some quoting scripture, some with learned prayers, and some in a child like manner as if having a conversation with God. However you may pray, I now I am guilty of seeking prayer when times are hardest, or the struggles are to much to bear; and I want to thank God more for the joys and the good times. Maybe that is why I stay in a positive state of mind, it's not that I wear rose colored glasses, or that life here is pollyanna-ish....I choose to focus on the positive and praise Him for these moments for they far outweigh the rough times. I am thankful for unanswered prayers, the ones you think you know what you are praying for, but God has other plans...so at first you think when things are not what you asked for, and you wonder if God hears you....only later to see that He had heard you and that something far greater was in the works, we just couldn't see it for the moment we were in. I thank God for the answered prayers...the ones on our hearts that we bare our souls and just "Give it to Him" and we really let it go, not holding on to it and trying to do it on our own. I am thankful for the family and friends who lift me and my family up in prayer, through times of joy and sorrow, lifting me up in times of despair, praying for our needs as if you were praying for your own. Asking and receiving your prayers provides me such comfort and peace during times when things are at their hardest....and brings me indescribable joy to know that there are prayers of joy when we share our happier times. I covet those prayers and I too pray for my loved ones wholeheartedly. I am blessed beyond measure for the power of prayer. C.L. Lewis said it best when writing "Letters for Malcom" a book about his correspondence in Latin with an Italian priest living in Verona, Don Giovanni Calabria ...."Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done." In the movie "Shadowlands" about C.L. Lewis and is time spent with the American poet Joy Gresham and her son Douglas "That's not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me." AMEN ♥