Calling from the Prayer Box

I have not posted in quite a while. Honestly, I’ve struggled with the whole pandemic and teaching online. I’m a tech person, but it has been overwhelming and unnerving. I’ve just been lost. I have forgotten to seek out my pecans. My #pecanreports became smaller and smaller. It wasn’t that I didn’t have pecans, but that I forgot to notice them. No one to blame but myself!

I recently read a wonderful book and it really struck a chord with me. It is women’s inspirational fiction, which is the category that I write. Lisa Wingate is the author of the well known book, The Prayer Box. If you have not read it, grab a copy and sit back for a wonderful story of a woman that keeps Prayer Boxes.

The book defines Prayer Boxes as a place that a person keeps their love letters to God. When I read that, it stopped me cold. I got chills because I realized that I have Prayer Boxes too! I was so excited. It felt like I had a pecan for the first time in months. I felt like the Spirit was filling me up again. It was like a new awakening. And, don’t we all need a new awakening at times? Sometimes, I need to be shaken awake or maybe drop kicked to become alive!

As I continued to read this book, I continued to connect to the subject of the Prayer Boxes. I thought about last spring before Covid hit. Every morning as part of my routine, I sat on my own prayer box which now contains journals upon journals that I have written as my love letters to God. This Prayer Box is extremely special to me because it was the toy box that my father made for me by hand. I used it when I was a little girl and then my own children used it to house their toys. Now, it houses something much better than GI Joe's and Barbies. It houses my words, thoughts, prayers, and general ramblings to God. Now that is a pecan!

I started journaling when I was going through my divorce. My counselor recommended that I do this to sort out my feelings. I have some of those journals too, but somewhere along the lines my divorce journals became love letters to God. I began to have a morning ritual of getting up thirty minutes earlier than I had to just to be able to say good morning to God. The time became very precious to me. I wasn’t sitting on my Prayer Box yet either. I wrote from the comfort of my bed.

After I moved back home to live with my grandfather and then into my own home, I brought the toy box along with me. It had been used in my living room to house extra blankets and quilts as we no longer had toys around my house. Now it was housed in my bedroom at the foot of my bed. That is when I began to use it as a Prayer Box. I began to sit on it every morning to talk to God, read my devotion, and write my love letter. It became my “holy” place. My worship center for lack of a better word. Some people have prayer closets or rooms, I had a Prayer Box. I had never called it that until I read Lisa Wingate’s book.

Reading the book made me think more deeply about what I was writing to God. As I read the love letters that the character in the book wrote to God I started to fall in love with my letters again too. PECAN!!! I started to realize that this handmade toy box had transformed into something that I needed in my life. Had I been sitting on it over the last few months? The answer was as you guessed- NO! I was still journaling somewhat and reading my devotions, but my routine had become so willy nilly that I was skipping out on sitting on my Prayer Box. Maybe the same thing has happened to you during this time of uncertainty? Isn’t it easy to get out of a routine? They say it takes twenty one days to develop a habit (good or bad). I broke my habit of sitting every morning in the same spot to talk to God.

After reading The Prayer Box, I realized how vital my spiritual well being is tied now to that old toy box. My love letters to God have never been more important. I shook myself off and bought a new devotional by Lisa TerKeurst called Embraced. I have returned to writing my love letters to God every morning. I know that it will take me twenty one days to get back to that habit. I’m not sitting on my Prayer Box yet as I am using my kitchen table during the peaceful quiet mornings while being home alone. School is coming though- no matter how it will be operating this year. I will be back on my Prayer Box writing those love letters and filling the inside of the box with the notebooks that I have filled with letters. This makes my heart happy. I am looking forward to starting a healthy routine in about 3 weeks that will fill my mind and soul with the Spirit.

After this powerful awakening and seeing how important the Prayer Box was to me, I felt as if the scales were being removed from my eyes and I could see clearly God’s Pecans. They really are scattered everywhere we look. We just have to adjust our sight.

I had the privilege of being invited to a wedding in Pennsylvania recently. I attended and had a wonderful time. On this trip one of my best friend’s was my travel buddy. We toured Lancaster, PA and enjoyed the spoils of Amish Country. We went into a shop to get out of the rain. As we were looking around, guess what I found? Yep, a Prayer Box. On a bracelet no less! A Prayer Box that was a piece of jewelry- wow! I had to have it. I knew that it was meant for me.

This bracelet is so cool. Not only was the verse that the bracelet contained exactly what I needed to hear and remind myself of daily during this time of uncertainty, but it had 3 other verses that you can cut apart to load into your Prayer Box. My verse was Philippians 4:6 “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.” The other verses are: 1John 5:14 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Philippians 4:13 “ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” It also had a place where you could add your own verses. I added Psalm 119:34 “Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions; I will put them into practice with all my heart.” This bracelet was meant for me to buy. I believe it was a pecan from God. He was reminding me that we all need Prayer Boxes in our lives. A place where we can keep our love letters that we write to him. Storage for our most precious thoughts and words that we send to him. I added this bracelet to my #pecanreport because I knew God was whispering to me. I felt the stirring in my soul. It felt good to be alive again.