My Prayer

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” ~Matthew 9:37-38

For several years now, I have been praying earnestly for the Lord to send me into the harvest.

I clearly remember taking a walk one afternoon with my heart so full it ached. It brought to mind the idea of a nursing mother separated from her child, and how her breasts would ache with a fullness of milk and even leak out. I came home from the walk and wrote in my prayer journal the cry of Rachel, “Give me children or I die!” It is Spiritual offspring I long for.

That day was May 26, 2011, and I wrote,

All I want to do is wash dirty feet, wipe sweaty brows, bandage bloody wounds, spoon broth into feeble mouths, and hold. I know there are so many out there who need these simple, simple things. My heart strains to reach them. All of a sudden I am impossibly impatient. I feel like a mother bear robbed of her cubs. I am desperate to find them, like life depends upon it.

Time is so short! It is ticking away! Another soul just passed on. Another baby stopped crying because nobody hears it. Another girl was just brutalized. Another mama just lost her dear, sweet child. Another boy was forced at gunpoint to do unspeakable things and lose her very humanity to become a soldier. Another woman was kicked out of her house by a husband she thought had loved her, but rejects her now that she’s been cruelly defiled by another being who doesn’t deserve to be called a man.

Meanwhile, what do I do? I bake sticky buns, I check my facebook, I do another load of laundry, and I only read about it. I sit here and write while a war goes on. It’s maddening!

Send me, Lord, send me! The fields are ripe for harvest and need laborers. Send me to labor! Send me to pour out love.

I cannot stand these leaves and twigs and rocks that plug up Your fountain of love in me. It must flow freely and spread onto others. I am bursting, like a nursing mother who needs to nurse. Why am I locked up? Why can’t the love flow through freely? Why is it so terribly hard to find outlets for it, and once outlets are found, for it to even hit it’s mark in another’s heart?

Lord, use me! Create channels for Your love to flow through me to others. Open doors, Lord! Close the doors which are only distractions. Lead me. Send me. Use me. Give me a Samuel and I will surely give him to you.

 A week or so after I wrote the above journal entry, I wrote another journal entry, including this:

Call another, pair me with someone, be it soulmate, soulsister, father or brother, send me with another, I request! Unite me with a friend and aid on this journey. Oh Lord, please be pleased with my request! Call them now. Press in on their heart the way You’re pressing mine, squeezing it up, building the pressure.

That fall I attended an Evangelism Explosion conference, and my desire to go and share His love and truth burned intensely yet again. I feel like I remember falling to my knees at the end and weeping, praying for God to send me. And I specifically prayed that He would not send me alone, for He sent the disciples out two by two, then called Barnabas and Paul together. I prayed for a Joshua to go with me. Joshua, a man who believed and fought when no one else but Caleb believed and fought with him. 

Since then, I have continued to pray for all of these things. And I believe that the Father who placed these burning desires in my heart will satisify them. This is the story of how that will come about.