Why My Life Begins With Prayer & Black Coffee

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I was thinking that my tag line ‘Life Begins With Prayer & Black Coffee‘ is all over. It is on my blog, Facebook Page, Instagram, Pinterest, Youtube, and Twitter. But, I have never really explained how I came up with it.

So, I thought some of you may be interested in knowing the ‘why’ behind it. I decided I will give a simple explanation of why I chose it and why it means so much to me.

Life Begins With Prayer

Prayer has been part of my life basically forever. I was brought up going to church many times during every week and learning about prayer from my grandmother, mom and others. I prayed every night before going to sleep and it was just habit I guess.

Nightly prayer was just something I automatically did. Not really talking with God, just giving my litany of requests. No thank yous, no real intimate conversation, just a well-memorized list I went through.

I did have times of deeper prayer. These were when I was going through something hard and desperation set in. Then I would step out of my usual prayer routine and really converse with God. During this time, God would show up always in a big way. My desperate prayers were typically always answered!

But, it wasn’t until my husband went through years of Deaconal Formation and study and we started to attend retreats that my prayer life took on a whole different dimension.

I witnessed my husband, other men & women around me being so joyful, peaceful, committed and full of hope. They truly had a deep relationship with Jesus and I wanted that.

What did they do? Why were they so different? What gave them their constant Peace? The more I tried to discover, the more I learned it was their deep relationship with the Living God, their devotion to him and his Church that made all the difference.

These individuals were Saints among me I could learn from

It was their daily reliance on him in every detail, step, and event in their life.

I kept hearing about daily prayer, Mass attendance, their devotional time and journaling. These people would spend time each day ‘living out their faith & praying’ not just ‘saying’ their prayers.

They would read Scripture and spiritual books. So, I knew that if I wanted to have what they had, I needed to imitate or follow their lead. No need to re-invent the wheel, so to speak. I saw and heard about what they did and decided that I really needed to do the same thing.

The first obstacle was time. I was a mom and very tired at bedtime- my ‘usual’ prayer time. I had to find out how to make it more fruitful and really commit to this special encounter with God.

One day the thought came to me that I was the first one up every day anyway and I usually had a good hour before anyone else got up. So, I began there. I soon realized that it was more to my benefit to get up even earlier and have that alone time with my Lord.

This became ‘my prayer time’. First thing each morning, when my day or my life begins.

Why Black Coffee?

Well, along with growth in my faith I was taking a different direction where my health was concerned too. I’ve mentioned before that I am in my ‘late’ forties, I have had 9 children, and had struggled years with trying to lose weight and be healthy.

This is when I really began to study and research, and yes pray for direction where my health and weight were concerned. God answered my prayer and I was blessed enough to discover the many health benefits of fasting and/or intermittent fasting. This was the major key, where my health and weight were concerned, I had searched for – for so long.

So, learning the ins and outs of truly ‘clean’ fasting every day for a set number of hours in order to heal and reap every health benefit, helped me to get rid of the half & half and Splenda from my coffee. Black coffee does not break a fast and it has become an essential part of my day.

And who would have guessed that this ‘fasting‘ was right in line with someone who desires to grow in their faith and experience the true power of God in prayer withing their life!

Prayer & Fasting go hand in hand

As my faith grew and my knowledge of scripture and the Teachings of the Catholic Church became part of the lense in which I looked at life through, I realized that my health and Faith were very much connected. We are both body and spirit, right?

I now begin my life with black coffee every morning during my time with Jesus, which always falls during my ‘fasting hours’.

I have so much more to learn and to experience, but, for me, these two little habits are keeping me moving in the right direction.

Yes- Life Begins With Prayer & Black Coffee! and I know that I would not or could not face life any other way!

Please let me know about your prayer and health goals for this year in the comments!