Prayer Worrier

An Operation Christmas Child friend of mine, referring to me in an e-mail, called me a 'prayer worrier'. I'm hoping that was just a typing error but it got me to thinking of how often I am guilty of praying but not truly releasing my burdens to the Lord. On the one hand, Jesus talked about the importance of continuing in prayer, of being importunate, as the King James Version puts it.

On the other hand, we need to pray in faith, believing that we have the requests we ask of Him. It's a balance, but I want to learn to trust even as I pray that God is hearing and answering.

And the answers to prayer for Operation Christmas Child just keep coming lately. I am blown away by God's goodness. For a few years I've been praying off and one for a larger church in our area, McLane Church, to pack boxes again for OCC. Last year their college group did about 50 boxes but this year, because one of our team members gave them a call, they decided to spontaneously distribute boxes at their service on November 7th. Pat Carter, the team member who originally contacted them, gave them 262 boxes. Rose Dobson, another member of our team, checked in at the church after the 9:00 service on the 7th and found all the boxes had been taken so she gave them 100 more. Those were all taken also. This is a direct answer to those of us who were praying for those boxes to be distributed FAST. Now people are using their own boxes and they're thinking they may collect close to 600!

We've been praying consistently all year long for God to give us 30,333 boxes from Northwestern PA. We couldn't see where they would come from but now He's starting to reveal it to us. On November 2nd we distributed boxes at Chick-fil-A. The deal was that anyone who brought in a filled box on November 9th would get a free chicken sandwich. I was disappointed on November 2nd when we only gave out 30 boxes but then I was elated on November 9th when God gave us a harvest of 100 boxes AND a spot on three news shows. Only You, God!

Though it's out of our area, God allowed me to hear of an Operation Christmas Child packing party organized by Christi Rupp, the wife of a player on the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team, for wives and girlfriends of team members. They packed over 100 boxes on November 10th and in addition to blessing those children who will receive their boxes in big ways, they may also bring some added media attention to OCC.

Heather Rogers, our team's Church Relations Coordinator, works at Behrend College--the local branch of Penn State University. She said the other day in the cafeteria she saw a table set up where several campus organizations had banded together to collect items for Operation Christmas Child.

We're only 4 days away from the start of National Collection Week and I can't wait to see the harvest start rolling in. Those 30,333 boxes that have been objects of our prayer will now materialize and we'll see the evidence again of God's goodness.

I'm not worried.