Prayer Diary Entry One Remembered

Prayer Diary

Entry One remembered the first time I prayed formally with my mom, in a moment other than simply saying grace before dinner. My hands clasped fervently, I pleaded with God to bring my dog back to life and when I did this my mom told me that God took my dog to Heaven and that Heaven is a better place. She also said that I should never question God's will and so ever since, I have prayed for God's will and not my own. As in the Lord's Prayer from the Bible, "Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven."

Another time, I conveniently forgot the maxim about letting God's will supercede mine. I had a crush on a boy at school and thoughts of him consumed me. I wanted to be with him so badly that it hurt, even though I barely knew who the boy was or whether God wanted us to be together or not. When I prayed to God to make him fall in love with me, I instantly felt silly and then it hit me and I remembered that day when I was a child praying for my dog to come back to life. That boy turned out to be a drug user who ended up in jail and I thanked God for sparing me that life.

This day I again forgot to pray for God's will and not my own. Again it involved a boy who I am infatuated with, who I know from school. He has blue eyes and dark hair and a captivating smile. I wanted him badly enough to endure sinful thoughts about him and even became willing to have sex with him. Not only did I become willing to have sex with him but I started to flirt with him in school, more and more each day until one day we were kissing by his car. Desire overcame me and I agreed to go over to his house. When we got there I started to become afraid. Deep down I knew I was doing something wrong. Somehow being in his house triggered thoughts about how sinful my actions had become and how I still had a chance to pray for salvation. I went into the bathroom and closed my eyes. I prayed hard, repeating the Lord's Prayer over and over asking for God's will to be done for so long that eventually the boy knocked on the door wondering what was taking me so long. I said I'd be right out. When I left the bathroom, the boy was worried about me and I told him honestly that I was a Christian and did not want to have sex before I got married. I said that my faith in Jesus meant more to me than anything else and braced myself for him to laugh at me. When instead he looked into my eyes and smiled and held my hand and said "It's ok," I knew my prayer had been answered. Jesus had saved me from sin, and God lead me away from temptation, delivering me from evil. His is the power and the glory.

Today was one of the most important days in my Christian life. It was perhaps the day that my faith became the clearest and most powerful. Praying for God's will resulted directly in joy, happiness, and peace. I was afraid and worried and God helped relieve me of those fears as well as of the willful desire to commit sin. It made me realize that praying for God's will is the same as praying for what I want, only better. God always wants what is best for me and for all of us. When we pray for what we want selfishly we might receive it because God does listen to our prayers. However, what we want might be against the teachings of Jesus, and those things could lead us farther astray from the path of righteousness. I am happy today that I trusted God instead of myself. I could easily have had sex and in one instant thrown away all I have worked for as a Christian. Instead I let God lead me to Him. The result is that I feel more mature. I am a stronger person because of taking a few moments to pray by myself in a boy's bathroom. The situation proved that I can find God at any time, in any place. I go to Church to renew my faith and remind myself that I am not alone. When I am alone is when my faith is truly put to the test.

Entry Two

Keeping a prayer journal is going to be very helpful, as I already noticed when I prayed not to be led into temptation by a boy. The fact that I had to write down my experiences with prayer helps me be more accountable for my actions. I know that I have to be honest with myself, with my Church, and with all other Christians as well as to God. Lying is also a sin. I was tempted to lie today. It was too easy for me to pretend that the lie did not matter. I was barely aware that my actions were sins, which makes today another significant moment in my Christian life. The fact that I had enough of the Lord's spirit in my mind, heart, and soul to reflect on my actions meant that I was making progress in hearing and being willing to listen to the still voice of God within me. Something told me to pray today and I did, and it saved me from having to repent for lying.

What happened was that I cheated and my teacher asked me if I cheated. I said no, and the lie echoed in my head all day long. On the way home, I prayed. I asked for God's forgiveness both for my having cheated and also for my having lied. For some reason it was harder to lie than it was to cheat, probably because I had to lie directly to another human being. God created each of us in His image and so it was like I was lying directly to God. Cheating seemed more impersonal and so I did not realize how much of a sin that was until I had to lie to protect myself.

On the way home I prayed, first for forgiveness and then for guidance. What should I do to rectify my sin? I knew that the only way to make good from the sin was to counter the lie with the truth. I then prayed for the courage to tell the truth. It was one of the hardest things I had to do: to admit that I cheated and accept the consequences. I knew that telling the truth might hurt me in some ways but in other ways it would heal my soul. It was the right thing to do. It was what God wanted me to do, and no matter what, God would protect me.

