Hey Y’all,
When I started digging deeper into my faith my mother passed down my great grandmother’s prayer book to me. It was just a standard prayer book that consisted of prayers for Lent, Christmas, special occasions, etc.
Today, I had the urge to pick it back up and look through it for anything about an epidemic or even an illness to pray for our world. Found inside was an obituary card for her late husband, prayer cards, *hopefully* an unused floss pick, and two dog eared pages.
One of those dog eared pages brought tears to my eyes, the other gave me so much more respect for the women I remember, my great grandfathers obituary card showed her love for her husband never ended, and the wear and tear of the book taught me I don’t pray enough.
The page that brought me to tears was page 238, Prayer for Grown Children. She never stopped praying for my grandfather, and I’m sure her late daughter. Until the day she died she prayed for his problems, his fears, his family, his health, his work, his peace, everything . How selfless is that? I mean I get you become selfless when you become a mother, but even when he was a grandfather, let alone a parent of his own and he was at the age of being self sufficient she still worried enough to pray for him AND his family. That is the epitome of love for Christ and her children.
The page that gave me respect was a prayer for patience. Everyone knows you never pray for patience unless you want God to really test you. But she did. Frequently. My Nona was a strong, snarky, loving, full blooded Italian. This dog eared page makes me love her even more than I already did for trusting that when she prayed for patience, God was going to only give her what she can handle and had faith she could.
The wear and tear makes me disappointed in myself for not praying more than once a week, let alone everyday. To put all of your faith in God and taking the time to talk to him as much as she did is overwhelmingly inspiring. I hate to say praying daily is dedication because it should be easy and normal to, but we get busy or forget or just get careless. I am guilty of that the most.
[ Thank you Nona for today. I felt you. I appreciate you. I love you. But, most of all I miss you. My faith grew recently even though you fought for me to explore it when I was younger, but either way it was all because of you. Thank you. ]
Basically, we all need to pray more, there is no such thing as too much. So let’s all pray for mankind, our children (young or grown), our neighbor, and our PATIENCE. God Bless.
This has been your daily dose of Vitamin C!