Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts

Well Steve and I have officially moved into the Big Prayer House. And it's truly caught me by surprise. I am loving the idea of being in the house and the opportunity it is to be working in and for our community.... The shocking part was how scared, unsettled, angry and sad I felt.

This weekend Steve and I got to go away with other 20-30 year olds from Colchester for a weekend away of camping and reconnecting with God. The weekend was brilliantly organized and I give a big up to everyone that helped make it happen.

Part of the weekend we got to get together and listen to a guy named Chris share his thoughts on a couple different faith ideas. During one of the talks we got to talking about how important it is to see people the way that God sees them. Its easy to see people the way society sees them, the single mom, the sick neighbour, the junkie, the unemployed, the freaky artist, the over-the-top gamer, the alcoholic, the rude gardener, the obsessed sports man. Its easy to just take people at face value and never give them another thought.

But we were really challenge to stop and see people the way God would. How do you do that!?!? sometimes its quit hard, but if we believe that God is a Good God, then the things he creates (humans included) also have good in them. So what really makes these people tick? We were encouraged to give people a second look and to let ourselves notice people.... really notice them and try and find the good that God created them to be a part of.

Chris also challenged us, that  a big purpose of being a Christian, or a Christ-Follower, is about taking the goodness of God and speaking him out to the people around us, to our family, our friends, our work places, or holidays, were we shop, our neighbours.

But some of us quickly reminded him that some of those places are off limits to God and that unless we want to become a bad taste in people mouths we can't just go around telling people what God wants for them and what He thinks of them.

He then reminded us that as Christians seeing people the way God does (seeing the good in people) and having the guts to speak that out as encouragement and motivation to people, is the best way to take God into places that we thought was impossible to take God into.

Chris asked us to think of a time when someone said something encouraging to us. Go ahead... can you think of a time when someone said something to you that really encouraged you?

It marked you didn't it!?!?

If you remember it, then it did and it probably had something to do with shaping you into the positive version of yourself that you are becoming. If people can have such an impact on you, speaking out what they think of you, how much more of an impact can hearing what God has to say to you impact you for the better?

In the most basic form we can take God to places we though was impossible simply by saying positive, encouraging, up lifting things to the people around us. We can only do this when we challenge ourselves to really see the people around us. Paying people comments isn't something we do well as a society, taking God into the places around you simply by speaking out the good you see in people is a great place to start.

As Christians we believe that God speaks to us. That he has things that he wants to say to us. As a leader of a Prayer Community I would say that I define prayer as simply having a conversation with God. Conversations are not one sided.... its not just about one side (humans) asking all the questions or doing all the talking. A conversations is when both parties (human + God) take the time to tell each other what they are thinking and going through AND also listening to what the other side has to say.

When was the last time you did that with God... when was the last time I DID THAT WITH GOD!?!?!

I feel really challenged by this. I need to be seeing people the way God does, really taking notice of them and then talk about them with God. Seeing what God thinks about that person and ask what he might want to say to the people around me and then have the guts to tell people the Good that God wants to speak into their lives.... and let that mark them... in the great, good way that God marks people with his Love and Grace!

I'm not totally there on the last part. I don't often feel challenged to go up to the people around me and say "God wanted me to tell you this..." but I think I can start being more intentional about taking notice of people and noticing the good in them and then speak that out to them as encouragement. God's Kingdom Come!

So we have this little allotment that we like to think is a community allotment. The dream was to have loads of people from our estate coming together and help grow plants (and their relationship with the creator God!) We wanted to read a bible verse and let the work of tending the earth inspire our prayers.

Then the great moment. In my own thoughts, frustrations and work God spoke to me. He reminded me that planting and sowing is important but it takes a wise person to not just see the seeds that will be planted but the full mature plants they will become. It takes the courage to believe that when seeds are planted God will do the growing but God likes people to get involved with helping to maintain how he grows plants (or people)... And people can do that the easy way or the hard way. The true life lesson was learned as God reminded me that as a leader of a Christ centred community I need to make sure to be excited about spiritually planting seeds of hope into people but to have the wisdom to look into the future and ask "how will we maintain this grown when it is much much much bigger than these seeds we are planting!?!" Cuz, know this, God will grow the seeds that we plant, but he gives us the freedom to choose how we get involved with helping plants (or people) grow... And we can either do that the easy way, with well thought out tools, or the hard way, with out any tools at all!

Colchester Boiler Room has recently sent a team of people off to Turkey. Two of the people from our community have plans to move there in the early part of 2014!

With excitement, anticipation and hope we sent them off as they continue on the first start of this journey.

Those of us left here in good old Colchester held a time of prayer for our Turkey Team. We wanted to pray inspired by the culture and people of Turkey...  in the way they naturally live and are... and then pray they would see Jesus where they are currently at.

Hahaha I wil say that I don't know that much about Turkish culture and I aso didn't have an extensive time to look into it, but the hour of prayer that we had set up went so quickly and was really amazing I thought that I would mention some of it here to help inspire those looking for creative ways to pray.

To begin we started outside the prayer room. We asked people to take their shoes off and as they did to really leave behind all the drama, stresses or worries that might be playing on their mind.

We then went into the prayer room. In Turkey a huge percentage of the population practices the Muslim faith. One aspect of this is to pray 5 times a day. Since we only had an hour we decided to still pray 5 different times through out the hour, which basically meat we set a timer for 10 min intervals and prayed every 10 min! We really loved this because when the timer went off through out the hour we would all stand up and we had chosen a short prayer to read out all together. At first everyone was a bit shy, but by the last few times the timer went off we were all jumping up and shouting out the prayer.

One of the things we really wanted to pray for was Hope. We put a water jug in the middle of the room and went and found little shot glasses (wink wink). We talked about how living lives of hope is about working together, being intentional and sometimes going out of your way to make it happen. So even though there was no water in the room we all needed to grab a little glass and go find water in the house and then bring it back and pour it in the jug until the jug was over flowing.... WITH HOPE WATER!!!

As we started we prayed that as we went out of our way to work together to fill this jug with water that it would be our prayer for the Turkey team that they would be intention, work together and create hope that was over flowing.

This was really great and everyone really got into it and started saying their prayers of hope as they poured their little shot glasses of water into the jug. We also let ourselves be inspired by the activity and prayed for people not to be discouraged by the messiness of gathering hope to over flowing (we did have a few spills of water... my bad!!) ... and also we thanked God for the joy of all working together to  create hope as we started cheers-ing the cups before we poured the water glasses as well!

Then we wanted to create a Turkish Rug!!! we didn't have any classic abilities to weave rugs, but we grabbed some big pieces of paper and cut them in to strips and let each color of paper represent a different person on the Team. we wrote our prayers down for each person and then worked together to weave them altogether.

Before we knew it the hour was over and we were really amazed at how God worked together and we pray that the Turkey Team is blessed and much hope and unity is found and overflowing.

So if you haven't figured it out... I believe prayer changes things. Big things and small things. I think a lot lately I pray for small things. personal comforts, weather, awkward moments, the nature of my overwhelmingly normal life and existence ... But a few days ago I was reminded that as much as prayer is about having those every day conversations with God about life, love and happiness. It is also something that I do when big things... and I mean BIG SCARY things are out of my control and I need God in his wisdom and mercy to intercede and change the course of a physical reality.

When I first moved to England I got involved with a team of young people who were in love with Jesus and put Him as a priority in life. We spent sooo many  late nights praying in prayer rooms, drinking cups of tea while we fought out what church is and often challenging each other to game of less than enormous feats (who can do the most push ups, dance offs, trying to balance a tennis ball on someone unused crutches!!).

In that group was a young lad named James. He was only 18 when I met him, but often acted more like a 30 year old man trapped in a teenagers body. He always had us in fits of laughter from the "games" he would get everyone to play. He had a lovely voice and every now and again we could get him to sing a song or two and people loved it! He was always up for weird grand adventures and the number of "walks" we all went on were fabulous. Not to mention he had an unforgettable head full of curly golden locks.

As a team of people (and more so as a group of friends) we talked of hopes, dreams and the long lives we would all live pursing God, trying to do good in this world and creating opportunities for others to do the same. We were all too young to know any better and too old not to.

After that year we all have gone on to do such different things. Some moved back to their homes, some went on to jobs, other back to education, others into full time mission, some even married each other (wink wink!).

A few months back we got word that my friend James wasn't doing so well. He was living in Ibiza volunteering to help pick up clubbers and partiers off the streets to be the actual hands and feet of Jesus when he started getting sick and had pain in his chest.

To make a long story a bit shorter one of the people that has inspired me most in my faith has cancer... really scary cancer that could steal his life away... and its not ok with me.

His family also believe in God and prayer and the hope of living life. They wrote this incredible prayer and have asked their friends and family to be praying this over the next month to believe that a miracle can happen and James' physical body and life here on earth can be long and healthy.