I went back to school after lunch and almost chickened out. My grades were becoming more important to me because of wanting to go to college and I was afraid I would fail. I prayed again, remembering to surrender to God's will. That reminded me that God's will was to tell the truth no matter what and so I blurted out to the teacher "I cheated." I said I was sorry and that I would never do it again, and the teacher gave me a lecture and told me that I would receive a failing grade on that assignment but that I could make it up by doing some extra credit work. She said she knew I was a good student who was under a lot of pressure. It was as if God spoke His forgiveness through her, because she let me make up for my sin with righteous action. I felt so humbled and grateful that I almost cried.

This day taught me so much about being Christian and about prayer that I could write for days about it. I have a lot to learn about being a good Christian and avoiding the kinds of situations that create sin and desire. I should never have cheated in the first place. That was the initial sin that led to my lying and so I prayed that I would never cheat ever again. My prayers today were for God's will, and I have to remember that cheating and lying are never in the service of God's will. If I am afraid of consequences like failing or getting into trouble, then I need to pray for courage and strength instead of acting like a sinner. I know people who lie a lot and it seems like they get away with it, but in the day of Judgment they will have to face God themselves and then, they will not be able to lie.

Entry Three met some non-Christians today and prayed for them because I believe that all persons can and should know the power of God's love. Praying for the salvation of others is important because it may lead those people to Jesus. If Jesus opens a door and they do not enter, then I still completed the work of God by keeping them in my prayers. Because I know not to judge others, I had to later say the Lord's Prayer and put the fate of all non-Christians in God's hands. I thought about all the times I have judged others for one reason or another. Instead of praying that a person find Jesus and become a Christian, I blessed them in the name of Jesus. In that way, all persons can receive the blessing of God.

Therefore, today I prayed to "judge not, lest ye be judged." I read my Bible and passages from Christian prayer guides. The readings helped me see that I need to pray for others but not judge others. This is a difficult lesson. I realized today in prayer that those who seek shall find, and those who do not seek might never understand the power of God's love. Also, God loves all His creation. As long as a person does not live in sin, he or she is still blessed by God whether or not he or she is a Christian. Non-Christians can live good lives even if they do not profess their faith in Jesus Christ. However, it is hard for me to understand. I also do not know when to pray for others and so I say a prayer for all people I meet that God may find them.

Praying for others to find God is a lesson in humility and faith. I need to learn how it is possible to pray for others without judging others. In addition to praying for others, I can deliver the word of God through my actions and my Christian lifestyle. Instead of judging others I can grow more grateful for having found God. Praying for others has taught me gratitude for the support of the Christian community as well as for the love of God that is manifest every day in my life. I consider myself lucky for being able to pray not just for myself but also for others. I pray for others whether they are Christian or not, and I do not ask for anything specific. Instead I only ask that God find them and that they find God.

A appreciate the diversity we have in this world and in our country and understand that not all people believe in Jesus Christ. However, Jesus's arms are open wide for all of those who seek Him. Those are the people I pray for most, the ones that seek Jesus in earnest. I met a girl last week who was in trouble for her sinful behavior and instead of telling her about Jesus I prayed for her in private. The next day she asked me to lend me a Christian book and I did, believing that my prayer came true. I felt magnificent just being able to offer the girl some support through the words of Jesus and other Christian souls who have felt the power of God in their lives. God is working through me, through my prayers and my willingness to carry the word of God to others. Each time I pray for another person I believe that I am doing God's will.

Entry Four

Today I praised God. I praised God because He gave me the strength to study hard, to be kind to others, and to resist temptation. Again I met the boy I liked after school. He looks at me with love in his eyes but I have to pray hard to resist even kissing him because I know that one thing leads to another and I am weak when it comes to matters of the flesh. He asked me if I was his girlfriend today and I blushed. I said, "I don't know, what does that mean?" I felt like an idiot but at the same time I knew that he was playing games and I needed to stay strong. I praised God for helping me overcome the temptation to be willing to relax my Christian convictions. He is a nice boy who is from a Christian family but who I know would like to have sex with me and does not care that we are not married. He calls himself a Christian and I know he believes in Jesus but I need to remember that saving myself is the right thing to do and so I prayed over and over to resist. I believe that if he is a true Christian he will be patient and I have nothing to fear.

A also praised God today out loud because it was only because of Jesus that I was able to do so well on an exam in spite of all the distractions in my life. Right after we received our final scores, I rejoiced in the Lord and unabashedly stated out loud, "Praise Him! I aced the test!" A few of my classmates high-fived me, and several laughed sympathetically. My Christian friends are good friends and I praised God that I have friends who support me.

Many Americans praise God sporadically, like at the times of year they are expected to like Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, I know that praising God a few times a year is not enough. I am learning how to integrate praises into my daily life more often. Praising God should take no effort at all. What we need to do is become more aware of God's presence in our world and offer praise when we do so. At first when I started paying more attention to my faith I knew that I would have to expend effort at noticing God in my life.

