Praying the Write Way: A Look At My Prayer Notebook
About six years ago I started a prayer notebook. It started out of sheer desperation really: too many prayers to keep in my heart so I poured them out on paper.
Quite a few years ago, I'd taken a class at church where the instructor had us write prayers to God. I'd never been taught that and found the exercise to be a powerful expression of prayer.
Back to my first prayer notebook, It was a combination of scriptures turned prayer, chapters of the Bible written out, lyrics from songs whose words were like prayer to me, answers to prayer and little snippets of prayer encouragement to name a few.
It was a simple Mead composition notebook that I toted everywhere. It's seen better days. One thing I didn't like about it was that it was bound so when one section filled up, there was no way to insert more pages.
When I made my DIY planner and discovered discbound notebooks, I decided to transfer the prayer notebook to that system. It's been lovely to have sections that can be added to.
I created sections for:
Praise: More than prayer, it's a section to praise God for who He is.
Myself: Mainly declarations, lots of prayer requests and scriptures turned into personal prayers.
Husband: self-explanatory.
Kids: There's a general prayer page for all three kids. But each one of my kids also has their own page(s) so I can focus on prayer specific to their individual needs.
Fam+: Includes extended family and friends. I am always saying I'm going to pray for someone. This section helps me not to forget.
Misc: Church, pastor and whatever else doesn't fall into the above sections.
There's also an unmarked tab where I keep articles on prayer and encouragement to pray.
I used scrapbook paper to make dividers and printed out labels for each section to put on the Post-It tabs.
This notebook helps me to stay organized in prayer more than anything. There's no schedule for who gets prayed for on a certain day, it's just more of a place to jot down requests and answers. Some prayers have been noted on paper for a long time with no answer yet...but seeing it on paper reminds me to keep on praying.