Putting her hope in God

God has been so good these past couple of days. I know he's good all the time, but sometimes I'm too self-absorbed to notice. He has not only come through for me, but he has gone above and beyond by blessing me. That is just like him.

Mary Knox is such a blessing to me:

"...It says about the widow [ in 1 Timothy 5:5,6] that 'she has placed her hope in God'--not people--not husband, kids, friends, church, circumstances--but she has placed her hope in God. Another one of my anchor verses during that year was Psalm 31: 14,15: "But I am trusting you , O Lord, saying 'You are my God!' My future is in your hands. "
I love the next verse: "Night and day she asks God for help and spends much time in prayer." Night and Day prayer. All the time prayer. It tandems with 1 Thess. 5: 17: Pray unceasingly [NASB] , pray continually [NIV], pray all the time [Message], pray perseveringly [Amplified]...and my favorite: NEVER STOP PRAYING [Contemporary English Version.]
How do you do this--this prayer that never stops? As Thelma Clark once advised me: 'Turn your thoughts into prayers.' This appealed to me, because during [my hard year], I could hardly read and I could hardly speak...but I could THINK. So I could do 'thought-praying.' ....
I've learned many different kinds of prayer. And what does this kind of prayer look like? Praise prayer, cry prayer, laugh prayer, scream prayer, dance prayer, silent prayer, humble prayer, desperate prayer, battling taekwondo prayer. It takes many shapes, many moods, many emotions, many sounds.
So this particular year, I've practiced battling taekwondo prayer. Someone wrote once: "If your God is so great, I dare you to try to win 'him' back with your prayers." Did I go HULK-RAGING-MAD??? You BET I did. I was like: 'Okay! the gloves are coming off. The battle is on!!!" 2 Cor. 10 3-5 says, "We are human, but we don't wage war with human plans and methods. We use God's mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons, to knock down the Devils' strongholds. With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God. With these weapons we conquer their rebellious ideas, and we teach them to obey Christ."
And I'm learning about fasting prayer. We've been advised to fast for our family. Even fast weekly. My flesh was like, "Are you kidding me? Fast every week? Impossible! But we've started. And it wasn't even hard. And it was wonderful. And revelatory! When you fast and pray and read: God takes you deep, and leads you, and 'rhema's' you, and reveals things, FAST! [maybe that's why God called it a FAST. It's a Fast track to God.] So I'm really excited about fasting. The first few stomach growls are hard, but I just learned to offer them up as sacrifices. My verse was Romans 12: 1: "...give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice...When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask?"
I recently read this wonderful book on parenting, by Ruth Graham. One phrase penetrated my heart: it was a line from one of her great poems: it say: SEE MY HEART UPON ITS KNEES. That's what prayer looks like.
1 Timothy 5 about the widow, has really stimulated me. I want to be a 1 Timothy 5 prayer warrior, before I age even further, and BEFORE I become a widow. I want to be this woman NOW!"