Starting the New Year with Prayer

Several things lead me to give this post that title.  First, I enjoy listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss by podcast.  It is a ministry focused on women.  The series Nancy is currently teaching is called First Things First, and it is all about priorities.  Nancy is working through an acrostic that spells the word priorities.  The first letter, very appropriately, stands for prayer. 

I usually do well with reading my Bible first thing in the morning, but I struggle to fit in prayer time also.  If it is not Elaine, it is my to-do list or something else that distracts me from the vital time communicating with God.  One of my desires for 2011 is to spend more time in prayer.

I was also thinking on prayer because our church had an all-night prayer meeting last night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.  Can you think of a better way to ring in the New Year?  The prayer meeting focused on revival (as does our nightly prayer meeting at church), but the needs of individuals were also brought before the Lord.  I was not able to attend because of the late hours and Elaine.  As it was, Ben rode the train because of the amount of snow still on the streets.  He didn’t get home until after 3 a.m.!

The other thing that caused me to think on prayer is the fact that my New Year began with an answer to prayer.  It may be silly to some, but it was important to me. 

I had a new pair of gloves from Christmas.  On Thursday I shoveled the snow off the car, and I also went out with Elaine.  I remember placing my gloves near the banister to dry.  However, last night I could not find them anywhere.  Did I leave them in the entryway?  Nope.  Nothing is there.  Did the neighbor pick them up by mistake?  No – they didn’t have my gloves.

I am also missing several diapers from my inventory.  It’s a long story, but I have proof that they were on the shelf on December 5th, and I haven’t had any orders for those diapers.  Now they are M.I.A.  So…add that to my missing gloves and I was starting to think there was a thief somewhere!

My last thought was that I left them in the car.  Ben checked on his way to the prayer meeting, but they were not there.  When I put Elaine to bed I prayed that God would help me find my gloves.

Ben arrived home around 3 a.m.  He said, “Did you pray that God would help you find your gloves?”  I responded, “Yes.  Were they in the car?”

“No.  They were not in the car.  But as I turned the corner onto our street I noticed two gloves stuck on the fence post at the top of the street.  I didn’t think anything of it until I noticed they said Duluth Trading Company.  They were yours!”

So…I don’t know how my gloves ended up the street, or why they were there at 3 a.m. and not 9 p.m., but I am grateful that God answered my prayer!