Family Prayer Strategy

by Sandra Strange

My life has changed in the last few years. I have retired from nursing, broadened the ministry out of my home, and published a book The Lamp, Be Aglow and Burning with the Spirit (available through Amazon as a printed book and an eBook). My grandchildren have become adults, and my great-grand children are now in school. Thankfully, in all the change, my family continues to trust me with their joys and heartaches, and I’m privileged to intercede for them with praise and petition.

Prayer has been a significant part of my life for over 50 years, yet my Father still opens new avenues of prayer for me. One of the Lord’s most recent upgrades in intentional prayer came when I saw the movie War Room. As I watched, I was sensing the heart of God for me to pray for my family more strategically.

I live alone and have my favorite places to read, study, and pray, but days after seeing War Room, I became restless – I wanted a “room” set apart from the rest of the house for prayer. My home is 100 years old, so closets are scarce and small, but a narrow closet in my bedroom had potential. After cleaning it out, I discovered that a chair and a side table for my Bible and writing essentials just fit inside. Having no light, I placed a desk lamp on the closet shelf and ran an extension cord to the outlet around the corner. Following the movie’s storyline, I wrote my specific prayers and affixed them to the walls. More recently I have added pictures so I could focus on faces as I pray.

Then in August of this year my church did a five-week study on The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson. Newly visioned, I wrote the names of each immediate and extended family member on a slip of paper and taped them around the perimeter of a hula-hoop. As I pray, I turn the hoop and hold the recipient of that specific prayer in my hands.

These new adventures in prayer include 93 names, 27 families, and 4 generations! New prayer concerns for my flock of loved ones keep pouring in, and the Holy Spirit is calling me to pray as never before.

I love Jesus. I love to present my needs to Him because He cares for me – and my family (I Pet. 5:7). And He faithfully answers my prayers! I am aware, more than ever, that part of my legacy is my specific faith-filled prayers. So I just keep visiting my War Room and my prayer wheel keeps turning, turning, turning.