In her book With My Whole Heart, Karen Mains tells of a discipline she has that reminds her to maintain a kind spirit. It involves a phrase she derived from an old prayer: “Christ betwixt thee and me.” She writes, “I breathe the words ‘Christ betwixt thee and me’ when I grow impatient with the phone caller who is talking too long, with the difficult personality who is taxing my resources, with the cranky child...I breathe the prayer, then see the form of Christ between me and the one to whom I am speaking.”

The phone rang and as soon as our telephone conversation began, I knew I was talking to a very discouraged friend. What should I do? Try to think of scriptures to cheer her? Try to recall what has helped in the past? Seek to feel what she is feeling?

A mother wondering how to pray for her son said, “One morning I’ll pray, ‘Do something today, Lord, to make him think about You.’ Then the next morning I pray desperately, ‘Don’t let anything happen to him today.’ It’s almost as though I cancel out yesterday’s prayers.”

About 20 years ago, I was reading to my husband about a revival that had been on campuses in the 1990’s. I came to a verse in Isaiah: “Build up, build up, prepare the road!” Suddenly to my surprise, I began to cry not understanding why except that I sensed this verse had something to do with the future revival.

I heard a mother tell that she had asked God to heal her daughter who had been seriously injured in an accident.

When my husband Daniel was a little boy, his mother would sit on their front porch in the summer and read the Bible to him and his brother. Those Old Testament stories were so fascinating that soon the neighborhood children began to join them. “Is your mother going to read today?” the children would ask Daniel.

Phoebe Palmer felt she had received an impression to speak a word to someone. She hesitated and then decided to pray about it first. She went away to pray and just as she bowed to pray, the Holy Spirit whispered, “Did you not, this morning, ask to be filled with the knowledge of the will of God? Why then did you not do that which was in your heart, knowing that the Lord was with you?”

“Would you know who is the greatest saint in the world?” asked William Law. “It is not he who prays most or fasts most...but it is he who is always thankful to God, who wills everything that God wills, who receives everything as an instance of God’s goodness, and has a heart always ready to praise God for it.”