and had the sense that someone needed to hear it today for an important reason.  The story is about prayer and a question I had for God.

My question was "God, why do you need a lot of people to pray?  Isn’t the prayer of a single person as important to you as the prayer of many?  Why do we need to ask a lot of people to pray when there’s a crisis?"  The answer to that question/prayer came a few days later.

I had a couple of friends that had waited a long time and were finally pregnant.  Billy was in his mid-forties and this baby was to be his first.  He was so excited that he just beamed every time I saw him at the yogurt shop he owned near my home.  Watching Robin’s tummy grow was such a joy and soon the day of delivery was getting close.

Billy and Robin were a really sweet Christian couple.  Billy was new to the faith.  He had come to the Lord late in life and had married Robin a few years earlier.  At the time I was the California State Prayer Coordinator for a National Ministry, so they knew that I loved to pray.  We had prayed frequently for their business and personal issues that arose.  I was invited to speak at the ministries National Conference in Washington DC that year and they had generously used their shop to help me raise the funds necessary to go.  I had grown to love them both very much.

One morning, I was awakened by an urgent phone call.  It was Billy letting me know that Robin had gone into labor over night and that her water had broken at the hospital.  When it did, the doctors noted that it was badly meconium-stained (meaning that the baby had had a bowel movement in the amniotic fluid, which is often a sign of distress).  They were rushing her in for an emergency C-section.  There was great concern about the baby’s lungs and the possibility of infection.  Babies lungs "inhale" the amniotic fluid as a practice for breathing and to develop their lungs, so if fecal material were inhaled infection was strongly likely to follow.

I immediately began to make calls to people I knew all around the country from my ministry network.  I not only asked them to pray, but each time we stopped and prayed together over the phone.  The people I called were all volunteers in the ministry and had wide-ranging careers, educational levels and maturity in following Christ, but one thing they shared and that was that they all knew how to pray fervently.  I prayed with a farmer in the midwest, an east-coast lawyer, Pastors, stay-at-home-moms like me and even a doctor.  During the course of that day, not one, but two prayers were answered — the desperate need of my friend’s baby and my need to understand why a volume of prayer is as important to God as the cry of a single heart.

You see, I probably prayed with about 25-30 different people over the course of that day and not one of those people prayed the same thing!  Each had a little different understanding of the situation and prayed for a different portion of the need.  The doctor and the farmer both understood birth and prayed about different aspects of the baby’s health and recovery.  The stay-at-home-mom wept for the mother’s anxiety and fear.  She identified with the emotions she was probably experiencing.as a Mom and prayed for her special needs in the midst of the crisis.  Each prayed for something that I hadn’t even thought to pray. 

It was as though I was listening to an intricate symphony of prayer that came together in a powerful crescendo that was far greater than the sum of its parts.  It was as though in the voices of the many came a completeness that I as one individual could never have prayed.

Billy, Robin and their baby girl felt loved and supported in a way that they had never experienced before, Billy’s faith grew in a special way and their baby recovered miraculously.  She suffered no infection and was able to come home from the hospital just a few days later. 

At the end of that amazing day of prayer, I learned a very important lesson — one that 25 years later I am sharing with you.  God cares enough to answer a single cry of a desperate heart, but He also cares enough to know that we need each other’s love and support even as we seek Him for answers to our crisis and dilemmas.  In the whole body of Christ is found completion, and that completion also happens as the whole body of Christ joins together to pray.   

If you have a special need for prayer, please don’t hesitate to call your local church prayer chain or a couple of special friends to join with you in seeking God’s intervention.  God hears the cry of a single heart, but sometimes WE need to hear the comfort of a loving human voice, feel the hugs of human arms and be touched by the caring of a human heart as we seek Him together.

When you get to my age, you’ve pretty much given up on "New Year’s Resolutions!"    They just aren’t very effective and you often find yourself making the same ones year after year after year LOL!  Yet if you’re like me and want to change important areas of your life, it’s actually important that we think about this a little bit more at this time of the year.  But how can we make change that lasts rather than resolutions that fade into oblivion?

When I look back just one year at how much I’ve been changed it never seems like very much.  But if I look back twenty years and see the amazingly different person I am today versus who I was then, I’m encouraged to keep moving forward.  Like interest in a savings account, change happens over long periods of time in small increments that can greatly add up.  Change happens when we begin to THINK differently and then begin to APPLY those changed thoughts in a way that CHANGES OUR ACTIONS.  Permanent change happens when our hearts and/or our minds have been changed significantly enough to impact our actions.

