The Lydia Fellowship Prayer Meeting

Some of us joined the Lydia Fellowship prayer meeting being held in our church hall in June.

Carol and Nancy had thoughts beforehand of all the other things we could be doing on a Saturday morning but felt God calling us to take 'time out' from the busyness of life. Wilma too felt a strong desire to be there despite having just come from an emotional funeral service. And we are so glad that we did. This small group of women from across the Scottish Borders made us very welcome and from the very start we experienced an immense peace and awareness of being in God's presence.

After coffee and chat, the meeting opened with worship; vibrant and lively singing simply accompanied by a guitar and a tambourine. There followed an instructive session on how to prepare to come before God in prayer - becoming still in our minds and hearts; worshipping God for who He is; being cleansed and forgiven; using Scripture and the power of Jesus' name to empower our praying; submitting to God obediently and seeking His will; being steadfast in prayer; and being thankful.

After more uplifting worship we practised prayerfully meditating on God's Word (Psalm 45: 1-17) allowing God to reveal His truth to us individually. We then encouraged one another by sharing what we had learned and praying together. The women of the Lydia Fellowship also prayed for us. Through that we felt so uplifted and knew that God had touched us through the power of His Holy Spirit.

Each of us knows that prayer, dwelling in God's presence and talking to Him, is as necessary to our Christian life as breathing is to our physical life. Yet we know only too well how the demands of our everyday lives intrude on our time and concentration. However we hope that what we learned in our 'time out' of a couple of hours will, by the grace of God, deepen our prayer life and our daily abiding with God.

The next meeting of the Lydia Fellowship is at Borders General Hospital Chaplaincy Centre on Saturday 25th October 2008 at 10am until between 3pm and 4pm.

If you would like to know more about the Lydia Fellowship, Carol Eggleton has leaflets to borrow. Or you can visit the website»