If you know James or if you want to join in praying this prayer with his family and friends then Please join us for the next month in praying this every day and believing that through prayer change with come. If nothing else be inspired that a family in probably one of the most scary times of life have a relationship with God so deep that they can write something like this:

We thank you for James and the gift that he is to our family.  Thank you that this cancer was discovered and treated quickly, that the tumor has reduced in size, and that James is free of pain and able to sleep.  We thank you he has avoided infections, complications, and has been able to attend all treatment appointments.  Thank you for the fantastic care of medical staff and free access to treatment.  We thank you that James is gaining weight and is beginning to feel stronger.  We thank you for your love and care Lord, and for the many who join us in prayer, encouraging us and him to keep going.

• May he find a great wife and be married
• May James’ reproductive system be protected and may they have children
• May he pursue his chosen career and serve you fully Lord
• May he live cancer free for 5 years, and then beyond
• May his voice return so he can sing

For those of you who didn't know, Ramadan is a time that Muslim people set aside a whole month to fast and pray. This is really important to Muslim people because the Muslim Faith has 5 'must do' or 'pillars' that help confirm a persons faith and acceptance by God.... and practicing a month of praying and fasting or Ramadan is one of those 5 pillars.

And Also if you didn't know Ramadan is happening right now! From 20th July to 19th of August.

As a Christians, Muslim people should be very very close to our hearts. If you look (and you don't have to look that hard) you will see that our story is one and the same....

Once upon a Bible Story there was a guy named Abraham. He was just your average guy, but God chose him to do something special. God chose Abraham to be a part of His plan to save all the people in the world... (remember when God originally made the world it was suppose to be a place where no bad things happened, but because humans made the mistake of letting evil things (or sin) into the world by choosing bad over God's good i.e. naked man and woman in garden munching down fruit from the tree God asked them not to eat from... #EpicOops... God now had to come up with a way of getting his creation out of the dirty mess we made.)

So back to the Abraham... He agrees that he will be a part of God's rescue plan and then God tells him that the way he is going to do it is through Abraham's family... that Abraham will have a son and that son will have sons and they will have more sons and then... duh duh duh... God will send his own special son through this family into our world to rescue us from the mess we got in.

Abraham was more than happy to hear the plan, but also a little confused. See, he and his wife Sarah were childless and on top of it all God decided to tell Abraham his plan when he and Sarah were much to old to have babies (think of your grandparents and then add a few years!)...

But God told both Sarah and Abraham to just trust him that he would work it out. But ... you guessed it, true to our human nature Sarah and Abraham just had a hard time trusting that God could work this miracle child into their story... So they decided to take matters into their own hands... Sarah told Abraham to sleep with her servant girl and to get her preggo. Abraham did it and the servant girl, Hagar, became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy named Ishmael.

But this wasn't what God had promised. He had promised that Abraham and Sarah would have a baby... not Abraham and Hagar. And to top it off once Hagar had her baby Sarah couldn't stand the sight of her or the baby and started to treat them horribly (even though this was all her idea to begin with!).

God reminds Sarah and Abraham what he promised and soon Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby boy they name Isaac. Isaac goes on to have twins name Esau and Jacob... Jacob goes on to have twelve sons who become the 12 tribes of Israel... the 2nd born of this twelve is Judah who descendants have the famous King David (yep the boy that killed the giant Goliath) who's descendants have Mary and Joseph who become the parents of Jesus, God's promised child to rescue our world...

The End....


If only it was all that simple.... but see the one thing that humans keep forgetting is that their actions and re-actions to God's plans have consequences. God is in control of his plan and what is going on, but he isn't a puppet master. He lets us choose what we will do and also the fall out from that. If we choose to get involved in God's plan the fall out is God's amazing blessing. If we choose the opposite it often brings with it issues that make things complicated, but still not impossible for God to work out his plan... but way more complicated.

Remember Ishmael... well Ishmael goes on to have loads of kids too and his descendants believe that Ishmael was the child God promised. This has caused loads of tension between these two families... and that tension has continued as the two families have tried to tell the story of God's plan... one family divided by a moment in time when humans decided again that we knew better than God.

Ishmael's descendants have continued in their faith and are known as Muslims. Isaac's descendants have continued in their faith and are known as Christians. One family broken by humans trying to work out the promises of God through their own power instead of trusting God in his. 


