Encouragement – when I think of that word I think of prayer and how one of the best times I’ve ever been encouraged is when people tell me that they are praying for me. I think of the time in my life when that was the best thing possible to do – pray.
It was fall 2009, I had been at college for about a month when I received the news that my best friend, Ben, had committed suicide. It seemed that my word had came to a crashing halt. At the age of 18 and 5 hours from home and family and friends I was numb. The first thing that was done after I had received the news my dorm supervisor and my room leader both prayed. At the time I didn’t see it as encouraging but as annoying. I was angry, upset, and just wanted to get home. But instead I was sitting in the deans office hearing theses words that now I think back on as comfort. Comfort in the fact that these two woman hardly knew me but were sitting here trying to comfort me and pleading to God to comfort me.
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place (2 Chronicles 7:14-15).
Answer me when I call to you, O my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress; be merciful to me and hear my prayer (Psalm 4:1).
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen (Ephesians 4:29).
Ami is a 20 year old journalism student who blogs about this and that, photos, and life at Love Like a Child.
