Snow Melt

Gratitude

3 Nur 164 B.E. – Thursday, June 07, 2007

Today is Thankful Thursday for my yahoo journaling group. My normal response today’s journal prompt is to make an entry in my Gratitude Journal and post it to the group. However, today I want to post something a slightly different. Therefore, despite the fact that I’m using time allotted to something else, I decided to check out the spiritual newsletter and see if I could get some ideas for a poem or something. I don’t have to post the response to the Thankful Thursday prompt until latter to night. I am going to make a gratitude journal entry, it’s just that I don’t think I’m going to post it until Share an Entry Sunday.

The news letter topic is Answers to Prayers, which gave some very interesting things to look for when contemplating the answer to a prayer. What is involved in an answer to a prayer? There are physical elements, emotional elements, and comprehension; the three elements that occur when my prayers are answered. The fourth element in receiving answers to prayers is faith. An individual has to believe that an answer is possible, before he or she can see the answer.

Now I have my main topic for today’s Thankful Thursday response – Answers to Prayers or perhaps How God Answers My Prayers. I think God answers everyone prayers, it’s just that sometimes we don’t have the faith to see the answer because that answer comes in an unexpected way or a way we don’t want to accept.

The newsletter feature several interesting pieces on prayer. One of those was an article about centering prayer: "Centered in His Arms"   [ASR] by magdaleine . This is an interesting concept, one I’m somewhat familiar with, but not from a Christian background. All the prayers reveal by the Bab, Baha’u’llah and written by ‘Abdu’l-Baha center my focus on the presence of God. When praying I’m expected to clear my mind of anything except the presence of God. If a thought comes into my mind that isn’t spiritual or God centered I’m supposed to let it pass through without dwelling or focusing on it. So now I’ve gotten my title and my theme for the Thankful Thursday post, all I have to do is write it.

Attitude of Prayer

Prayer and supplication are two wings whereby man soars toward the heavenly mansion of the True One. However, verbal repetition of prayer does not suffice. One must live in a perennial attitude of prayer. When man is spiritually free his mind becomes the altar and his heart the sanctuary of prayer. Then the meaning of the verse "He will lift up from before his eyes the veil" will become fulfilled in man.

(Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures, p. 438)

Answered Prayers
Introduction to Thankful Thursday Entry

I decided to do something a little different for my Thankful Thursday entry. The reason for this is my Mother’s recovery. I took my mother into the ER at about 7:30 PM on March 12, 2007 doubled over in pain. She finally got a bed in the ER at 4:00 AM on March 13. On March 19, her birthday, she had surgery to resection a bawl. Mom finally returned home at the beginning of May. She is using a wheel chair, but is learning to use a walker. Therefore, I decided to write about answer prayers and how it feels when you the prayer is answered.