Both believe in the same God, but struggle to clearly understand and see who and what are God's promises. Muslims have missed that Jesus is the promised child because they are two caught up in trying to earn their place in God's story. Christians often miss the full importance of Jesus by failing to make the connection between the Muslim and Christian story of God, as well as failing to honor Jesus through a lack of love and care for Muslims.


So, Why do we pray for Muslim people?

we pray for them because if we look back at the story we realize that they are our closet brothers and sisters.

we pray for them because we realize that, through no fault of their own, they are often mistreated and hated.

we pray for them because often the way Christians treat Muslims completely dis-honors the Jesus we claim is their savior and loves them unconditionally.

we pray for them because they are so near to the story of God that its hard for them to see how Jesus is more than just a prophet but is actually the promised child of their and our great ancestor Abraham.

we pray for them because just like us before Jesus came and took our place, we to felt like it was through deeds and good works that we had to earn our relationship with God and it was hard... even impossible... and we want them to experience the freedom of knowing that Jesus has completed every law on our behalf and we are free now to just be in relationship with the one true God we all love and pray too.

we pray for them because we love them!

Join Colchester Boiler Room on 17th August 2012, 8p to midnight to pray during this season of Ramadan for our Muslim brothers and sisters. We all have much to learn and praying for broken families to be re-united is exactly the love Jesus died for us to show!

message me at rockstartina83@gmail.com to get involved.

In a world where jobs are hard to find and people are wondering how they will find purpose and meaning I am here to tell you the community I am a part of is in need of workers.

We need teachers, videographers, event coordinators, youth workers, housing support workers, young dad mentors. footballers, graphic artist, dreamers, nurses, financial advisers, community developers, police officers, play specialists, musicians, politicians, cheese makers, theologians, mentors, girls club facilitators, includers, students, photographers, carpenters, moms, agriculturalist, fitness trainers, social media experts, trainers, advertising agent, shop assistants, information officers, electricians administration, natural conservators, activators, journalist, restaurant managers, encouragers, engineers.... and so many more!

Do you see yourself in this? Want to get involved in a body of Christ where you are really NEEDED? you are welcome and needed here in Colchester... and if you ever felt like you weren't I am here to say you are needed, valued and essential! God is doing a good work in Colchester and you can be a part of that.

If you ever wanted to be a part of a christ-centerd community where prayer and action go hand in hand and where hard work is anticipated and enjoyed... then I invite you to come join us in the amazing work God is doing in Colchester essex...

There are load of Job Opportunities here. Do you have the guts to apply?

message me and I will let you know how you can get involved! rockstartina83@gmail.com

I met up today with two really amazing women from my town who are helping to organize the operation of 'praynet' a group dedicated to increasing prayer in Colchester. We had a delightful time chatting about prayer and how we were going to use the resources, connection and networks that are at our finger tips with effectiveness and efficiency.

I kept wondering, "Why do we care so much if people pray?"

We talked about how prayer is this beautiful conversation that happens between us and God. It also allows us and God an outlet to work out all of what is going on in life (the good and the bad)... all in all my conversations with God have shape more of the person I am and the life I live than any other conversations I have every had.

This further got me to thinking... in this day and age... how do we promote prayer in our towns?
It has to link to awareness... but digging in deeper how do we promote prayer awareness? How do we remind people in this age that when life smacks them across the face they don't have to turn to alcohol, lonely movie theaters, dark corners of libraries, busy pubs, isolated homes, over active lives to distract them from the realness of what they are going through?

How do we remind people that prayer is real... a real connection to a real being that really cares? How can we let people know that you don't have to be hyper spiritual to pray... you just have to start talking to God... just like you do with your mate... start with the everyday stuff and as you get more comfy and familiar with God start telling him about the more personal and intimate stuff...

As I thought about this question and browsed a bit on line I found this picture that I have posted on the right linger on the side of a prayer website... the bigger the words the more times that word was tagged on this website about prayer... What do you think this tells us about what people are interested in getting involved with when it comes to adding praying into their normal everyday routines?

I spent last week volunteering with the CYO team that host Sanctum (sacred prayer spaces in schools). This last week they were in a secondary school here in Colchester. I went just M W F, but we had so much fun. There were 12 different prayer activities for the kids to get involved in. They set the activities up, each in its own space. Some had to do with writing down a question you had for God, or something you were thankful for or sorry about. Another had the kids walk through this maze with mirror to help them with their identity or this other one that had sand so they could put their hands in it to learn about impressions. One of my favorite was this "calm" zone where they could chill and listen to music and think about God!

