1 CHRONICLES 4:10<\/strong><\/p>\n

^{10\u00a0<\/sup><\/em>Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, \u201cOh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.\u201d And God granted his request.<\/em><\/p>\n}

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When naptime is declared irrelevant by people who don\u2019t come up to my waist, I pray for sleep. When it\u2019s pouring down rain and I\u2019ve got Charlie with me and I\u2019m sitting outside the grocery store knowing there will be no dinner if I can\u2019t get us in there, I pray for a break in the weather. When it\u2019s spring break, I pray for a quick return to normalcy. It appears I\u2019m a reactionary prayer.<\/p>\n

It made sense when we were wading our way through infertility. You pray for that baby. You get everyone in your circle and beyond to send S.O.S. cries to God. It made sense when Charlie was so fragile with the trach and the g-tube. You pray for health, happiness, and safety for your child. It made sense when I was on bedrest for the twins and all the former fears and PTSD of Charlie\u2019s birth story came rushing back. Please let these two be safe and sound and sit tight! But it doesn\u2019t always make sense.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s true that we are to give thanks in all things, as the Lord\u2019s prayer urges us to start each prayer, with praise before pleas, then that requires some introspection. It\u2019s easy for me to pray for my children and my husband\u2026it feels right, like another way to take care of them. But can I tell you, it\u2019s also easier than praying for myself. I don\u2019t like it. It feels\u2026weird. Like, who am I to demand such things? I was never good at speaking loudly for myself. If I needed something, like better grades in chemistry or a different job, from publishing to teaching, I buckled down, shut my mouth and got to work and got it done. I didn\u2019t ask the teacher for help or a friend or my family for advice over the job switch. I just made it happen. And only when I can\u2019t make it happen (infertility, Charlie care, overwhelming life with three kids), only then do I cry out.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s just nonsense. I\u2019m just Eustace scratching off his scales in C.S. Lewis\u2019 Voyage of the Dawn Treader<\/em>. I\u2019m never going to be able to un-make my dragony self. It\u2019s not humility that causes me to pray for my family but ignore myself. It\u2019s vanity. I\u2019ll fix me while you fix them.<\/p>\n

This is Jabez\u2019s only mention in the Bible, but it\u2019s a good one. He cries out loud and clear, \u201cbless me\u201d! He\u2019s not timid. He does it because he knows he can\u2019t bless himself. He can\u2019t grow his territory and protect himself from pain without God. I SO want this. I want to do this with every part of my life\u2026not just the dire circumstances. I want to pray loud and clear for God to bless my heart and my health and my writing and my motherhood and the parts of me that need to be creatively fed. I want to pray for peace in the thunderstorm that is sometimes parenting and I want to pray for those sweet-smelling moments when time slows and you want to freeze your children in time, create a little diorama of your life. I want to pray to stop trying to make it happen all on my own, to stop scratching at the scales. So\u2026I\u2019m going start. Slow and easy wins the race. Everything needs a beginning, and this is mine. I\u2019m going to exuberantly ask for blessings for myself, because that is pride aimed in the right direction.<\/p>\n

Sunday Thoughts Link Up!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It’s time for another Sunday Thoughts Link-Up! I know there are many out there with wisdom that could encourage all of us. As long as it’s Biblically-based, I’d love for you to join up and then read and comment on what others have shared. Please also leave a comment here. Think of this as a Sunday morning community group that comes to you. And grab the button if you like…<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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<div align=”center”><a href=”http:\/\/mom-gene.com” rel=”nofollow” title=”The Mom Gene”><img src=”http:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Sunday-Thoughts-Button.jpeg” alt=”The Mom Gene” style=”border: none; height: auto; width: 200px;” \/><\/a><\/div><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/>\n<\/textarea><br \/>\n<strong> Click the button below to link up…<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>[inlinkz_linkup id=705172 mode=1]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1 CHRONICLES 4:10 10\u00a0Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, \u201cOh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.\u201d And God granted his request.   When naptime is declared irrelevant by people who don\u2019t come up to my waist, I pray for sleep. When it\u2019s pouring down rain and I\u2019ve got Charlie with me<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/2017\/04\/02\/on-praying-for-yourself-sunday-thoughts-link-up-16\/\"> …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22],"tags":[27,55,54,17,24,59],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/kid-1077793_1920.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-rh","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1844,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}