The great Lenten prayer experiment Day 1

Day 1.  I went to bed with no little amount of nervousness last night.  We went out to a local church for a pancake supper and I came home hoping to put up some last minute pictures of Samuel eating pancakes with maple syrup - but my entire computer just, in technical terms, went PTHWT.  The keyboard turned off, then wouldn't start again, and I went to bed very nervous that this forty days was going to be punctuated with me bundling the baby up and hiking to the library for my daily posts.  It was nerve-wracking.  And then this morning David woke me up to say everything was working again. The enemy, I suppose, making a last-ditch attempt to stop the great Lenten prayer experiment.

So, Day one of the experiment.  Well, I already told you I would attempt the daily prayer time and the prayer journal, but after looking over my list again I realized that unless I got a head start on the Psalms I wouldn't be done by the end of the season.  So I woke up this morning and sang five Psalms before I prayed.  Or maybe I should say I prayed five Psalsms, because I had no idea how wonderful this practice was!  Just for starters, I was forced to slow down because to sing or speak aloud takes more time than to read in your head.  I really got a chance to think about the words on the page.  Have you ever read the lyrics to a song and felt very ambivalent to the message the song was giving?  And yet, when you hear that song sung aloud, you understand?  Those words that fell flat have life?  That was my experience with singing this morning - these words were written to be sung, not read.

And then I prayed.  I tried the acronym P.R.A.Y. today.  It stands for Person, Reason, Answer, You.  Hard to explain, so here's an example:  Lord, I lift up Jane (the person) today to you.  She is struggling with temptation (the reason) and I ask that you fill her with strength and a desire to obey your will. (your hoped for answer) Lord let my actions and prayers help her in this time of trial and use me as your instrument as you see fit. (where you stand in all of this.)

I liked it, it kept me on track. I have a tendency to wander with my thoughts and prayers so this was a bit of accountabilty.  And then in my prayer journal I wrote who I prayed for and why and left space to mention prayers as they are answered.  The whole morning prayer time took about 30 minutes.

And that was day one.