I made a little video about it... check it out and feel free to spend some time praying as you listen and watch! The music and glitter might help! :D

Dear All,

This is an open invitation to the people of the world (or readers of my blog) to offer an invitation to interested individuals to join our prayer community here at the Colchester Boiler Room Community (Colchester, Essex).

We recently have had one of our young professionals let us know that she would be interested in moving nearer to our estate to specifically live in a community house with other Christians, be intentional about prayer and supporting the mission and vision of our Colchester Boiler Room Community.

The time scale for this invitation is a short one:
We are looking for a minimum of 2 more people to move into this house (either move from another part of Colchester or move completely to Colchester). If we get a group interested, we would start looking for a house by the 1st of June 2012 for a move in date of no later than the 1st of July 2012.

We would be most interested to have single young professionals age 20 to 30, but are eager for people who simply have a heart for loving Jesus, prayer and community. Members of the house would need to have a means of funding themselves: meaning rent for the house, their lifestyle and bills (we would assume most would need a part-time to full-time job). They would also need to be able to commit to being a part of a community and getting involved at Colchester Boiler Room for a minimum of 1 year.

Colchester Boiler Room Community would classify itself as a missional, prayer, organic and nontraditional form of church.

The vision and mission of Colchester Boiler Room is Jesus. Our commitment is to God and each other and is expressed most simply in our community prayer "Lord, Jesus help me to be true to you, kind to people and take the Gospel to the nations".

Being a part of Colchester Boiler Room Community offers its members a chance to be in a Christ centered community, do focused community work on a 200+ house estate and get involved in creative prayer. Below are some of the activities are community chooses to express and meet Jesus in:

• Maintaining an allotment
• Hosting a Toddler Group
• Organizing Messy Church for Families on our estate
• Facilitating a girls club for 8-12 year olds
• Communal teaching and learning of God Story
• Extended time of Prayers for community, the Nations and children
• Volunteering with a local charity for homeless youth
• Youth Football Club
• Starting Prayer in Clubs
• Organizing two/threes for mentoring and deeper bible learning
• Arranging House Concerts for Young Adults (20-30s)

At the moment we predominately work with young families and children. Building off this momentum we are seeing we are praying for breakthrough among young professionals (20 to 30 year olds). We are hoping that the addition of even just two to three more Christian young professionals would help us pioneer relationships among young adults that we have been praying for. 

Well, with these first few days of March comes the groggy morning stretches and yawning of our little Colchester Boiler Room Community allotment. I went out today just to have a peak at our slightly stirring, slightly snoozing patch. A few greenhouse supplies lay scattered, some winter veggies seem to be nudging their little noses out from the warm brown earth covers and the sweet morning breath of spring eagerly filled my nose. I hope to keep a little dairy of my allotmentting adventure...

Adventure 1: We are hoping to plant brussels sprouts, carrots, spinach beets, broad beans and cauliflower in the next couple of weeks. (I am told these are the hardy veggies that can still stand some of our cold english spring nights).

The carrots, spinach beet, cauliflower and broad beans will go directly in to our raise bed soil (we built and dug them over this winter).
The brussels sprouts will first get planted into a pot to make sure the coldest part of winter is really by us. (I'll report back when we get them into soil).

As I am laying out these 5 packets of seeds I am challenged to think of 5 hopeful prayers I have for my community this summer. Allotmentting is such a great prayer tool! This summer I pray:
1. To see more 20 and 30 year old on our estate fall deeper in love with Jesus and join His community
2. To meet all my neighbors and know them more then just a casual wave
3. To find and come alongside the poor in my neighborhood
4. To have 24 hours of unstopped prayer facilitated by our Colchester Boiler Room
5. To help develop the first steps of a starting a Discipleship House here in Colchester

 If you want to experience a bit of magic this spring/summer come join in planting some veggies this season... and sowing your prayers into them as well. I can testify one of the most magical things a human can experience is seeing a plant through its planting, nurturing, growing and harvesting season! And definitely one of the most miraculous experience a human can have is seeing God answer prayers. I'm so very excited to grow and see some magic!

Today is the day before the Lent season begins. Pancake Day, as it is known to many. But what is up with this idea of eating pancakes on this particular Tuesday? Pancakes are traditionally made on this day because many Christians believed in giving up things like eggs, butter and fat (the main ingredients of the beloved pancake). But there is more to this day then just eating pancakes...

It is also know as Shrove Tuesday. Shrove comes from the ancient word "shrive" which means "to confess".

