Praying about Praying

This past week I have actually started to write an e-mail to our friends and family about our hopes, thoughts, and questions about adoption, and I started reading a book about adoption. It had some great suggestions for prayer at the beginning of the process. So I decided to start with these during my prayer time today, but also felt like I needed to be praying for friends and family around me, because others have big things going on in life too that only God's Spirit can truly work out. Even though I believe and have experienced the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit many times, I know I still do not commit to prayer as I should. When I tell someone else or myself that I will pray for something, I want to follow through- not for people's perception of me, or for my own righteousness, but to remind myself  and others of our need for one another as a body working together for Christ, and as branches being sustained only by the vine.  I was looking for some new verses about prayer, and Biblegateway produced this one:

The Word: "Pray Continually," 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (If you've already memmorized '"esus Wept", try this one!)

Prayer: That prayer would be a driving force in our lives, for ourselves, for others, the world- in good times and bad. And taking to the time to tell others I am praying for them.

Food Story: Last night  our Life Group was cancelled because of multiple illnesses and ominous weather, so we had a quiet, relaxing night. But i nstead of really enjoying it, I kept thinking about how ice cream would really make the night more enjoyable. I ended up walking to the grocery store across the street at 9:45 pm, convincing myself I really needed to go to get Matt some more yogurt for his lunch tomorrow :) Matt and I were both honestly disappointed that it was a satisfying as I hoped it would be- I want to be satisfied without food, argh! But today, after a great morning exercising and playing with the kids, the idea of a McDonald's diet coke popped into my head. I have significantly cut back since focusing on our budget! I checked myself to make sure my motives were good, and the overwhelming feeling was that the day had been so wonderful, a diet coke would just add more joy and energy to the day.  This has still been the case so far this afternoon, not a dstraction or crutch, but increased joy! (Still sounds a little sad, but every good and perfect gift is from God, right?!)