Lately, I’ve been thinking about prayer and how some prayers come so naturally, but others are very contrary to human nature.For instance, if my husband was suffering from an injury or sickness, I would be committed to praying fervently and continuously until he was healed. However, if he had a hard day, and was taking his stress out on me with grumpy words and harsh reactions, I’d probably be much less likely to want to pray for him. Likewise, it’s easy for me to pray for my kids to have better attitudes and stop being so hormonal—but less often do I pray that I’d have patience and give them grace.

It’s funny (like, the bad kind of funny) how we pick and choose what issues are worthy of prayer. When I think back on the two husband issues I mentioned, it’s the second one, the one where he’s being sorta jerkish, that really does need the prayer. God is a healer–healing is one of those things He just does. Prayer helps, but it’s not like we have to convince Him that healing is important. God is in the business of attitude adjustments as well, but oftentimes, it’s our hearts toward our loved ones that we’ll see Him working on first.

Last night, I was talking with my brother (ok, I was sort of ranting) about how I wish I could just “get it all together.” He asked me if I am in the habit of making goals. I told him that I’m great at making goals for other people—but not so hot at establishing them for myself. I think it’s time I start, though. I think my first one will be that whenever someone I love is having a hard time and directing their frustration at me, I’ll adopt an attitude. An attitude of prayer.