The Six Month Prayer Project

The other day I received an email from a friend of mine asking me to pray with her for God to reveal to her something to pray about. Confused? Let me explain.

In her Sunday School class, they were challenged to focus on praying for one thing for six months and at the end of that six month span, to see how God had worked/moved/answered prayer. She wanted to make sure she prayed for something that was God-ordained and she wanted me to pray with her for wisdom in choosing her six month prayer. I promised to do so, and I went on my merry way.

Monday of this week, on Mid-Morning, Chuck Lynch was our guest. This guy is INCREDIBLE when it comes to family dynamics. He has been our guest before, and he talks about parents relating to adult children. His interviews are not just great for parents, but for people like me too – trying to figure out how to change the family dynamic now that I’m an adult and furthermore, an adult bringing a relationship into the picture.

Anyway. As he talked about the HUGE issue of guilt trips in families, he referenced these verses from Romans 12: Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will pay, says the Lord.” (vv. 17-19.)

And it was in that moment that my email conversation came back to me. Pray about something for six months and see what the Lord does.

Here’s the thing.

I have a relationship in my life that has gone…well…down the toilet. I have apparently offended the person and I have beat the daylights out of my brain trying to figure out what I possibly could have said or done to create such apparent hatred toward me – for YEARS now. She won’t speak to me, won’t even acknowledge my existence unless we’re in the same room together and then she’s syrupy sweet in a way that reminds me I’m detested but no one else is supposed to know. She’s quick to buddy up to our mutual friends, which makes her disdain toward me all the more apparent to me.

I won’t lie. It. Hurts.

I’ve tried to reach out. I’ve tried to be loving. And I’ve gone to the other extreme and tried to offer her a reprieve from me by purposely skipping out on events I know she’ll be at because I know she doesn’t want to see me. (And because I know I don’t want to end up sobbing the rest of the day. It’s not worth the heart-hurt to me.)

And Monday, as I sat at the engineering board, with my Bible open in my lap, staring at the verses from Romans 12, I knew what God was asking of me. She’s my six month prayer project. Every day until May 19^th…I commit to praying for her. About her. About us.

I won’t lie. I don’t want to do it.

In fact, that was the opening line in my prayer journal. “Okay. Okay God. I will pray. I don’t want to. I want to sit around and be mad and offended by her rude and unwarranted behavior. I don’t want to pray about it and even worse, I don’t want to pray FOR her. But I will. I do not have a clue what I have done to make her treat me with such disdain. I don’t know how I have offended her. I don’t know why she’s singled me out to treat me this way. But it has to be miserable to be caught up in so much bondage.”

I don’t know what God is going to do in these six months. Perhaps He’ll soften her heart toward me and cause these many years of anger or offense or grudge-holding or whatever it is to melt away. Perhaps He’ll soften my heart toward her so that I don’t develop a fresh ulcer at the mere mention of her name. Perhaps He’ll tear down the massive wall constructed between us and create a bond neither of us can imagine on this day. I don’t know. But I know I’m committing to pray.

And I say this today because maybe you’ll join me? I don’t mean in praying FOR me (though goodness knows I’m not going to turn it down. HELLO!) But maybe you need to do a six month prayer too. For a situation. For a person. For a heart-hurt. Maybe?

Think about it. And if He leads you to…join me.