Day 26: What is prayer to you?

If you've paid close attention, you'll realize that I didn't do my math very well. I thought 25 days would get me through the end of February, but I find myself blessed with an extra day! Due to my December eye condition returning, the late hour, and the BYU basketball game that filled the preceding 3 hours, I'm going to opt for something easy, but thought-provoking. 

I saw this on Facebook today - actually my mom found it and mentioned it to me - and I just had to find it and share. Corrie Ten Boom is an inspiration woman who had her own profound learning experience with prayers. If you have never read her book,  The Hiding Place, I highly recommend it. She and her sister help Jews during WWII and eventually get caught and sent to a concentration camp. Her sister has great faith and devotion and really utilizes prayer and their small Bible to sustain her. Corrie's "conversion" to her sister's point of view takes time, but I think it reflects many people's journey towards faith and God. We go step by step, sometimes more than a little skeptical. I feel that our desire to move on that path will eventually lead us to the moment shown above, where we ask ourselves what prayer means to us. And I bet for many of us, it really is a steering wheel that guides us, not just a spare tire in case of emergency. 

I will be honest. Despite the many things I was facing during the autumn months (jobless, still getting over heartbreaks and disappointments, not sure where to live etc) I wasn't really driving my life with prayer. It was a spare tire. I was doing many other things right - reading scriptures, attending the temple weekly, attending church and activities, etc - but I was letting prayer fall by the wayside. It was just hit or miss. Perhaps it will be one of those things that I just have to really focus on and make it a priority in my life. I've really appreciated this opportunity to focus on it. 

This is starting to sound like my recap, but it's very late and I'm very tired. I'll wrap everything up with a conclusion for ya'll... but mostly for me! I've loved that this blog has been a way to kind of chart my progress, and I'm excited to go over it and give the big wrap up. And I'm excited to pray and go to sleep!! 

Drive your life with prayer, people! It's way better than a spare tire. Love you all, thanks for reading. 

:)

Day 21: Prayer Quotes

Today was a good day as far as prayers and answers go.... My recent primary request has been in regards to finding the right place to move/live. Through the past several months of seeking to be in the right place for one thing or another (namely, the right state and the right job), I've developed a working theory of... well, I'm not sure what to call it. As I thought about it earlier today, it brought to mind the talk by Pres. Uchtdorf about enduring to the end/waiting patiently, and how that not a passive process, but an active one. It was a talk my mom shared with me at some point in the past two years when I was trying to figure out my life. PS: moms are pretty smart. We should listen to them more often.  Anyways, my working theory is that if I do all I can to push forward, and I'm doing so with faith in the Lord and many prayers, the answers will inevitably come. The right things will work themselves out, and the wrong ones.... well, they have this way of ebbing out of sight. I'm not sure I would have been able to direct my life this way before I realized so profoundly for myself that God is extremely aware of me and will stretch out His hand to intervene if I'm about to do something foolish. I trust He also stretches out those hands to lead us to good things... but my testimony of that intervention came from being saved from something bad. With the job, I thought for sure I needed to get back to Provo and be around friends. None of the jobs I applied for down there worked out. Slowly, the Lord changed my heart towards Salt Lake and one day I realized that I wanted to stay up here. A similar thing has happened as  I've pushed to find where to move next. I was adamant about moving downtown. I began to grant some consideration to Sugarhouse after that, but only the areas north of I80. It wasn't until this past week or so that I felt like I needed to consider areas south of I80. Slowly but surely, my heart was changed and directed. I've found places to go look at, and thanks to the help of friends and family, I have good options to consider now. I know I'm a little stubborn sometimes, but I'm thankful that the Lord works with me in a way that helps me see His guiding hand. 

That became much more than I intended it to be... now on to the rest of the post! I decided to look for quotes about prayer and see what I could discover. I really love reading the words of wise people, and I'm a firm believer in the idea that truth surrounds us, regardless of religious affiliation. That's a subject for another day, though.   :)  Tonight, I present you with a few lovely gems that spoke to my heart and mind about prayer. I know I'm kind of always inviting comments on here, but if you have a good prayer quote to share, feel free to leave a comment with it! 

Mother Teresa

May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

 Be not forgetful of prayer.  Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. (Brothers Karamazov) 

Phillips Brooks               

Pray the largest prayers. You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings.

Epicurus                            

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

Soren Kierkegaard

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

Abraham Lincoln

I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Let us never forget to pray.  God lives.  He is near.  He is real.  He is not only aware of us but cares for us.  He is our Father.  He is accessible to all who will seek Him.

Swirling leaves

So earlier this year, as summer was first beginning to fade into fall, I decided that this year I would like Fall. It's not that I had anything against it in the past, but I'm not sure that I necessarily loved it. It is amazing what a conscious attitude choice can do! Not only are the fall leaves more beautiful, the weather is fantastic! I do miss my fall-appropriate shoes and scarves (not sure I'm ready for another trip to the storage unit to forage for them...) but hey, that's a minor thing. 

Another quaking aspen picture (unedited)

I also happened to see this fabulous quote this morning. It seems to fit pretty well with the idea of leaves and fall and swirling up. 

Love...roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.

Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)