Lord, Teach Me How to Pray

Throughout this adoption process, I am discovering that God is using it to refine me and to grow me. I know that the process itself is important, not just the end result, and I can't rush it. The process is shaping me into the woman God wants me to be and is preparing me to be the best mom for Jeremiah. There are many ways that God has used it to make me better and stronger and every time I get impatient, He tells me, "Not yet. I still have more work to do."

Today, I learned that He is asking me to grow in my prayer life. I slept terribly last night and then this morning, my youngest daughter, Amy, crawled in bed with us at 5 AM. I couldn't sleep with all of her tossing and turning, and I felt like God was asking me to get up and pray.

I went to one of the daily devotions that I read on the computer called "Our Daily Bread." Today's devotion was on prayer and at the end of it, they offered a link for a booklet called "Jesus' Blueprint for Prayer" by Haddon Robinson. I used the booklet as my blueprint for my prayer time this morning. I learned so much about how to pray. Here is the link:
http://www.rbc.org/uploadedFiles/Bible_Study/Discovery_Series/PDFs/Jesus_Blueprint_For_Prayer.pdf
Note: If you are blind like me : ) You may find the booklet easier to read if you up the percentage you are viewing it at. The tool bar at the top of the page will have a percentage. I usually up it to about 150% (Like I said, I'm really blind) : )
As well as how to pray, I also picked out a few favorite quotes from the booklet on why we pray:

"God wants us for Himself. He desires communion with us. His
purpose in prayer is not to make us sit up and beg. He wants us to know
Him. Prayer is His method to accomplish that.

When we pray we
often concentrate on the gifts in God’s hand and ignore the hand of God
Himself.

While God in His grace does give good gifts to His children, He offers
us more than that. He offers us Himself. Those who are merely
satisfied with the trinkets in the Father’s hand miss the best reward of prayer-
the reward of communicating and communing with the God of the
universe.”

George MacDonald said: "What if God knows prayer to be the thing we need
first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer is a
supplying of our great, our endless need- the need of Himself?”

This adoption process isn't just about me. God has taken into account everyone involved, every minor detail and the affects of those details. I'm just seeing that in the waiting, He is drawing me closer to Himself, and I love it.