My Friends with Emotional Needs

My heart is aching for a few of my friends and there is nothing I can do to help them, except for prayer. In several cases, I’m talking about depression, about overwhelming fatigue and feelings of helplessness from 24/7 caregiving, about suicidal thoughts, about heavy financial worries. 

I’m talking about normally very strong people, folks who have come through terribly dark times and have shown their strength and their ability to not only survive, but thrive. And now they are fearful that it is not enough, that they will not be enough.

Unfortunately, most folks think physical needs are more important than emotional and mental needs. This isn’t always the case. We often recover from overwhelming physical and medical issues with a good night’s sleep, or a break in routine (a nap, a treat, a vacation). Emotional and mental issues stay inside us and pound at us and wear us down.

There are many folks on my personal prayer list who are in need of emotional rest and peace.

When I think about them, and how they feel overwhelmed and at their wit’s end, I am reminded of Jesus at Gethsemane. In the garden on Good Friday, he was overwrought. This was the Son of God. And yet, even he wept and begged that God would relieve him of his burden. Who are we to feel we are at fault, or less than all we can be, when things overwhelm us?

For any of you with the same concerns, I’m pasting a few of my prayers from my Busy Person’s Prayer Book. Why? Because frankly, I wrote each of these for myself, when I, too, was overwhelmed, and I was afraid I would not survive. I prayed these over and over, almost hypnotically. Maybe one of them will help you. Maybe not.

Sweet Lord Jesus, we are taught that you know all too well the feelings of human doubt and fear and the desire that it will all go away. Take these friends into your compassionate heart and fill them with all the strength they need to get through their troubled times. Be with them, guide them, heal them, show them the way. Let them know you love them. And as always, not our will but the Father’s, be done.

Caregiver’s Prayer

Father, someone needs my care

I need your help to do it right

Replace resentment with compassion

Replace my heavy heart with one that’s light.

When Things Go Wrong

Father, when things are going wrong

And my world is falling apart,

Please hold me in your loving arms

And send your peace into my heart.

For Help in Paying Debts

Father, you’re the one who knows

The answer to financial woes

Open my eyes so I may see the way

To funds for those who I must pay.

Today’s Troubles, in Advance

(Morning Prayer)

Dear God, this day may have its troubles

And some will come as a great surprise

If I am too burdened to come to you

I trust you to help if the need should arise.

Taking it Slow and Easy

Like the tortoise against the hare,

Slow and steady gets you there.

Bookmarks Coming from my Busy Person’s Prayer Book

Quite a few years ago, I had a dream of publishing a book filled with helpful little 4-line prayers. I managed to get one self-published, the Busy Person's Prayer Book. 

My dream, however, was to also get those little prayers to as many folks as possible, to anyone who wanted them – and, to do it at a very low price. The self-published paperback, however, because of how print-on-demand works, costs too much for it to be really effective. In seven years, I’ve only sold about 40 of them. I’ve given away a dozen or so. 

Meanwhile, I keep writing a prayer here, and one there, depending on my needs and concerns. 

Suddenly, yesterday, I realized that I have been overlooking one very obvious way of getting those prayers into an everyday buyer’s hands, at a low price – digital bookmarks! Even after I offer them as a digital download, it will be easy to print them, laminate them (now that I have a neat little low-cost laminating machine), and add a ribbon. So, I can offer them both ways. And cheaply.

Hopefully, I’ll start with two sets – one will include prayers for dealing with four of our most common daily concerns and issues. The other set will concern not ourselves, but others. 

The odd thing about this epiphany of mine is that I have been searching for my digital camera for almost two weeks in this double-wide mobile. I have things I wanted to photograph and put into my Etsy shop. 

This morning, I realized that maybe He has been holding the camera back, waiting for me to take charge of our prayers (I say “ours” because many of them did not come from me, but from Him). I would almost bet that once I create those first bookmarks and put them in the shop, I will suddenly find that camera, and in a very obvious place.

They say everything happens no according to our timing, but according to His. I believe it. Back when I first self-published that book, I did not know about Etsy. I did not have the bookmark template I have now. And I did not know some other things, then, that I do now. 

I guess the time has come.

Back to Revising the Busy Person’s Prayer Book

I'd better get going again on the revision and reformatting of my self-published Busy Person's Prayer Book - it's already available at this link, in paperback and two digital download versions, but I am doing a little more work on it so I can put it in my Etsy shop as an instant download, making it easier to read on-screen. I’m hoping to offer a great price on it this way. 

That link (here), by the way, also allows you to see the Table of Contents and 4 of the prayers.