Praising God is a lifetime endeavor. I could not accomplish any of my goals without God's love and assistance, which is why praising Him is one of the most important actions I can take as a Christian. Every time I noticed God's work in my life I praised Him today. This was a real breakthrough for me, and I appreciated having to record my experiences in this prayer diary.

Entry Five

The boy I like calls me every day. I told him I will not have sex with him and he assures me that he does not mind but I worry. I prayed today to remain steadfast in my life and to resist temptation. Then something happened. I don't know what came over me, but suddenly I felt willful. I invited the boy over. I said we would watch movies together, and I would make dinner for him. Even as the words came out of my mouth I did not feel guilty at all. It was as if I was forsaking God and God was forsaking me. I did not pray before he came over.

His name is John. He came over at 7 and we went to the basement to watch television and then I said I would go cook dinner. He followed me upstairs and started kissing me. I enjoyed it, and did not stop him. Then we went back down into the basement and he started to take my clothes off, just slowly enough that it did not seem like a problem. He was gentle and kind and I did not assume we would have sex. He touched my body and I touched his and then we had to stop because my parents came home. When I heard the car in the driveway I knew that Jesus was with me. It was as if my parents came home early to help save my soul, and that somehow Jesus spoke through them to encourage them to come home about one hour before they were supposed to. I had my clothes off and something really bad might have happened if God did not heed my prayers over the past few days. I have been working hard on praying for salvation and this time it worked without a doubt. In fact, I almost cried later when I prayed before bed. I prayed deeply and sincerely, thanking God for saving me from a moment of weakness and temptation.

Before bed, I was overcome with emotion and gratitude during my nighttime prayers. I reflected on the day's events and the situation that arose with John. Jesus did arrive exactly in my time of need! As I prayed, I cried because of the amazing coincidence of my parents coming home at that exact moment. Never before have I been so aware of the truth of God's love. I realized how I had prayed when I woke up that morning just as I normally do. I do not know why I felt empty and blank during a moment of weakness, and it does not matter because God was with me then. Perhaps it was like Jesus being tempted, and I prayed to Jesus to give me guidance through times like these.

A friend of mine has a poem on her wall about seeing two pairs of footprints in the sand and one pair belongs to God. All of a sudden one set of footprints was gone and the narrator of the poem wonders if God left, but instead God was carrying the person. I related to the poem today, feeling like God carried me in my time of need and when I was not even aware of His presence.

Entry Six went to church today. Praying in public is different from praying in private like when I am at home or even with my family. First I noticed how our group prayers are highly focused. The preacher sometimes offers us a Biblical passage to work from in our prayer or a theme from the sermon. We pray together and were led by a woman who volunteered her services to the church for this purpose. She is a certified "life coach" and works with people who need guidance and direction in their life on a spiritual as well as a material level. I approached her after the service to get her card and asked her about the prayer she led us in, especially because of this diary. When I told her about the diary I was keeping for school she smiled and thought it was great, saying she wished her teachers encouraged to do something that productive.

In church when we pray together I feel more power in the prayer than when I am alone. Praying alone is important because it is the only way to make prayer a way of life. However, praying alone only equals the power of one. Praying among other Christians equals the power of many. Joining together with other like-minded people and praying for the same things in the name of Jesus creates an incredible feeling. It becomes a prayer bigger than myself. I found today that praying in church with other Christians makes me realize what true prayer is all about: being with Jesus. When I focus only on my own needs or am praying out of habit I lose sight of my connection to other Christians. Connecting with other Christians offers me a whole new perspective on prayer, one that opens me to new approaches to God, new language used to connect with God in prayer, and new ideas and concepts to bring into prayer.

The theme for today's church service was power. The preacher helped us understand the difference between God's power and the power of human beings. We can have all the will power in the world, our preacher informed us. We can use our human-driven will power to overcome weakness and temptation and the hell fire of evil. Yet only Jesus Christ can deliver us from sin. Only Jesus Christ has the power to do that which we cannot do for ourselves. Faith in Jesus is therefore the only way to navigate ourselves through the darkness and into the Light, from Hell to Heaven. I listened intently to the preacher's sermon today, feeling even more poignantly the power of prayer to revitalize and heal our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls.

When I pray alone, I pray to be with God. When I pray with others, I am with God. The difference is profound. I could feel in the room the power of Christian love as we united our minds, hearts, and souls in the name of Christ. One woman at church has a brother who is dying of cancer. We all were able to pray for him together, and I have never felt anything quite like that prayer before in my life.

Entry Seven had a tough day today. I woke up feeling really bad, as if I were angry about something but did not know what. I prayed instantly to be relieved of the feelings of resentment and hatred that I carried with me in my soul but somehow the feeling remained. I grew afraid. Even though intellectually I knew that God was with me just as he was with me the other day with my boyfriend, I knew God was there to carry the burden of my sins. Even with that knowledge of God's love for me, I carried the burden of fear, anger and hatred with me into the morning and into the rest of the day. No amount of fervent prayer could lift me from this position I was in, and the rest of the day became one disaster after another.

