Seeing the Results!

...pray without ceasing...1 Thess 5:17 (NASB) Today I am encouraged and challenged. Seven or eight months ago, I created a prayer calendar. For each day of the month I listed specific prayer requests to pray over my family, among other things. Some of them were things that the Lord simply laid on my heart to pray, but others were things heavy on my heart - things I'd been praying for over an extended period of time, it seemed. Behavior problems with my children. Struggles Doug and I were having with various things. Over the past couple of months, though, I've noticed how many of those continual prayers have been answered. I can't point to a date when I knew these prayers were answered. I can't even tell you that one month I was still praying them and the next month I saw results. It just seems that over the course of time God has gradually worked on our hearts as a family, and our passions, goals, habits, and struggles are shifting. God is working! It brings tears to my eyes just to see it. And it brings a challenge and a warning to my heart...don't stop. I've known all my life that God does answer prayers, but I have failed many times to actually keep record of the prayers, pray persistently, and then make note of the result. I just pray - and maybe write it down somewhere where in my journal - and then miss when God does work. He does answer! He works, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly and almost imperceptibly. But, He works. I don't want to miss it!