"...Praying Always For You"

As the Littles and I were doing our "Kitchen Sparkle" last week, I came up with an idea for more consistently remembering to pray for other family members and friends. While I do record prayer requests, I can easily get slack about praying for everyone and doing it diligently. I also wanted to encourage the children to pray for others on their own, independently of our prayer time together.

The refrigerator seemed like the perfect spot to display a reminder to pray for our family and friends. I decided we would focus on one family each week and made a title of "Remember to pray for...," using card stock, scrapbooking scissors, and magnet tape. I put a Scripture under the title that reminds us to pray for one another, such as Colossians 1:3, "We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you." I'll periodically change the Scripture, as there are many to choose from.I then listed various Scriptures to pray when thinking of the family pictured. There are so many possibilities, but here are just a few of the ones I listed...

~that you would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (Col. 1:19)

~that the Lord would make you increase and abound in love toward one another, and all men (1 Thess. 3:13)

~that the Lord would stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God...(1 Thess. 3:13)
(I'll change these occasionally as well, using Scriptures I've noted in my Bible study time or using others from the Nave's Topical Bible.)

I've been amazed at how often I look at the picture posted and pray these Scriptures for the particular family. Think about how many times a Mom is in the kitchen, opening and closing the refrigerator door! If we don't have a picture of a particular family member or friend, I'll just type up the name in a pretty font and slip it inside the photo holder. I do remind the children to remember to look at the family and pray for them at least once at day.

Of course, we pray the standing requests for good health or salvation or other specific petitions for that family, but having these Scriptures in front of us reminds us of just how much richer and more specific our prayers can be, and I know I would love to have someone praying, for example, that God would make me or my husband or my children "perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ." (Heb. 13:21)

Love to you all...we're praying for you!

Queen Mom