I'm afraid for them.

So I pray for them.

I’m afraid for them

Romans 10:1 (ESV) says:

"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved."

I’m afraid for my friends.

Heaven.
A space so beautiful that my mind will never know its true nature until the Lord wills me into His book of life and calls me by name.

Golden streets and stems of luxury. Standing in the presence of Him who made me for all the days to come. Though selfishly, I pray He first takes me to the gardens.

But before this time—
I pray for my friends.
The friends I lost along the way, before I came to know Him.
The ones I never got to say,
“Jesus is true.”

Where are they?
Would I be able to say ‘hello’ ever again?
Will they listen to the words I’ve been given,
even now that I’m not who I was before.

Will they hear me?
Will they see me as new or be stuck in who I was?

Is there still time—
And will the Lord have our paths cross once again?

I’m afraid for my friends.

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I’m afraid for my father.

A man who stood as what I once knew as strength—
When I heard of nothing else.

The man the Lord gave me to.
The man I looked up to—
And watched the feet of closely.

When I didn’t know the way—
I thought of his words.
When I didn’t know the how,
I looked for his number.

When I needed awakening—
Like cold water splashed in my bed on a winter morning,
he woke me.

Wisdom.
Wisdom in the light as I once knew it.
Intelligence and foresight beyond anyone I knew.
Yet still, through all the wisdom,
Still he stumbles.

He trips on the heart You gave him—
Seeing his compassion as a way of weakness.
So beaten by the world around him,
That all he can rely on is what he sees in his own eyes.

Yet it’s him who called me ‘Christian’ before I knew the word.
Before I knew what it meant to be.
It’s him who assured me of the moral.
Of the value.

And now,
I see the line in his faith.
I pray that the Lord breaks this line, as he once broke mine.
Break these walls and limits he has planted within himself.

Lord, please see the heart beneath my fathers pain and reveal Yourself to Him.
Wreck the walls of Jericho even just one more time.

Not just the words.
Not just the way.
All of it.
Show him You instead.

Replace it all with you instead.
Amen.

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I’m afraid for my mother.

A woman who wore her heart on her sleeve.
Yet ate her daily bread—
Proclaiming,
“Every day could be the last.”

She loved the light, yet didn’t know it.
Focused on knowing the truth,
But consulting cards with intricate pictures to tell her future.

And with her same breath,
Explaining that we could pray to God anytime,
Anywhere.

In church,
At home,
In the bathroom,
On the street,

Still, darkness took her.
Ate her alive.
The demons dragged her to the very room she slept in as a child—
And made it the place of her final breath.

Please Lord,
Hear me.
Though she didn’t know the way proclaimed by my pastor:
She wrote of you to me,
She baptized me in your name.

And if it is that we should make disciples,
This is true,
She made a disciple of me.
Even scattered and pulled away from your spirit,
she proclaimed.

Somehow—
She still knew you somewhere deep within.
Enough to tell of You.
Enough to encourage me of You,
Even when it wasn’t within herself.

Lord, have mercy on her troubled soul.
For I know you are faithful in receiving my prayers.

Amen.

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I am afraid for my husband.

He once was a man who firmly sat in aisles selling pride for the cost of a soul.

He spoke of being followed by darkness,
Yet it has not come to visit for quite some time.
Even before you came tearing through my heart,
Our marriage was blessed by you.

Protecting him from the strange figure.
Protecting him from himself.
The vise, the heartache, the pain—

The things that usually turn us to stone.

But here he is Lord,
Still softness if seen within him.

He asked me to pray on the rain,
Or for his customers who share with him their troubles.
He asked to send you a word,
Though he hasn’t heart to send one himself.

I see this seed, Lord.
I see the work you’re doing through him—
Even when he resists.

Every so often,
His troubles take hold.
And moments later,
I see you release their tension.

I little praying,
A little folding of my hands.
And he is saved.
You save him, Lord.

I ask in your name.
Keep chipping the tower of stone encapsulating his heart.

The pieces of him that have been wounded,
And ache to the touch.
Betrayal has slashed him.
Spite had fooled him.

Memories that once lived rent free,
Attack for the recent charge.
But no cost is weightier than his life.

Set Your spirit in him,
Rescue him from that which he does not know.
And establish your kingdom also in him.

Say the words that only you know can awake him,
And let doubt be thrown into the eternal fire—

Along with every shadowy figure and way of evil that stands to fight against you.
Set him anew,
And make him one of your soldiers.

In your name, Lord.

Amen.

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I’m afraid for the branches left on the tree I once called ‘mine’.

Hello,
my brothers,
My aunts,
My grandmothers.

You too,
my uncles,
my cousins,
and others.

My family,
The few,
my blood—
This prayer is for you.

Lord, hear me tonight,
I’m drawing You near.
My whisper is trembling—
As I speak to Your ear.

Save them.

They not only, not know what they do—
It’s abundantly clear,
They don’t know you.

These branches.
Some grew from the trunk that bore me,
Some stretched as twigs beside me,
All part of the story that formed me.

While I have moved,
Set to the vine that you prepared for me—
I see the tree that I once called 'mine'.
Still planted in the land of your enemy.

Those I love,
lost in the distance—
as the vine grows further,
I feel their resistance.

They don’t know this new me,
Can’t begin to see me.
Is it truly I who have changed so much,
Or are they lost in blind misery?

“Oh how she’s changed.”
“Oh what has become of her?”
“He changed her name,
This lowly carpenter?”

Open their eyes,
O’ love of mine.
Let them see,
And be moved to the vine.

Amen.

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