The way the Lord has helped me to make lasting changes in my own life, is to ask Him to change me by praying for His help.  I have learned that admitting I am helpless on my own is the first and most important step.  Sometimes, to be honest, I don’t even really want to change I just know that I should.  Sometimes I even have to ask Him to help me to be willing, to be made willing to change!  I’ve learned to ask Him for  His insights, His instructions and then the courage to obey what He directs me to do.  It sure isn’t very glamorous, but it’s been pretty amazingly effective over the years.  Have you ever asked for God’s answers to your problems rather than just telling Him what you think the answer should be?  It’s a very different concept and one that is a powerful change agent.

I have one more very important question for you.  How do you know the direction that you want to take your life in is the correct one?  Change can be for good or for bad — it’s not enough to merely want to change, but to change in a way that will be a blessing to your life and the lives of those you love.  People often bank on the newest fad to direct their lives, but can you think of a fad or two that have passed by and seem pretty silly in retrospect?  I sure can!  I want to invest the years I have left to live, on a direction that I won’t regret at their end.  For me, the only reliable, never changing, always effective direction for my life comes out of what I believe to be the word of God, otherwise known as the bible.

So, this year, I am going to do something a little differently.  I find that there are two simple practices that have hugely changed my life, reading/studying and then PRAYING God’s word into my life.  So at the end of each day’s post instead of a simple scripture of the day, I’m going to add a prayer that applies that scripture to my own life.  I trust that I will change in new and fresh ways and that those of you who also walk this path of faith will come along and share the journey with me.

Rom 12:2  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will. NIV

PRAYER:  Lord, I am not as good as I would like to be at discerning what truths are good, what are useless and what will ultimately  turn out badly if I apply them to my life.  Please give me your wisdom, insights, and understanding of the areas I need to be changed and then give me the courage to act on those insights. 

I admit that I’m powerless to make lasting change.  I’ve tried over and over again with little success.  Remind me daily that you LOVE to transform my life!  I really do want your good, pleasing and perfect will made real in my life.  Please help me to find it and then to be willing to let you make the changes in my heart and my thinking that can bring it to pass.  Amen.

For those of you that don’t know, my family survived the 2003 Cedar fire in San Diego, which came 1200 ft from our historic property in Valley Center, CA.  We awoke at 3 AM to the intense smell of smoke and (2) 50 ft high walls of fire heading rapidly towards us.  The Santa Ana winds in that fire were 1/2 the speed of this week’s fire and had they been as stiff, we might easily have perished, as the fire came up so quickly there was no warning at all given.  We evacuated our place with just a few things in our van and no idea if we would ever see our 125 year old adobe farmhouse again.  We were the blessed ones, we came home to a lot of smoke and soot damage, but nothing destroyed.

However, our little community had more homes lost per capita than any other area in So. California that year.  We lost 265 homes and two lives.  A dear friend of my high school daughter’s died and her sister was burned so badly she was in the hospital for an enitre year.  We lived through the paralysis that comes after the adrenaline subsides and we saw very intimately what happens AFTER the TV crews go home and the next news story fills the airwaves. 

I wanted to let you know a little of what will be coming ahead for the fire victims, their families and their communities so you can be praying and if possible can send a donation to help them get back onto their feet. If you’ve watched the news, you’ve seen families standing in front of their homes seeming shaken and yet unexpectedly strong and thankful.  They are strong for the moment, drawing strength from the fact that they have each other, but in reality they are in shock.  In a few days, that shock will begin to wear off and the enormity of everything that has happened will begin to set in. 

Right now, most are thinking about the loss of their personal treasures and a lifetime’s accumulation of memories.  They’re thinking about what could have happened to their families and how they could have lost their lives.  There’s a certain amount of joy and relief in those thoughts, but also there can be some torment as well, the "what if" scenarios often play through the mind without ceasing and a good night’s sleep is a long way away.  What most haven’t yet had time to really think much about is "How do I make a new start?  How do I go about rebuilding?  Where do I even start with my insurance company?" 

There will be 2-3 years of battles ahead of them before they find a new normal.  They will have to fill out reams of paperwork, potentially have to  fight an insurance company if there’s no pictures of what was in their home, find a reputable contractor if they are going to rebuild, design their home and go through the permit process etc.  Many of them will sit in the assistance centers later this week with eyes glazed over and unable to make the simplest of decisions.

