Crafted Prayers

Newly Fallen Snow

A prayer written and prayed at our opening night, church women’s retreat. 
October 2017

King of all the kings on earth, Lord of all the lords, we bow down, prostrate before You.

We enter Your throne room with fear and trembling, aware of the deceitfulness of our sin that is ever before us. We lay bare before Your majesty. Your might. Your perfection. 

Your eyes that see into our very souls. 

We confess the sinfulness of our hearts even now, Lord Jesus. 

I go before my sisters in Christ offering myself as we crowd the altar with so much similarity. 

I confess the way I follow the course of this world. 

I confess speaking lack over myself. 

I confess striving to catch up with this generation of culture where I feel so left behind. 

I confess the slingshot of pride and inadequacy, silent to the Spirit inside me, feeling less than everyone else, unworthy to be used….and then angst, this welling of pride, mixed with entitlement and arrogance, making myself lord of my own life. 

I confess the coldness of a hardened heart….the stronghold wedged in me of judgment over my fellow brother…unforgiveness too ugly to look at. 

Anger seared in self-protecting, volcanic layers of my soul.

I confess a rebelliousness in me that doesn’t want to love my enemies, doesn’t want to trust God at His Word. 

I confess exhaustion, comparing myself to others and falling ever short. 

I confess the wrestle, the struggle, the pull of delighting in the approval of man, thirsting after praise and value from the wrong source, the wrong well. 

I confess the lust of my flesh and the lust of my eyes. Holes in my heart that want to be filled with people and things. 

I confess wanting only the beautiful parts of me to be seen…scared of rejection, scared to be truly known, scared to be misunderstood, scared to be ugly.

I confess parenting with double-mindedness…doing what is easy today and embarrassingly coming up short of the ultimate goal. 

I confess believing I am stupid. 

I confess believing I have to work hard for inherent value. 

I confess believing I am a burden.

I confess busyness that never ceases—everything constantly left undone, every task still open, every person still in need. 

I confess even wanting my confessions to be beautiful. I can’t escape the warp of my own mind, people pleasing that even wanders into my prayers. Pride whispered in the throne room of grace. 

I confess shame for sin. Shame for being a woman left by her husband. 

I confess wearing cloaks of depression and despair. 

I confess performance and perfectionism that quenches and binds the Spirit of God. 

I confess timidity…silence upon my lips and fear to speak up. 

I confess words of bold sarcasm, killing the people I love. 

I confess not trusting You, God, with my future. 

I confess fear that stays in my bones: worry, impending doom, anxiety. Fear of death. Fear of sharing the gospel. Fear that drives me to control. 

I confess building walls around my heart. 

I confess prizing self-sufficiency. 
I confess believing who the Accuser says I am. 

O, Son of David, have extravagant mercy on us. 

Blot out our transgressions. 

Like the prodigal son, we run for Your abundant mercy and bury our faces in Your unsoiled righteousness. 

Against You only have we sinned. 

Purify us with hyssop and we shall be clean. Wash us and we shall be whiter than snow. 

God’s wrath is satisfied. The Accuser is silenced. 

You do not see our sin. You see: Newly Fallen Snow. 

Christ’s righteousness imputed into us. 

We are a crown of beauty in the hand of our Lord. You are our Beloved and we are Yours. 

Women at Your feet. Women in Adoration. 

You have bought us and sealed us with Your Name. You see no flaw in us. 

With all our hearts and all our minds and all our strength and all our might,

We seek You, whom our souls love. Fear is vanquished. Love washes. 

We present the members of our bodies to You as those brought from death to life. 

Conform us to Your image, one degree of glory onward. 

Prophesy over our bones: O dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord. 

Come from the four winds, O breath of God, and breathe on us….that these slain shall live, that we may know You and the power of Your Resurrection. 

Burn off our flesh. 

Burn off our church performance. 

Burn off spiritual gifts if they divide us and detract us from You. 

Burn off elevation of man. 

Burn off this disease of comparing ourselves. Burn off fear. Burn off consumption with self. 

We refuse to be white-washed tombs. 

Lift our eyes, the eyes of the women of Your Church, and set them stationary on You. 

It is You we proclaim. 

Raise us to be an exceedingly great Army. 

We are Gideon’s pots, clay pots of war. 

Set this incorruptible, indestructible Power of the Resurrected Christ, inside of us, without limit. 

Brandish torches of light through us in Jesus name. 

Show the world You are the One, True God. Your plan to use our bodies of brokenness to bring forth the surpassing power of God in us and through us. 

Ignite us with the Holy Spirit…Fire from Heaven, fall on us.

You do not regret Your purchase of us. 

Drive out the angel of the bottomless pit in Jesus name. 

Drive out the prince of the air of this world in Jesus name.

Set tongues of divided fire upon our heads. 

Save the lost, heal the sick, raise the dead. 

Cleanse the shame of sin-based leprosy. Drive out the demons.

By the authority of Your Unstoppable Name that reigns in Your Unshakeable Kingdom,

Crown us as vessels of honor with the Mind of Christ. 

You love us. Lavish us with immeasurable doses of Your grace. You love us. 

Resurrect what is dead in us. Resurrect our bodies. 

Resurrect our marriages. Resurrect our hope. 

Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. 

Cleanse us of all shame. Ignite our prayer lives. 

Adorn us with the doctrine of Christ. 

Gild us with ever-increasing faith. 

One thing we know: we were lost, but now are found. We were blind, but now we can see. 

Bless us, Lord Jesus, the women of Your Church, with confounding joy. 

Bless us with Your everlasting delight. 

Bless us with new and right desires. 

Bless us with songs of deliverance, written just for us. 

Bless us with eyes set on The Christ. 

Bless us with the richness of Your voice and the nearness of Your presence. 

Open our minds to conceive the mysteries and revelation of Jesus Christ. 

Earnestly we seek You, Bridegroom.

Our souls thirst for You alone. 

Now to Him who is able, to do immeasurably more, than all we ask or imagine, according to the power He set within us, to Him be the glory in the Church and throughout all the ages. In Jesus name. Amen.