Posted in Christianity

Back in 2004, I began a prayer notebook that has really helped me in my Christian walk.  I have never shared it with anyone, but for some reason the other day I felt like I should blog about it.  Maybe this will help someone be more faithful in prayer, and reminding myself how helpful the binder is will help me to be more faithful as well.

I have a regular binder divided into 6 sections: Bible reading, prayer, memory work, gratitude, insights, and writing.

Bible: I write the date and whatever verses I read that day.  I will confess that I have really not done this at all in 2008, but before I stopped, I was reading through the Gospels in German.  I would read it in German, look up any words I didn't know, and then read it in English.  If I have a thought about the Bible verses, I will write that down in the same place.  Back in 2004-2005, I was also trying to read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but didn't finish.  I will have to pick that back up again as well!  Regular Bible reading is very important and I highly recommend it!

Prayer: This section starts with the 1 Corinthians 13 definition of love.  I try to read this frequently to remind myself what love is.  Then comes the Catholic prayer the "Act of Love." (BTW, just to warn you, when searching for the German equivalent of this prayer, putting "Act of Love" into a search engine is NOT a good idea!)

Next I have a page for each member of my immediate family, and I write long term prayer requests for them here.  I once read a biography of St. Francis of Assisi, and it said that his mother always prayed that he would be a good Christian.  I thought that pretty much summed it up and so that is one of the prayers on each child's page.  I ask their name saints to pray for them and their guardian angels to protect them and help them.  If a request no longer applies, I check it off.

After that, I have a page for each day of the week.  When I was setting up my notebook, I made a list of prayer requests having to do with the larger world and divided them up onto different days.  So I am praying for all these important things once a week (as long as I don't skip any days!)  These requests are things like: an end to abortion, healing for all who have been hurt by abortion, for the Holy Souls in Purgatory and my deceased relatives, for my parish, for my diocese and my bishop, for all priests and seminarians (and I pray specifically for every priest who has a special connection to our family), and for my friends and their prayer requests.

Then I have a page where I pray for specific people to return or convert to the Catholic Church.  These are mainly family members.

After that come specific prayer requests.  I write the date and whatever the request is and then skip a line.  Whenever it is answered, I write down what happened on the skipped line and check it off.  What this does is give me an ongoing history and a praise list - all these prayers that have been answered!

The next page is prayer for anyone affected by a natural disaster.  I added this page after the devastating tsunami that occurred right after Christmas 2004.  Then comes my St. Gerard list.  For those who are not Catholic, St. Gerard is the patron saint of pregnant women.  I write down the names of my friends who are pregnant and pray for them to have healthy pregnancies and babies.  Then after the baby is born, I pray for them for another six weeks as they recover. 

Sometimes I might add in a special page if something else is going on in my life.  For example, when I was participating in a weight loss contest, I had a page with my teammates' names so I could pray for them. 

Last is the page of long-term prayer requests for me.

Memory: I was actively trying to memorize prayers and verses.  However, after the twins came in 2005, I think the sleep deprivation or something damaged my memory.  I have an extremely hard time memorizing now!  It took me from November 2005 to February 2006 to memorize 2 verses and so I just gave up and haven't tried again.

Gratitude: for 2 1/2 years I worked on developing gratitude and wrote something down every day that I was grateful for.

Insights: this is a section to write down those little (or not so little) insights that come every so often.  It's kind of like a spiritual diary.

Writing:  sometimes I am working on a piece of writing relating to all this and do it here.  For example, I love the story in the book of Tobit so much that I wrote a version of it for my children.

So that's basically it.  This notebook has helped me feel like I am doing what I should be as a Christian: regularly reading Scripture, praying, and growing closer to God.