Invitation to Prayer: TOMORROW

Faces of Children is an ecumenical prayer ministry under the auspices of First Presbyterian Church of Midland, Texas. Our mission is to initiate ministries of prayer for children in churches, communities, and neighborhoods. In doing so, we seek to provide an opportunity for people of God to join together, learn about children and their needs throughout the world, and celebrate Christ's love (especially as it relates to children).

Praying with Hope

“Only if you pray with hope can you break through the barriers of death. For no longer do you want to know what it will be like after you die, what heaven will look like exactly, or how you will be eternal. You don’t let yourself be distracted by daydreams in which all your conflicting desires are satisfied in a wish-come-true hereafter. When you pray with hope, you turn yourself toward God, trusting fully that God is faithful and makes all promises real.

This hope gives you a new freedom that allows you to look realistically at life without feeling dejected. This freedom is expressed through the words of another student who wrote:

     Hope means to keep living
     amid desperation
     and to keep humming
     in the darkness.
     Hope is knowing that there is love,
     it is trust in tomorrow
     it is falling asleep
     and waking again
     when the sun rises.
     In the midst of a gale at sea,
     it is to discover land.
     In the eyes of another
     it is to see that you are understood …
     As long as there is hope
     There will also be prayer …
     And you will be held
     in God’s hands.

Thus every prayer of petition becomes a prayer of thanksgiving and praise as well, precisely because it is a prayer of hope. In the hopeful prayer of petition, we thank God for God’s promise and we praise God for God’s faithfulness.

Our numerous requests simply become the concrete way of saying that we trust in the fullness of God’s goodness. Whenever we pray with hope, we put our lives in the hands of God. Fear and anxiety fade away, and everything we are given and everything we are deprived of is nothing but a finger pointing out the direction of God’s hidden promise that one day we shall taste in full."

With Open Hands by Henri Nouwen

A message from Chris Laufer, Coordinator, Faces of Children

Greetings, Faces of Children Prayer Partner,

This will be my last prayer list and email so I’d like to leave you with words of hope and encouragement from the writings of Henri Nouwen. Please remember that your prayers for children matter! And if or when you feel so overwhelmed by the immense suffering of children that you struggle to pray, I hope you will come back to Nouwen’s words of encouragement. I hope you will remember to put your fear and anxiety in God’s capable hands and “trust in the fullness of God’s goodness.”

The Midland prayer group will continue to meet at 11:30 a.m. each Wednesday in the Family Life Center conference room at First Presbyterian Church.

The Midland Faces of Children prayer group will gather this coming Wednesday, January 28, 2015 at 11:30 a.m. in the Family Life Center conference room at First Presbyterian Church-Midland, Afterwards, we'll share lunch ($5) and fellowship.

Grace and peace,

Chris