About 16 years ago, I was blessed to be home with our two small children while my husband worked a wonderful nature center job that didn’t pay much at all.  At this same time several of our friends were having babies. I wanted to send them special gifts, but we didn’t have any money. I decided I could give them the gift of prayer. I wrote a poem and sent it to each one, but wanted to be certain I had really prayed.

A friend shared a “Focus on the Family” magazine with me. It had an article by Becky Tirabassi on prayer. Becky uses the technique of journaling her prayers. I loved it! Now I could write my prayers and be certain I had prayed for these babies. My list grew from babies, to family, to many other needs as the months and years went by. After our third child was born (a seven year prayer answered), I was reading my Bible and underlining verses. As I nursed my sweet baby, I used those underlined verses to pray. Soon God showed me how to categorize the verses, and My TEA CUPP Prayers were born.

My Tea time with God begins each day by reading a devotion from “Our Daily Bread,” and reading my Bible. I give God the first opportunity to speak as I dig into His Word.

Before I read, I pray Psalm 119:18 (NIV) …

“Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.”

You can use a One Year Bible or any Bible, just reading 3 chapters a day and 5 chapters on Sundays, you can read the whole Bible in a year. After my Bible time, I pull out my journal and begin to write my prayers for the day.

My first prayers are those of THANKS. I’ll write about that next.

New International Version (NIV)

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