Post # 3 - POWER of PRAYER!

Hello Family & Friends,

I thought I would talk with you today a little bit about the POWER of PRAYER! I hope you all realize that there is great power in prayer and prayer is the way that we talk to our Heavenly Father. we can talk to Him any time, anywhere, and in any situation that we find ourselves, He will answer our prayers in His way and in His time frame... not ours. we can find His answers in a dream, in the scriptures, in a talk during the Sacrament meeting at church, during Ward or Stake Conference, and especially during General Conference.

I have a couple of examples I would like to share with you, and some of you may have already heard them .. so please bear with me. I have had many examples of the power of prayer in my life, but I would like to share some from the past few years.

so I am going to take you back to May of 2015 ... I found a red circle on my right breast about the size of an orange, and it sort of looked like the outside of an orange but not in color - just red. I did not have medical insurance so I did not want to incur medical bills if it was not really necessary.  The first thought I had was to pray about it. I fasted and prayed to know if it was serious enough for me to go to the doctor. I awoke in the night to a voice telling me "You need to go get a mammogram .. and you need to do it NOW!"

 the next morning when I woke up for the day I called the clinic to see when the soonest that I could be seen by the PA. while I was waiting for the clinic to open, another thought came to me ... it was that I needed to call and make arrangements to get a Priesthood blessing .... but I will save that for another entry, right now I want to tell you just how closely the Lord can be in our lives ... if we will only invite Him in:)

I don't know how familiar you are with medical clinics that are for those without insurance and are low income, but they are usually hard to get an appointment right away. Unless you are a child who is fevered, and if you haven't been in for awhile it takes even longer to get in... sometimes your appointments are 6 weeks out from the time you call in. I know the Lord had a hand in what happened because not only was I able to get into the clinic, but my first appointment was only a couple of days later. 

The next thing that happened was amazing as well, because they sent  me to the Early Detection Works program and they scheduled my appointment for a mammogram and gave me a voucher to pay for it as well!  http://www.kdheks.gov/edw/

Of course I continued to pray, because I knew that something was wrong ... I just wasn't sure exactly what it was. I had gone up 2 almost three cup sizes in the couple of weeks after noticing the red circle. At first I thought it was caused from my old bras rubbing there, but when it did not go away I became suspicious and went to my Heavenly Father. I few days after I had the mammogram, they scheduled me to go into the hospital for a biopsy. then they scheduled me for a follow-up appointment at the clinic with the PA.

After the biopsy I had a dream, in the dream I was looking down at myself in the doctor's office. I was sitting on the chair, when I heard the PA tell me that I had breast cancer. I did not see the PA's face, but I heard her words loud and clear. I had breast cancer,

When the follow-up appointment arrived, I knew exactly just what  she would be telling me. I was not scared or upset, it might seem kind of weird to some of you, but when she told me what she had to tell me, I was concerned of course with how the news would affect my family.

Again I went to my Heavenly Father in prayer, as I knew my youngest daughter -- that I live with, would be worried and how was I going to afford to fight this cancer that was quickly growing inside of me.

I know this is going backwards in my life a little bit, but I am hoping that someone who reads this, whether family, friend or stranger ( or a friend that I have not met yet:) ) will be helped in some small way by the sharing of my story.

So, no matter what situation you may find yourself in, please, please remember that there is great POWER in PRAYER!!

Sweet Power of Prayer

Russell M. Nelson

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
"We should pray in accord with the will of our Heavenly Father. He wants to test us, to strengthen us, and to help us achieve our full potential."

In his talk he tells about good communication -- or rather the lack of it, even with all of our technology to communicate. he tells a story of a woman in a nursing home that he visited, who had three sons. she told him about the first two and he asked about the third son, she replied that she didn't know where he was, that she hadn't heard from him in years. then he explains why we pray -- " Through prayer, we can show our love for God. And He has made it so easy. We may pray to Him any time. No special equipment is needed. We don’t even need to charge batteries or pay a monthly service fee". Jeremiah 29: 11-13, he explains how we pray --

Jesus taught us how.⁴ We pray to our Heavenly Father,⁵ in the name of Jesus Christ,⁶ by the power of the Holy Ghost.⁷ This is the “true order of prayer,”⁸ in contrast to “vain repetitions”⁹ or recitations given to “be seen of men.”¹⁰

Jesus revealed that we pray to a wise Father who knows what things we have need of, before we ask Him"

"The sweet power of prayer can be intensified by fasting, on occasion, when appropriate to a particular need.¹⁴

Prayers can be offered even in silence. One can think a prayer, especially when words would interfere.¹⁵ We often kneel to pray; we may stand or be seated.¹⁶ Physical position is less important than is spiritual submission to God.

We close our prayer “in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”¹⁷ When we hear another’s prayer, we audibly add our “amen,” meaning, “That is my prayer, too.”¹⁸; he explains when we  should pray-- "When should we pray? The Lord said, “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good.”¹⁹, he gives examples of his personal experience with prayer -- he tells of an amazing true experience about a surgery he performed and how the Lord guided him through the power of prayer.; inquire of the Lord -- When we pray, we should not presume to give counsel but should inquire of the Lord²⁴ and hearken to His counsel.²⁵ , he tells about how, and when we receive answers to prayers-- Not all of our prayers will be answered as we might wish. Occasionally the answer will be no. We should not be surprised. Loving mortal parents do not say yes to every request of their children.³⁰We should pray in accord with the will of our Heavenly Father.³² He wants to test us, to strengthen us, and to help us achieve our full potential. ; and he is prompted to share his song of prayers.  The Lord has said that “the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me.”³⁴

you can read the whole talk here:  https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2003/04/sweet-power-of-prayer?lang=eng