2003-10-04 at 12:28 p.m. - Eventfilled.

Last night I went to the prayer meeting. It was fairly interesting. We had a bad ration though however of teens to adults I think. It was too....equal (????). I don't know, I wish sometimes that they would sometimes only permit adults who are actual youth leaders and/or helpers to be there. There were about two or three women there last night who I had never seen there before and to be quite blunt, they hogged the mic the whole night. Pastor Tony usually makes an announcement before we begin asking that the adults try to make way for the youth there and just be submissive to us because it is our prayer meeting, it just happens to be organized by adults because well, teenagers are not good at organizing just about anything long term like that.

So anyway, the ladies would come up to the mic and start to either pray, say what they were going through, or read off of a passage. In my case, I thought somethings were slightly irrelevant. The whole point of these evenings are to cast away our own feelings and focus in on what God is doing when it comes to our youth. The focus of those meetings is praying for our city and most particularly, the youth. The worship was awesome, but in between songs, when one of those women would get up there, the first few times I was like..."Hmm...alright and I prayed along with them." But then it got a little personal. And by the end of the evening two of those women were up front with some of the youth leaders getting prayed over. I don't know...call me jealous or something but I thought these meetings were supposed to be about the youth, but I guess if they needed prayer and such and they had some things they were going through, then that was probably good for them. So yes...I don't know, I guess I personally just try to refrain from having any attention cast on myself when I get to the meetings, and if I do have a personal issue, even though I most likely never ever tell anyone about it, I will pull someone to the side either beforehand or afterwards. So yes, I need not be so antsy I guess when it comes to this stuff, they were new to this and all, but they will soon learn.

Anyways, while those ladie were up front, the meeting sort of started to end itself because the worship leaders got involved and then Rachel and Alyssa came off of the stage and began to pray with us four girls who were in the back. Alyssa sort of pointed out how she knows I am holding back and she thinks I need to just dive in. And I know she is right, but it's the whole self esteem issue I still fight with and the fact that I am still trying to find my place in Christ. I am so scared of praying aloud in large groups. I've only done it a few times. Once right up on the stage before worship at church and a few times at home group and when we were praying before going to Wales when we did groups. I don't know what is wrong with me...I shouldn't be scared at all. It's prayer and even if it's not eloquent or long and "wordy", it's still speaking to God. That is a habit I have to break myself of. I am a lot braver than that. And even then...it's not a matter of being brave, it's a matter of how much I really want this. And I want it a lot. Not just the habit to be broken, but this movement in our youth to start.

In two weeks we are doing the Nightwatch, and I don't know if Don is going to let me go. It's from midnight to 6 in the morning and it's continuous prayer and I will have to pray outloud then. Also that weekend they are doing the worship events. One is with Kent Henry who will be with the band our churches put together for the One Thing Conference and that will be at my youth church's church. Jason Upton heard about our meetings and such and has gotten apart of it and is putting a worship concert on at the Hilton...which reminds me, I need to get my ticket for that. So yes, that weekend will be very good and probably a great stretching for me spiritually, because God knows that I need it.

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