Today our community is gathering to celebrating the eating of pancakes, as well as introduce the idea of confession.

Below is an interactive prayer activity on confession. It links together the growing obsession with PostSecret (an art initiative that involves people anonymously mailing in homemade postcard with a secret written on it) and the value of confession (telling God the wrong things we've done).

This prayer activity can help people understand the concept of confession from the understanding of "keeping secrets"...

Materials Needed:
Paper/Printer: to print pictures of PostSecret postcards
postcards
pens/pencils/markers
some container or box for confessions to be posted in (I painted a red box and set it on a low table)

(I also just printed out the blow fact/statements and hung them on strings around the "postbox" in our communities prayer room, so people could read for themselves how to walk through what confession is and how to engage... but really it could be set up whatever way suit your group)

What people are saying about it…

I've been praying lately for the people around me to be awakened... to have their eyes be opened. I recently went to a prayer conference in Germany and, though there were some kick ass speakers there, two of the most random moments stick out to me...

One was after a long day. Charl Young (i.e. old house mate, good friend, shameless dreamer) and I were sitting in the lobby of a typical German youth hostel talking about expectations and current life issues, when in breezed Mike Mawhinney (i.e. husband's old house mate, nurse, and recent sheesha smoker) and in the course of 5 minutes I found myself saying "I don't pray for revival"...

Fast-forward to the next day when Brian Heasley was introducing the new couple (Abby and Charlie) that would be taking over for the 24-7 Ibiza Boiler Room Community. Lots of great spiritual things were said, but the moment Abby leaned over and said her prayer in and for Ibiza was "God I am jealous for more in my time" my ears perked up.

One week later. Back in Colchester. Getting back to the preverbal "grind". I find myself entering prayer space with the words of Abby's prayer burning on my heart. These words pounded on my heart begging me to pray for revival, but then like an annoying freckled-faced bully from school I would see my twisted 'German-hostel-lobby-face' saying, "I don't pray for revival".

Its not that I don't want the love, knowledge and acceptance of Jesus to spread wildly through out this world... its just that I've heard of revival... no... I've heard of revivalS... and they just don't seem sustainable. They come as quickly as they go and leave in their path nothing more then old stories of other times and other places.

But what about his time? What about this place!?!?!? I want change to came... God I pray that it comes swiftly, but I want it to come and LAST... from Age to Age.

How can I pray Abby's prayer to be jealous for God to do more in my time and also not pray for the type of revival that crashes lower then it ever went high?

I don't know, but lately I find myself praying a prayer that says I am jealous for more in my time... followed by a plea for my town, my people, my neighborhood to be awakened. For their eyes and ears to be opened to see and hear what has been around them all along. But more and more I am realizing how uncomfortable waking up is.

Every morning I hear an annoying alarm, the sting of the morning sunlight hits my eyes, and the cold hands of the morning air send shivers down my spin. I hate waking up. Today as I laid in bed wishing the wakeful world away... I remembered the prayers I have been saying for my town, neighborhood, and people to be "awakened"... I scrunched my face...

Why would I pray for anyone to have to experience the torture of waking up... I wouldn't wish it on an enemy... would I?

In my half awake, half asleep self I tried to remember just one morning I really enjoyed waking up... it was hard at first because my brain was so set in thinking that being awakened was simply torture... but slowly I started to remember happy times waking up... the smell of my dad's coffee brewing in the morning, or  the smell of my mom's famous cinnamon rolls wafting into my bedroom, or Christmas morning when I knew there were gifts to be opened, or the days I had made plans with friends to go on grand adventures, or the recent mornings when I woke up because my husband was rubbing my back and giving me kisses...

I guess there were lots of times I wanted to wake up, was excited, and found the experience comfortable, enjoyable, inspiring and lovely.

I mean, the very idea of people coming awake, being alive, being revived... hmmm

Maybe as I am jealous for God to do more in my time I do pray for revival... but not a hyped up, one season of life type of revival, but the kind that starts with a generation being coxed to wake up...

I realized I can try and wake up the people around me harshly with annoying alarms, cold showers, and blinding righteous sunlight...

Or I could consider compassion... and as I pray for an awakening for this generation maybe I should consider putting on the morning coffee, turning up the bedroom heat, baking some tummy grumbling cinnamon rolls, and gently rubbing backs and giving loving kisses....

Maybe then we would see a revival spread through out the land... the kind that last from age to age... the kind that awakens a generation with a smile and joy-overflowing.

Now that kind of revival I totally pray for!