My original dream for this was to get it to as many folks as possible for as little as possible. I have also dreamed of offering the prayers as a packet of little business cards. That is still something I hope to work on.

I was making a lot of progress about a year ago and, when my middle-aged “nephew” passed away suddenly, my life went into a financial tailspin. I was so caught up in dealing with it that everything else was pushed aside. It’s a little over a year now since he left this earth, and he’d hate it if I didn’t finish this revision. So would his mom, Jane, gone since ’09 - she was so helpful to me with the first drafts early on.

Anyhow, there is that saying we all quote so easily - God helps those who help themselves. I can’t expect him to help me unless I get moving.

So, I pulled out the hard copy and will start working on it, hopefully at least an hour a day. It’s amazing what we can accomplish in a hour if we stick to it.

Small Doses of Self-Pity Never Hurt

During a back-and-forth group of messages with a friend, I realized how I felt about “feeling sorry for myself” the few times I allow it to take over. 

I explained to her that I don’t think anyone should ever feel badly about feeling sorry for themselves, at least for a little while. I believe it takes the pressure and stress off. And, if that person is a female (or a liberated male?) often a little cry helps. 

My sis and I had a little saying, and it's in my self-published Busy Person's Prayer Book:

“Two or three minutes; that's a lot

Then it's time to get off of the pity pot.”

I have so many things go wrong in my life. I allow myself to feel badly, for a little while. Then, because I must depend almost totally upon myself (and the Lord), I take a deep breath, look up, and say, "Ok. I'm ready. Now what's my next step?" 

It is often difficult to move forward but when I look at it as just the "next step" instead of trying to resolve the whole problem all at once, it helps me get to where I need to go. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it does to me.

Sweet Jesus, there’s no way on this earth that I will have to endure the troubles suffered by you, and even by Mary and Joseph. Yet, with God’s help, you all managed. I can do it, too, with your help, your love, your blessing. Thank you for taking on human form - by this act, you experienced much of what we go through. Thank you for being there, and for understanding.

The Lord and My Appetite

I have done well in adopting better eating habits this past year. My lab tests have my doctor smiling. I feel better. I have a little more energy. My knees don’t scream as badly as they used to. I enjoy walking a bit in our senior mobile home park. 

But every once in a while I do fall off the healthy-food wagon. At my age, food is the only enjoyable vice I have left. Occasionally, I do indulge it.

The good thing is that I don’t get like that too often - maybe once every other week or so. 

Getting back on track isn’t as hard as it used to be. I find myself relying on a little prayer I wrote for that purpose - the one that is in my self-published Busy Person’s Prayer Book. I have posted it here, once or twice, a while back. Here it is...I ask only that if you pass it on, you be sure to include the credit line at the bottom.

To Change Eating Habits

Father, you promised to provide our bread

But we reach for food that’s bad, instead

Please guide my appetite today

Toward food that’s good for me, I pray.

(copyright Evelyn Shamay Mayfield, Busy Person’s Prayer Book)

I know it’s short but that’s why I find myself using it, saying it, praying it as often as I need to. It’s so easy to remember, like all the prayers in that book. These days, I like quick-and-easy.

Thank you, Father, for the words you whispered to me back when I began writing the book. And thank you for reminding me to come to you whenever I need help in taking care of this body that is on loan from you.      

Interesting New Development

Some of you may have noticed my post withthe bright graphic of my prayer for Help in Paying Debts from my Busy Person’s Prayer Book. I know you are probably wondering why I am putting those prayers out, free, when obviously I need income and would love to sell the book for that income.

Well, the truth is that I am terrible at marketing. In the few years it has been out there, self-published, I’ve sold perhaps 30 paperbacks, and given away at least that many. The paperback has to sell for $10. That’s a lot for a small book.

I think I would do much better, these days, by selling it as a download off my Etsy shop for just $.99 - I’m hoping to find out this week whether my current .pdf will work on a Kindle, Nook and/or tablet. If not, I will get busy and re-format it right away, and re-test.

If you have any or all of them (Kindle, Nook, tablet), and would like the pdf file to let me know how it works on your device(s), please contact me at mayfieldpubs at aol dot com, and I will send the file to you via email.

Anyhow, I do need that extra income. At 74, that’s hard to come by except off the internet. Tonight I had to laugh (so I wouldn’t cry - LOL) because my lower dentures broke in the middle, once again. And, once again, I had to Super Glue them together. I hope they hold for a while.

It would be wonderful if I can get the book into a compatible format. I am hoping the occasional prayer-graphic will bring attention to it.