[] serve somebody []

Often, when I am overwhelmed, that feeling drives me to figure out a new plan of attack.  And since I usually procrastinate, it takes me a few tries before anything is tackled.  Specifically, the only time this really bothers me and I wish my emotional response was different is when I am asked to remember several personal prayer requests at once.  Let me explain: I'm a part of small group and at the end we usually go around and state where we would like God's attention to help change, awaken, or show wisdom in.  Usually 5-7 concerns are put out there for us to remember and intercede for.  This overwhelms me, to completely honest.  I 100% believe in the power of prayer and know it can bring understanding beyond anything else. But with the addition of extra prayers adding to the heaping stack in my brain completely stop me from moving forward at that moment.  As I said before, I wish my response was different.

I see my close friends writing furiously as the people in the group voice their needs, as I sit and pray a blanket prayer over everything, sincerely, with details and love.  I know that writing them down and keeping them to look over for the next week or two is great, but I know myself all too well.  That list will end up lost before the end of the night.  I wish my process was different.

It is one of my life's expectation to be in the Word everyday.  Writing thoughts and praying for wisdom in everyday life and things.  If I were to sit down and pray until all the needs for those on my heart AND on paper were spoken for, it would take until the sun came up.  Something has to change...

 A good friend Cina showed me this great site, ServeSomeone.org a few months ago.  I was waiting to post it only because I wanted to see how well the process worked before sharing. And I am happy to say it works way better than I expected.  Essentially, your prayer reminders are sent to your phone via text at random intervals that you can choose.  And its super simple.  After reading their mission statement, click "get started" and it takes you to a very simple template to fill out: your name, the persons name you want to serve, the way you want to be reminded, and how often.  Its simple but it works.

I works for several reasons in my life.  I am always on the go.  My phone is checked more than any other device that I have.  When I have my specific daily reminders sent via text, I actually stop and take those few minutes to pray over that person and their life.  Being able to pray for 15 people and situations throughout the day is way less overwhelming than trying to work my way through them all at once.  This has radically changed the way I go about praying for others and remembering the needs of the people I love.  I hope this post helps at least one person to move forward in praying and serving others.  I don't think this process is for everyone, and if you have one, write about it.  Get it out there, you never know who you could be helping.  thanks for reading