Dear Fellow Fast & Pray-ers,

This is your encouragement/reminder about praying and fasting tomorrow (Monday) during lunch.  If possible, find a friend to pray with (good things happen when we take these things into the light, before God, with another person).  And if possible, do try fasting, seeing if God will sustain you.  And when you pray, please remember to join with us all in praying these three things:  1) that God would provide life-giving marriages for those who desire them, 2) that men would have the courage to walk upright before God, into marriage, and 3) that we as women would have the courage to see if/how God might be calling us to change for the sake of life-giving marriages (our own, but also in general).

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Well, I can’t believe how fuzzed out my brain has been all afternoon.  I’ve been working on writing this e-mail since about 4:00 p.m., and the content has fluctuated between the sublime and the ridiculous, landing primarily in the convoluted!

So, instead of making some brilliant point, I’d like simply to share what’s on my heart:

Be encouraged you all!  God is good.  He really is.  Sometimes I look around and think how crazy this whole Christianity thing seems:  Women sitting around praying and fasting for marriages (to men) when the broader culture is focused on debates about same-sex marriage.  Women (and men) wanting to believe that they are part of something bigger and eternal when there is so much isolation & loneliness experienced by men and women, single and married, in the present.  360+ people on this list committing to lean into the reality that God came to earth 2000 years ago and one day there really will be a new heavens and a new earth, even amid the many messages presuming that this material universe, experienced with the 5 senses (and baby, you better get all the sensory stimulation possible because that’s all there is) is the beginning & end of story.  Yep, it can seem crazy to hold on to hope and to lift our eyes out of ourselves towards a grand reality we can’t always see.

But, there is a reason.  We lift our eyes up because there really is a God whose eyes are on us.  He is paying attention.  We saw him paying attention in Jesus.  Jesus paid attention to the woman at the well.  He paid attention to the widow at Nain.  He paid attention to Mary and Martha.  He paid attention to the woman who touched his cloak.  And Jesus is still paying attention–to you, to me, and to the world around us.  He is paying attention to where we live, how we feel, how our bodies work, how our brains work, what we do, what we long for, to our gifts, to our service, to our relationships, to our marriages or lack thereof, to our communities, to our families, to his people.  He is paying attention!

I have no idea what your needs are this week.  I have no idea what your heart longs for.  I have no idea where God is leading you.  But be encouraged.  He is real.  He is good.  He is present.  He’s not threatened by the chaos around or within us.  To the contrary, He is in the midst of it all, undaunted, with us, and, he is a God whose eyes are open and whose ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. (see 2 Chronicles 6:40).

So pray on.  He is good, and he is paying attention.

Blessings,
Connally
fast.pray@gmail.com