Prayer Partners

The other day on the phone when my mom told me about two ladies who stood up in church to talk about how they've been prayer partners for twenty-two years, I did a little mental math and made my report right then and there.

That friend of mine?  The one who stopped me after the first chapel meeting of the school year her freshman year in college to ask where the choir met because she thought I looked like I would know and of course I did know so we walked there together?

We've been prayer partners for nine years and counting.

Almost a decade.  Not that we call it being prayer partners, exactly, but I suppose that's what we are.  

It all started another day during another chapel meeting, when the speaker talked about two girls who prayed together over one issue every day for a long time, and saw God work wonders in their situation.

The girl next to me said, "What would you think of doing that?"  I said, "I think that's a great idea."   We chose a time to meet every day, we chose a topic to pray about, and by the end of the quarter we decided to keep it up and chose a new topic for the next quarter.  And the next quarter.  And by then it was habit.

A decision made in a moment, sustained over nine years.

I can't begin to describe all the life changes we've both been through in the last nine years.  We don't pray together every day anymore, but it's rare for us to have a conversation WITHOUT ending it in prayer.  

Most of the time, we pray together on the phone.  We're fortunate, though, that part way through our college and early adult lives her parents and my parents moved to the same city, so we see each other as we pass through for vacations and holidays.  

Then we get to pray in person, too, like a few weeks ago after our walk through rose gardens and woodsy trails in a little restaurant booth where the blaring music covered up our supplications so no one could hear, except God.


Looking back over the last nine years, I've been so overwhelmingly blessed by having someone to pray with--and let's face it, having one person to pray with made me more confident and comfortable asking other friends to pray with me, which has also yielded rich results in my life--that I hope you'll think about who you can find to pray with. 

Maybe every day, maybe every week, maybe just whenever it happens.  There aren't really any rules for this kind of thing, except that you're willing to do it.

I don't believe for a second that our little moment in week of prayer all those years ago was an accident.  I also don't believe it's always as easy as turning to the person next to you in chapel to find a prayer partner.  But it's worth the effort.