A Prayer Circle

by Ruth

Our phrase in any discussion we had about adopting was “God is going to have to show up big time to make this happen”.  So many aspects of this were going to be beyond us.

I knew we needed to pray a circle around this.   And while Doug didn’t have quite the same understanding of that concept I did, he knew we needed to also.   We needed to do it, and do it now.  But what would the circle be?

Doug found one.  I didn’t like it.

Our lead pastor had put a couple posts on facebook about a need.  At our church a group of people pray with the teaching pastor two times before the weekend services.  At 5:30 on Saturday evenings before that service, and before the Sunday morning services.  Being summer, a few Saturday nights the pastor had prayed on his own, as none of the regulars were there.  So his plea was for some folks to come and pray with him on Saturday nights.

Doug suggested that we go and pray with the teaching pastor on Saturday nights, and then we would stay in the prayer chapel afterward and pray about the adoption together.

Did I mention I didn’t like this idea?  As in, you’ve got to be kidding me!  Praying out loud has never been high on my list.  Not in my comfort zone.  So I am supposed to go and pray out loud with pastors?  Seminary graduates.  Biblical scholars.  Experienced prayer warriors.  Mmmmm…not so much.

At some point, my mouth said “yes” to this plan.  My heart and my head were not in agreement … yet.

But we needed a circle, and this was it.

It was a circle in several ways.  One, it gave us a consistent time to pray every week.  Second, it was a commitment, one that was not always convenient.   We do not attend that Saturday evening service -  “our” service tends to be Sunday at 11:00am.  Third, it was a sacrifice.  We would be there at 5:30 every Saturday unless we were out of town or sick etc.  But just every day plans would be made around that 5:30 time frame.   It was going to be a non-negotiable in our lives.

I will admit, the first time we went – I did not pray out loud.  Just silently.  But as we continued to go, I become more and more comfortable with doing this.  After a few short weeks, I was actually looking forward to going, and didn’t want to miss out!

Without intending to, the prayer circle we drew was not only blessing us, and giving us direction with adoption, but it was blessing others in the process.

God is good.