24 Hours of Prayer and hard week

This has been a very hard week. I have been in so much pain. I got to go to church last night which was good.

My brother's birthday party is tomorrow at church in the gym. He's having a dodgeball party and I think there is an inflatable obstacle course too.

It is going to be a crazy day tomorrow! His party is from 4-6 tomorrow afternoon. I have a youth group lock-in at the same place as his party that I have to be at starting at 7:30!

Jesus talks so much about prayer. I believe that prayer is one of the most important things we do. It is so powerful and we know God is listening. It's so encouraging when you pray with your friends or other people. Every night I do a prayer call with 6 other people in my youth group and it is so cool to hear who God is in their life by the prayers they pray. God is different for every person because God uses us in different ways. On Wednesday, we all meet in person and talk about our week and what God is doing and what we're struggling with. It is such a great thing to be doing.

Prayer is also a very hard spiritual discipline. We don't just pray because God says so. It shouldn't be forced. Obviously we are never going to get that perfect. But prayer is so important in our Relationship with God.

"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" Matthew 18:20

Tomorrow our church is doing 24 hours of prayer. This has become a tradition. From 7 pm Friday to 7pm Saturday, there will be someone in constant prayer. There is a prayer room at church that has boards of things to pray for. There are boards about missionaries, schools, ministries, our country, a globe to pray for the world, people who are sick, and a board with everyone's name that goes to church there. Once the prayer time is over, everyone in the church will have been prayed for at least once. The room is dimly lit and has some quiet music on. Everyone has signed up for at least a 30 minute praying time. Of course you can come up and pray whenever you want.

The youth group has our lock-in during this time. We are covering the 10 pm to 7 am time slots. It is such a neat thing to be able to go into the prayer room whenever and see so many people in prayer. Almost everyone loses track of time and stays in the prayer room for an hour or longer. Also, a lot of the youth group decides to go several times through the night to pray. It's awesome to hear and see so many people who leave the games and go to the prayer room because they just want to pray.

During the lock-in we have so much fun! We play games and everything and we worship throughout the night.

I'm on the prayer leadership team in the youth group and we are supposed to cover from 7pm to 10pm tomorrow before the lock-in actually starts. So I will be at church from like lunch time to set up the party until saturday morning! I'm really excited! I'm praying that I can stay the whole time and hoping I can handle the pain.

"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" James 5:16

"The LORD is near to all who call on him,

to all who call on him in truth."Psalm 145:18

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" Romans 8:26

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" Philippians 4:6