Thursday, January 26, 2006

40 Days of Prayer and Becky Tirabassi

Becky Tirabassi


This week we have been participating in the "40 Days of Prayer" emphasis. Colleges across the nation have adopted 24-hour periods of time to pray earnestly for revival on our campuses.

Today was our day of prayer at CMU. It was so cool to walk into the prayer room and see students on their knees interceding for our campus. There was a poster board with names of many of our lost friends, and prayers written on pads of paper. All of our Christian groups had come together as one to pray. It was an incredible sight.

Author and speaker Becky Tirabassi has been instrumental in starting this movement, and she came to Pittsburgh this week. She is visiting every one of the 40 campuses, and praying with us in our rooms.

It was great to visit with her. Becky is passionate and spunky!!!! And she also looks way too young to have a 27-year old son. We decided that she has more energy than all of us combined.

She is also passionate about prayer, and about seeing God honored and glorified. I was also able to really talk to her on a heart level about being a woman in ministry, and about the pressures of being expected to have all the answers theologically. She was able to reassure me that the main thing is to just keep seeking God. The rest will fall in place.

Today she left to go to Roberts Wesleyan in Rochester, NY. But when I walked into our prayer room, I noticed a book with a note to me on it. She had given me the devotional book "Renew my heart" by John Wesley. It really touched me, and spoke exactly to where I am right now in my walk. I need refreshment, renewal and encouragement to not grow weary.

I opened to the reading for today, and the verse spoke volumes to me. It was, "The Kingdom of God is......righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."--Rom. 14:17.

Thank you, Father, for sending people to speak to our hearts when we need it the most.

2 comments:

francie said...

I got ya beat - i got to choose my book!!! she is giving all the corridators of the rooms a book! - i too enjoyed my time with becky - but i'll tell ya - she had me beat for energy - and i thought i was open and honest . . . i found someone who talks about bodly functions even more open than i do - she great!!! - i loved hanging with her - and i even got a free dinner out of it - french toast yummmmm.

how did your prayer room go? - i prayed for you all today - ours at geneva was .. . . all i can say was wow! - laura and i will be meeting with tom gray to debrief - becky mentioned he wants to do something like this monthly -- praise God - revival is hitting geneva - the frozen presbys.

Kiki Cherry said...

Francie--

Becky had told me about your prayer room, and some of the amazing things happening there. That's exciting!!!

Ours was really cool, too. To be honest, it had been hard for me to make it first priority this week, because we had Perspective, "Invisible Children" preview, and the partnership with Hillel all going on at the same time.

(Anna definitely got drop kicked into the stress of campus ministry this week!!!! She also taught at FUEL last night, and went to the Girls' small group Tuesday night!) Thankfully the hot chocolate tables got snowed out Wednesday, and that took a little pressure off.

But when I got in the room for my prayer slot, I ended up praying for two straight hours without even realizing that much time had passed. It was so cool to see all the names of lost friends written on the prayer poster, and the prayers of encouragement that students left for each other.

God did some healing among students in our group. There were some deep-rooted things from their pasts that needed to be given to God. I think that really happened this week.

Another cool thing was that it brought together all of the Christian groups on campus. We have done a few things together, like All-Campus Worship, but it was great to be able to come together just to pray. We agreed we want to do this more often.

Last night, when it was time to shut down the room, there were 6 of us in there. We were from CrossSeekers, Intervarsity, Agape and then one girl was not plugged into a campus ministry at all. She had just heard about the prayer room and came.

We prayed together right up until we weren't allowed to stay any longer. It was really cool.