I never shared my 2017 goals this year. I used Powersheets for the first time and LOVED it, but since it’s an ongoing goal setting guide I never sat down to type up a concise list. My word for the year has been invest. I set goals that focused on investing in my spiritual growth, my marriage, my home, my church, my friendships, my family, my self, my dreams, and my future.

I decided to pick a different group of people each day to pray for. This served many purposes. 1. What better way to invest in people than to really pray for them on a regular basis, not just pray sporadically when prayer requests come up? 2. My prayer life was inconsistent. 3. The idea of praying for every person I could think of all at once was a little overwhelming.  So choosing to invest in other by praying for people was also investing in my spiritual growth, my marriage, my family, my friendships, and my self. As a result, prayer has very much been a theme for this year.

Here’s my category list:

Married Family Monday

Traceridge Tuesday (my current church)

Arise and Friends Wednesday (my former church and the people I met through that church)

Born Family Thursday 

Friendgroup Friday (my college friend group and their families)

Sisters Saturday (women’s ministry related things and other women or groups of women I’m connected to)

Depending on what’s going on or how the holy spirit leads, obviously I pray for people more than just on these days often. BUT, it’s been a great tool to keep me accountable to actually praying for the people in my life. It truly has become an honor and privilege to pray for and with my people. When I’ve been consistent, which I’m happy to report has been way more weeks than not, it’s also very humbling. And it takes my mind off of self-absorbed things and focuses it on others and the Lord. It also has resulted in prayer being on my mind more and prayer being my default more. It’s been a beautiful journey and I never want to stop doing it like this!

Today, my heart has been heavy and burdened for so many things. Here’s a list of things and people I’m praying for today. If you are the praying type, join me.

• Las Vegas. SENSELESS tragedy. My heart aches for the city and the people and the families.
• A family who thought their daughter was missing since Thursday, but she was found today and is okay and alive!
• Someone who lost a job.
• Someone who just lost their mom last week.
• A family balancing all sorts of complicated things.
• Someone who is awaiting scary test results.
• Multiple couple friends who are trying to get pregnant.
• Marriages filled with hurts.
• Babies in utero! (So many precious babies due in the Spring months.)
• That mine and William’s prayers that we will get pregnant will always push us closer to Jesus and never outweigh our desires to know and be known by God.

Verses we’ve been clinging to as we pray for our needs and desires and the needs and desires of others:

“Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” 1 John 3:21-22

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Hebrews 11:6

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Mark 11:24

This is part of my 31 Days of List series. Click here to see the other lists in this series.