day twentyfive: praying BIG is letting people into your heart.

If you've known me for longer than six hours, you've probably heard me talk about BSF.  It's an international inductive Bible study that digs deep, verse by verse into Scripture.  It also happens to be super special to me because now five generations of women in my family have been in it (my great-grandma, grandma, mom & aunt, me, and now Karis & Haddie).

 (Mom, me, 3 month old Karis, and Grandma in December 2010)

I started going six years ago after hearing my mom and grandma and Ann Reynolds and Jean Motsinger talk about it so much.  I was longing to have a place where I could rely on having some good, dig-deep Bible teaching but I didn't want to do small Bible studies where I would know everyone because after three years in ministry, I was in relationship-overload-mode and wanted some time away to study the Bible and breathe deep.

So I walked in to BSF determined to study the mess out of the Bible but avoid people--just a slip in and slip out kind of thing.

The overview of a morning at BSF is this.  There are 500 women in our class.  You all start out together and worship.  Then you go to your discussion group--where you talk about the lesson for that week with about 10-15 other women.  After that, everyone gets back together to hear a lecture.  At the end of lecture you pick up your notes (a commentary on the text you just studied) and questions for next week's study.

Since I was wanting to be non-relational, the discussion group aspect was not super exciting to me, but I figured I could just listen and not talk too much so as to invite relationships.  But then at the end of that time, they do "ASK's" which is where they share prayer requests and so as a part of the group, they ask you to pray. I thought that was harmless enough.  So I started going--talking minimally--mostly just listening and praying.

And I'll be darned if listening and praying didn't break open my heart to relationships.

The week I joined (I joined later in the year so groups had already been formed), another girl joined with me.  We got put in the same group.  She was 25 and a sweet, Southern girl with a deep sense of humility that accompanied her shyness.  Being friends with her seemed innocent enough, so I asked her to sit with me during lecture and of course, I prayed for her like I did the rest of my group.

A couple weeks into going, just as I had hit my stride of going, listening and praying and talking minimally, our discussion group leader was sharing the prayer requests people had asked her to share with us and she mentioned this girl's name.  My ears perked up a little extra.  She was asking for prayer because her husband of a year had cheated on her and just asked for a divorce.  My heart broke.

I prayed and prayed for her that week.  And the next and the next, until would you know it, I had done exactly what I had set out not to do.  I made a friend.

I share all of this simply to say that when we pray for people we let them into our hearts.  There's no way that you can really pray for someone and not care a lick about them.  I think that's why when Jesus said "Love your enemies" He also added "and pray for those who persecute you."  (Matthew 5:44)  Because when you pray for someone, even an enemy or someone who persecutes you, it opens up your heart so that you can love them.

Today, Jay Whitaker went to be with Jesus.  It's funny that I've blogged so much about him because I didn't really spend much time with Jay.  I've just prayed for him and Alex.  And in praying for them, my heart has broken wide open and I love the mess out of them.  And today, praying for Alex and for my other dear friends who adored Jay, my heart hurts, too.

Because that's what praying BIG does.  It breaks our hearts open to love.