Hi Pray & Fasters–

A quick note that we are fasting and praying during lunch today for 1) marriages for those who desire (and I’d throw in for those who’d benefit but whose desire is up in the air!), for 2) strength for men to walk forward into marriage even amid seemingly attractive detours, and for 3) us as women to see, feel, and live out God’s fresh perspective/understanding/choices re. men/relationships/marriage.

And as we pray, keep in mind how God wants to not simply move mountains in our relationships with men (though we are increasingly believing that that is possible), but also in our relationships with him.  This whole Monday thing is in many ways a “two purpose” project–we trust that in our fasting & prayers we will 1) drawing closer to the Lord (intimacy), and that 2) he will move in and through our relationships in tangible ways (impact).  It’s in light of this, that I’d encourage you to read the words below from our friend, Gwen.  She has been praying and fasting every Monday with us for over two years….

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Dear friends in prayer,

This is Gwen writing from Philly. I turned 50 this year and in many ways I’m much more single than most, as my family is deceased. Connally extended an offer for me to write something as I’ve been at Monday prayer with everyone from the beginning. What I want to share is how I’ve been transformed by this discipline and invitation, and this is part one— wrestling with my own ambivalence.

I’ve been convinced that ‘prayer’ used as a verb–to pray–isn’t really taught well in many circles. I was 40 before I began to understand what it meant to ‘open my soul to God’ and ‘talk to him from that place’. I was the normal evangelical girl just spouting back scripture to him without my soul being attached to the words or action of prayer. During this rather substantial mid-life situation at 40, I got some great teaching, modeling and spirit-filled prayer partners for the first time in my life, and it was then that my life began to change.

When Connally presented this offer of Monday fasting and prayer, I was 48, well into my newfound relationship with the Lord on His terms, and I saw this great opportunity to make a real discipline out of Mondays for the benefit of many I knew who were single, and for myself– who on some level truly wants some foothold of relationship on earth. So on the first week, I made a chart of the single women I knew who wanted to be married– those in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s and I included my divorced friends in that. It was a large list– over 40 names. And I did the same for the guys: 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s and included those who were divorced and getting divorced. Again, it was a large list– 28 names.

Six months in, doing the extensive work with God on behalf of others, prayer became easier and easier; yet I realized I was ducking my obvious opportunity to pray for myself, clearly avoiding some emotions that were locked up somewhere. This distancing dance has steps I know well, where the invitation to know another more deeply (God in this case) also required facing parts of myself that refused to be known.  God wanted intimacy, where I could articulate what was true about my own shortcomings. I wanted to avoid the emotions attached to these shortcomings. This ambivalence was the first barrier to trusting God with my desire.

He led me to the examples of women in the Bible who ditched the ambivalent dance: Hannah, who poured her heart out so deeply others thought she was drunk; Esther, who risked death speaking truth to power; the woman in Luke 7 who used her own tears to wash Jesus’ feet; and the Woman at the Well whose emotional life was liberated as she met Love Incarnate for the first time. From these women I learned to tell the whole truth, even when it meant feeling gut-wrenching emotions needing expression and confession.

Intimacy–this profound attachment to God–began for me, therefore, with this level of trust: God and I had to agree with this new level of truth telling in order for me to trust His plans and purposes for me, marriage or no marriage in the future.

Looking back, then, on the past two plus years of praying and fasting, I have seen much relational fruit in the lives of many on my lists, and I will continue to pray.  But in my life, what I have seen is that our discipline of Mondays–my haven of trust–has drawn me past my ambivalent heart, most tenderly and powerfully, into His love.