when you forget to pray for You (giveaway!) and the Soli Deo Gloria Party

Welcome to the Soli Deo Gloria Sisterhood weekly party!  To find out ways that you can be involved in the Soli Deo Gloria Sisterhood, please click here.

If you are planning to link up, would you kindly visit the person that arrived before you?  You never know what surprises you await in this community!  Prepare to be encouraged and loved.

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I just have to tell you that one of the highest honors of hosting this gathering every week is getting to know you, being able to support you, and learning from you.  It's incredibly rewarding to be able to facilitate relationship growth, to be able to read your blog words, and see what you're up to on Facebook.  God uses Facebook, you know.  

Many weeks ago, a fellow Soli Sister, Julie Gillies, put a prayer request out of Facebook.  She was in incredible pain at the time.  I commented on her post to ask if I could send out an urgent prayer request to the the SDG group so that we might lift her up and ask for healing.  She immediately responded with a "yes!"  Later that day, God whispered to her that she would be healed and very soon after, her pain was gone.

After that little bit of conversation and the miraculous presence of God, Julie asked me to review her new book, Prayers for a Woman's Soul.  I said "yes" of course because it's my personal mission to collect books and art produced by fellow Soli Sisters because I wanted to help her in any way possible.  And clearly, we are a praying group, so I knew y'all would be interested.

Essentially this book is about being diligent about praying for YOU.  Just like we are often the last ones to sit down at the kitchen table to eat dinner (which is usually cold by then), we are often the last on our list for prayer.  I cannot count how many times I knew I needed to pray for myself, but began to feel guilty, and so I prayed for everyone else first.  By the time I got around to me, I had either fallen asleep or my attention was needed elsewhere.

But as Julie speaks of airplanes and oxygen masks, we are reminded that praying for ourselves is about survival.  She writes:

"Praying for myself has enabled me to persevere when I wanted to quit, to forgive when I wanted to hold a grudge, to hope when reality screamed "Impossible!" and to remain close to God when I ached so badly I wanted to run and never look back.  In essence, praying for myself not only helped me, it transformed me." (page 13)

I don't know about you, but I long for transformation.  But if I'm only focused on others, I shut out the very Voice that coaxes me into the chrysalis and back out again.  

Julie gives us one prayer a week to pray for ourselves daily.  Each prayer is so rich and thought-provoking that you really do need a week to digest it.  Along with the prayers are relevant scriptures that form the key tenets of the prayers she writes.  And each week, she shares her own heart and life in a real and authentic way.  It's always nice to know someone else can relate to how we are feeling ourselves.

I also love the fact that this book as a table of contents.  We know the basic theme for each of the 52 weeks.  Therefore, we don't have to travel through the book just by numerical weeks.  If God places something on our hearts, we can use this book as a resource to speak specifically to what God wants to address in us.  

Maybe you are looking for prayers regarding your marriage?  (week 49)

Maybe you need help discerning balance for your life?  (week 26)

Perseverance?  (week 28)

Contentment?  (week 38)

Calling?  (week 50)

Interested?  Of course you are!  You can win a copy of this book (sorry, oxygen mask not included) by entering below.  If you don't win, don't panic.  You can also purchase the book on Amazon by clicking here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway