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Psalms, Confessions, and the Prayers of a Friend


Deep breath.

 For years I've struggled with a crazy fear of being in a car accident. It impacts my travel. I stress for days before a trip and end up working myself up so much that I rarely enjoy my time away.

 Last weekend we had a guest evangelist at our church. He spoke on Sunday morning about forgiveness and on Sunday night about letting go of the things that you are holding onto.

 I didn't have anything come into my mind that night that I needed prayer for so I prayed with other ladies.

 Then Tuesday happened. 

 We were planning to leave Wednesday morning to take our daughter and her friend to Cleveland for the Taylor Swift concert. I'd never been to Cleveland and had no idea what we were going to do while we were there and while the girls were at the show. That in itself was stressful to me. I'm used to downtown Pittsburgh where there isn't much to do within walking distance of the stadium/concert venue.

 I was stressing most of the day on Tuesday about all of this, including the drive. 
The words of the evangelist came back to me and I knew I needed to humble myself and confess my fear and worry to someone and ask for prayer.

 Earlier in the day while I was considering all of this, I hopped onto Facebook and saw that one of the doctor's that I follow (a nutritional doctor) had asked his followers what they do for stress.
One person answered: Read Psalms.

 A few hours later I was reading a murder mystery novel and one of the characters mentioned that when she is stressed or worried she reads Psalms.

 Hmmmm, you might think, maybe someone is trying to tell her something. 
Yeah, maybe, but she's a little dense at times.

 So back to the part about needing to confess my problem and ask for prayer. My sweet friend and I walk several times a week for exercise. I knew she was coming over soon so I mustered up the courage (and humility) and confessed everything to her while we were walking, and asked her to pray for me. She prayed outloud while we walked and as she prayed that weight just lifted off of me and floated away. I actually felt lighter.

 And it stayed gone.

 That night, at about 10:30, I received a text from her that simply told me I should read Psalm 91.

 At this point I'm thinking, Okay, God, I totally get it now, You want me to read Psalms.

 I posted that chapter last week. It was exactly the words that I needed.

 We went on our trip, and even though a car stopped on the highway right in front of us, in a construction zone (to ask a construction worker a question...yeah...) we had an uneventful trip.

 The city was perfect, and the man and I shared a chocolate brownie explosion at 10:00 at night. 

 What is better than that? 

Comments

  1. Ruth AnnJune 10, 2015 at 5:59 AM

    I love Ps. 91 and have read it so often that I may actually have it memorized! It is fantastic!

    ReplyDelete

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