Our Family Day of Prayer

Our Family Day of Prayer

I think I've blogged about this before but I'm too lazy to check if I have.

This was something my family would do annually. When we were younger, we'd hie off to someplace for a couple of days and spend time as a family to thank God for the blessings of the past year, intercede for the coming year and try to discern his will for us. My family back home continue to do this.

As much as I had wanted to continue this tradition with my own family, I found that it could not be done as easily as I imagined. But I continued to do it on my own, just praying to God that one day the opportunity to do it as a family would come up.

Well, that opportunity came up yesterday. I had been asking DH for the past couple of weeks if this was something we could do before the new year comes. Mind you, I was not nagging. I had mentioned maybe 2-3 times only. Then, last Monday, he casually mentioned that we could do it on Wednesday. It just so happens that DD2's Ninang was picking her up that morning to take her out. When she came, she asked if she could take DD1 too. Of course we said yes! LOL!

After they had left, we started our time of prayer - DH, DS and I. DD3 was taking her nap. We listed and shared with each other our blessings of the past year and what we were going to be praying for in the next year. Then, after DS was excused, DH and I continued and discussed some goals for our family. We set our vision for our family - to be a loving family. Our mission is to love God, love each other and love our neighbor using Matthew 22:37-39 as our guiding verse. With that in mind, we decided on things we could do as a family to fulfill that mission. To love God, we will have daily family prayers at night. We usually pray with the kids as we tuck them into bed but DH and I would do it alternately. This year, we will pray together as a family. To love our neighbor, we will keep a box of food in our vehicle so that when we see a homeless person in the street, we will have something to share with that person. During the past month, the kids and I found ourselves with this opportunity to share and I think it had a profound effect on the kids, esp. DD1. I'll blog about it next time.

Anyway, my hope and prayer is that our family will truly grow into a family that loves God with all our heart and soul and mind and that we will love our neighbor as ourselves. With each year, may we find ways to grow in love. With each year, may love continue to grow.