First of all, my headache was disastrous. Throbbing pain followed me to breakfast, in the car, and into class. One Tylenol later, I could stomach my lunch without complaining. When the pain subsided, I got the worse phone call of my life. My best friend's sister died!

The initial shock carried me through the day without showing my emotions. When I heard about the death I instantly prayed to Jesus for Joelle's soul and also for my friend Tirena. After school the first thing I did was to phone Tirena and ask if she wanted me to come over. She did, and we prayed together. Remarkably, this prayer we shared followed on the heels of yesterday's church service, where I learned how powerful group prayer could be. When Tirena's mother came home from the hospital, the three of us prayed together and through our sorrow shone the brightest joy I ever knew. It was as if Joelle's soul lit up the whole room and filled us each with the light of Christ's love. We all knew Joelle was with God. Joelle was with Jesus, and Jesus was with her. The pain of losing her was subsided somewhat by the knowledge and understanding that Jesus kept her soul safe.

Joelle had multiple sclerosis and her death was related to complications associated with the disease, as far as I know. I did not ask too many specific questions of her family because there was no need or want to; they were under too much stress. All we knew was that Joelle was gone and that we would all miss her. We thought about how we would never know what she would have become, what she would have done with her life if she hadn't left the world so soon. Her death saddened me even though I did not know Joelle as well as I knew Tirena. Tirena was my best friend since elementary school. This was the first time someone I knew passed away, except for my grandfather but I knew him even less well than I knew Joelle.

Entry Eight

Tirena and I spent a lot of time together today, talking on the phone and praying together. She is growing from this experience, and becoming a better Christian I am sure. Losing her sister deepens her commitment to God When we first found out about Joelle, Tirena was home babysitting her little sister, her half-sister, Carey Anne. Carey Anne is five years old and knows nothing about death and so Tirena is doing the best she can to shield Carey Anne from the pain that surrounds her. We prayed as much for Carey Anne today as for Joelle's soul. Praying for Carey Anne helped both Tirena and me overcome emotions like anger and self-pity.

Praying with Tirena is a whole other experience, different from my solitary prayers and also different from the prayers we say together in church. The emotions we experienced were powerful and overwhelming. Whenever I felt overwhelmed I gave it all to God, knowing fully that it was God who would carry us through the pain. Tirena's mother needed God's love the most, having just lost her eldest daughter. We prayed for her mother and knew that Jesus would help her in His time. Tirena and I shared a personal emotional spirit that we could not have shared with strangers, and also one that would have been too unbearable or even meaningless if we had experienced that on our own. I praised God for His strength and allowing me to be an anchor for my friend. Tirena praised God for giving her the opportunity to live with and learn from her sister and thereby transformed her sorrow into love. Her pain became fuel for her love of God, and I prayed for thanks that she could experience such a level of spiritual awareness when so many people lack the knowledge of God.

We read from the Bible together when I went over to her house. With her mom we read a few passages but her mom had too many social obligations and could not pray with us for as long as we wanted so Tirena and I went into her room to pray more. Together we picked our favorite passages in the Bible and Tirena guessed which ones her sister would have liked the most. Her sister did not talk about the Bible much but loved Jesus and so Tirena picked some key passages about how the meek inherit the Earth. Learning about how Jesus aided the downtrodden helped us to understand that her sister was called to something greater than life on Earth.

Praying all day, Tirena and I felt as if her sister were in the room with us. Passages we read from the Bible came alive, illuminated by our sorrowful spirits. I do not know whether or not I helped Tirena but she did tell me that she appreciated my presence and my praying with her. She will have to attend a funeral soon and then will experience the collective prayer when more than just the two of us gather together in His name to honor the life and mourn the passing of Joelle.

Entry Nine

Today was the funeral for Joelle. When I woke up I prayed for strength and guidance because I would have to remain strong for Tirena and her family. I knew they would be overcome with emotion after the loss of Joelle. It was up to me to be a rock for them so that they could cry but not feel inundated by tears. When I arrived at the funeral home, I did not cry because Tirena and I cried so much the other day. Tirena was also dry-eyed but the pain was etched deeply on her face.

Most of the people attending Joelle's funeral were also Christian and so when we met each other we would praise God. God was a part of our conversations, woven into our discourse. We spoke more about Eternal Life than about the death that just occurred. When the service started we all took seats and many of us closed our eyes to listen to the ceremony. The presiding priest recited lines from the Bible and spoke about God's will and how Joelle was in a better place. We all prayed together that Joelle be with Jesus in Heaven and no one in the room could doubt that were so because Joelle was young and did not live the life of a sinner. Then I wondered about the deaths of sinners and how difficult it must be to pray for those who had wronged others.