This is where agencies like the Red Cross and The Salvation Army are absolutely amazing.  They not only meet the most immediate needs by providing safety, shelter, food, and comfort, they provide for their long-term emotional needs as well.  They have trained crisis counselors that have been dispatched to the area to help these families face their loss and deal with their grief.   If you can spare a little bit out of your budget right now, I would love to encourage you to send it to either the Salvation Army or The Red Cross.  They will make sure your $ goes a long way to bring comfort and hope to families in a place so heavy and overwhelming most of us cannot even come close to imagining it. The web sites are: http://www.redcross.org/ and http://www1.usw.salvationarmy.org/usw/www_usw.nsf   KFMB TV and Radio believes in the Salvation Army’s work so much after the fires of 2003, that they are working to raise donations to send to them.  In 24 hours they have raised over $335,000.

Many of  you have visited San Diego and seen the beautiful side of the city.  There are many amazingly beautiful homes and people who have very adequate resources to handle their losses, but there is a more ordinary part of this city where familes struggle to make ends meet living where the cost of living is very high and the wages relatively low.  There are many poor that were burned out in this fire and many families that were renting will not have any insurance to collect from.  FEMA will provide a modest grant to these families, but it will be no where near what they will need to get back to where they once were.

Pray for these families.  Ask the Lord to remind you to pray in a couple weeks, a month from now, several months from now… this will be a very long recovery process and they need us to stand with them as they walk the long, difficult path.  Stop and pray for those who are still recovering two years later, from hurricane Katrina.  Especially those outside of New Orleans, who have received much less attention and yet whose needs are still great.  Thank you for reading, caring and praying.

I just finished a conversation with a very dear, very long time friend named Joan Fitzgerald.  We have drifted a little apart in the last few years due to life circumstances and time stresses, but are still and always joined at the heart.  Conversing with her this morning made me think of a few things that I want to share with each of you.

There’s something really deeply vital in sharing the deepest needs, concerns of your heart and joys with a dear friend.  God didn’t mean for us to live our lives and struggles alone.  He designed us to carry one another’s burdens and to laugh together.  We’re stronger when we’re bound together in love, than any of us can be on our own. 

There’s also another wonderful side benefit of having shared many years with a longtime friend… when you forget something she remembers!  Joan shared some stories with my husband and daughters today that I hat TOTALLY forgotten about.  Two memories are much better than one 🙂 especially as we age!  Joan and I have had some amazing adventures over the years.  She’s known me since BEFORE I became an artist.  She’s seen my really, really, really BBBBAAADDDDD first attempts at creating stained glass windows and watched me grow experience by experience. 

She was a recipient of one of my very first attempts at calligraphy in 1983 and still has it today.  The Lord taught me to practice my calligraphy by picking a scripture and hand lettering it and then carrying it with me during my day and finding someone to give it away to.  Many of those scriptures ended up being virtually prophetic in how they touched people’s lives and of course I was the most blessed of all in giving them away.  If you are an artist or a crafter, consider doing something similar with your talents.  You can never lose when you give of your heart — especially if you give away a gift that God gave you in a way that honors Him.  He loves to bless us back.  The entire career I have today began with giving those little scriptures away, one-by-one.

If you have a lifelong friend, call her (or him) today and remind them just how much you love them and tell them how glad you are that they share your life.  If you don’t have a deep friend to turn to, I’m praying that God will send one your way and begin to build those powerful and lasting bonds of friendship that give so much more meaning to our days.

One of the ways I’ve developed two of the deepest friendships in my life was by becoming "prayer partners" with them first.  That’s how Joan and I became friends and my other dear friend Sally.  Because we had a purpose for our friendship and we were sharing deep needs and concerns, we quickly got past the surface and built our relationship on who we really were.  There’s something deeply connecting about praying together regularly with someone  Sally and I had our children together and would pray on my living room floor with our babies crawling all over us and with one eye closed and the other watching out for who was heading for the electrical outlet.  We prayed for our children, their lives and struggles, our husbands, for our own struggles of identity "Who am I and why am I here on this earth?"  God met us in that living room and changed our lives and the lives of others through our friendship.

Both of these dear women (and many others) walked me through the darkest days of my life when my first husband was diagnosed and ultimately passed away from Melanoma, skin cancer.  They held my hand, dried my tears and pointed me in the direction where my only hope was to be found — in God alone.  Because both Sally and Joan are older than I, they have also generously shared their wisdom and counsel and the occasional swift kick in the rear that I as a youngster often required!

A word of wisdom here.  While the internet is wonderful for developing acquaintances that you might never have made in real life, it cannot and should not replace face-to-face encounters and human hugs.  If you are lacking in the later, it takes some effort and at times requires getting out of your comfort zone to go meet people.  I know it’s scary.  It causes us to run the risk of rejection if our overtures of friendship are not responded to, but don’t let a few moments of fear and discomfort rob you of a potential of a lifetime of joy!

Prov 27:9  Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel.  NIV