Head to Toe...Covering Your Family In Prayer!

Well, I planned to start this post earlier than tonight...but it has been a beautiful day here!!! So, I had a phone conference that I needed to have this morning, did school work, and then headed out into the most glorious weather with the girls. We walked, rode bikes, and finally played in the sand for literally over an hour. We relished the sunshine and the good workout we got...and time together.

This is my dearest ministry...and so blogs must wait:)

As promised, we are beginning a series I am WAY excited about..."Head to Toe-Covering your family in prayer." This idea is not totally mine as I have been SO inspired by Stormie Omartian's book, "The Power of a Praying Mom." Normally I tend to steer clear of books that have many spin offs...but encouragement on being a praying mom...well, I grabbed this book!

There is one small reference in the to an idea of praying over our husbands head to toe. I LOVED that idea!!! I searched online and it seems that in her book on praying for your husbands she goes over this idea more in depth. I have never read that book...so many of you might know better than I do about that.

I was THRILLED to have a concrete way to direct my prayers for myself, my husband, and my girls. I have had a scheduled way to pray over all the people I know God Himself has placed into my life. I got it from my campus minister Clete Sipes. He assigned people a day and he prayed over them once a week. Well, for YEARS I have had this type of schedule for others...but I pray for my family DAILY and didn't really have a way to pray strategically.

See, I am a writer. I process either out loud (and praying out loud as early as I get up to meet with the Lord is NOT appreciated!)or on paper. After a while I stopped writing my prayers out (for several reasons I have already mentioned in other posts) but also...my hand got VERY tired:)

Without writing or talking...y'all...I get very distracted in prayer. I try really to focus, but it's hard. Real hard.

So, when I tell you how excited I am about this strategy for praying over my family...it has literally revolutionized my prayer life for them. Now, I still pray over family and friends on their day too. But, one thing Stormie said in her book is that no one will pray for your children like you you will. And that is true. Wow! That challenged me to the core.

I had to look hard at the time I spend praying over my husband and children daily, and I have to say I wasn't happy. No one on this earth loves my kiddos the way Jay and I do. No one. Do I pray like that? Hmmmmm.

So, I took my friend Stormie's advice and ran with it in my own style! See, I am always on the look out for amazing moms who love the Lord and can encourage and exhort me in my life!

So, for a while we will be walking through my little prayer book that I am making. Each page features a picture of one of my girls parts...head to toe! Along with a photo to make it really personal and so I have something real to concentrate on while I am praying, I have scripture verses to focus my prayers. I ***LOVE*** praying God's Word over my family!!! So, as I have begun praying over them head to toe, I have also been amazed at all the scriptures that have come to my mind all the time. You will find that out too!

But, I am taking time to type them out so that I have a reference point to begin. It's always nice to have a reminder that early in the morning:)

Tomorrow we will begin with their sweet heads. There are LOTS of parts to that prayer and so it won't just be one quick prayer over the head. We will pray the armor over them, prayers of protection, and prayers of anointing. This is good stuff!!!

Stormie...girl...I owe you a debt of gratitude! You have helped me to become a more effective praying momma!! Tomorrow we begin...