The Circle Maker

I mentioned a couple posts ago about the book we had started reading for our small groups, “The Circle Maker,” by Mark Batterson. It has absolutely revolutionized the way I look at prayer and my view of God. A bigger view of God means we pray bigger prayers and the prayers we pray ultimately become the script of our lives. Almost every miracle has a genealogy that can be traced back to a prayer. I can think of so many things over my 27 years, and before I was ever even born, that are a result of either my parents or my grandmother’s prayers. That just makes me want to get on my knees every day for Stella and intercede for her and her future.

When I started this book on September 4, I was coming out of a disappointing month and was letting my lack of understanding regarding my situations get the better of me. The night I began reading, the author challenged the reader to write down the things that you wanted God to do. So many times we just pray an empty prayer with whatever words/thoughts pop in our minds, and I was really motivated to start becoming intentional with my prayers. If not, how am I ever going to know if God answered something or if it was just mere coincidence? When Jesus healed the blind man, he asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Of course, Jesus knew what he needed, but he wants us to ask Him.

I wrote down four things that I would be “circling” in prayer. This “circling” is new terminology to me, but basically it just means praying through.

1.        We would be completely out of debt by the end of the year {aside from a mortgage}.

2.       I would be able to stay home with Stella by the end of the year {or possibly working part time, but I wanted more time with Stella than working}

3.       Our house would sell.

4.      Stella {just in general; her future, school plans, future spouse, etc}

I’m sharing these things knowing that in God’s sovereignty he may say “not now” or there may be other situations that arise that I can’t ever possibly forsee that I don’t even know to be praying for. But, I’m also sharing because I want God to get the glory when He does answer these.

We got a phone call this past Saturday about a pipeline coming down from somewhere North of Nebraska all the way down through South Texas – and it has to come right through the longest part of our property! The starting bid to purchase the easement from us is MORE than enough to get us completely debt free plus more! What an encouragement to keep praying! It allows us to look at the bigger picture and realize that the sell of our house may have postponed just to allow us to be able to get debt-free, which allows so many other things to be put into action.

On Sunday, we had a prayer walk at the new property our church has purchased for relocation plans. It’s right on the frontage of George Bush near Miles road. Our church has been in our current location since long before we started attending there 23 years ago. We hope to break ground in January, but it was so neat to be walking on the ground where our sanctuary and our children’s ministry will be – where Stella will grow up learning about God. Blake spent a couple days last week helping the church get the property cleaned up for the prayer walk and we are just so excited about our future and the future of Northplace Church. At the beginning of the prayer walk, everyone was given a rock that we wrote down things/people, etc that we were believing God to do or for salvation of that person. At the end of the prayer walk we placed all the rocks in a pile. That pile of rocks will be used to pour the concrete of the alter in the new church and it’s going to be such an amazing testimony when God answers those prayers.

{We let Stella write on a rock, too}

{Daddy helping Stella put her rock with the pile}

{My family}

{Someone was just a lil tuckered out}

Before heading to the prayer walk after service, Blake told me he had something to tell me and that he finally had direction and peace about our plans. I’ve always felt, since before I even imagined being pregnant with Stella, that I wanted to be home with our kids. After having Stella, it just didn’t seem feasible for me not to go back to work. We needed health insurance and there were other financial obligations such that we felt like it was in our best interest for me to go back to work for a while. The drive to work takes me nearly an hour and half to get to my office and so last September I was looking for a job closer to home. I got the job offer I wanted, though it would have been a significant pay cut. After putting my notice in at work, they came back with such a crazy counter-offer, that looking back it was SO God’s hand providing a way for us to achieve our financial goals more quickly than we could have otherwise. I know God takes us through a process to grow us, but having the hindsight now is so neat to see all these things coming together. So, after service on Sunday, Blake said that he knew that me staying home with Stella full-time after the end of the year was exactly what we needed to do and that it was time for us to just lean and trust on God and that He would provide {and I love how Blake added, “I always find a way to make things happen, don’t I?”}

Anyway – I know this was super long, but I just love sharing the awesome things that are happening!