The Purple Shawl

Hi there, and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading, titled The Purple Shawl, was written by So Chi Dixon. While serving as my mom's live-in caregiver at a cancer center hundreds of miles away from my home, I asked people to pray for us. As the months passed, isolation and loneliness sapped my strength.

How could I care for my mom if I gave in to my physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion? One day, a friend sent me an unexpected care package. Jodi had crocheted a purple prayer shawl, a warm reminder that we had people praying for us daily. Whenever I wrapped the soft yarn around my shoulders, I felt God hugging me with the prayers of His people.

Years later, He still uses that purple shawl to comfort me and strengthen my resolve. The Apostle Paul affirmed the importance and spirit-refreshing power of praying for others in the book of Romans. Through his passionate request for prayerful support and encouragement during his travels, Paul demonstrated how those who pray for others become partners in ministry. Offering specific requests, the Apostle not only showed his dependence on the support of fellow believers, but his trust that God powerfully answers prayer. We'll all experience days when we feel alone, but Paul shows us how to ask for prayer as we pray for others.

When we're wrapped in the intercessory prayers of God's people, we can experience God's strength and comfort no matter where life takes us. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Romans chapter 15 verses 23 through 33. But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there after I have enjoyed your company for a while. Now, however, I am on my way to Jerusalem in the service of the Lord's people there. For Macedonia and Achaia were pleased to make a contribution for the poor among the Lord's people in Jerusalem. They were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have shared in the Jews' spiritual blessings, they owe it to the Jews to share with them their material blessings.

So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this contribution, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ. I urge you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea and that the contribution I take to Jerusalem may be favorably received by the Lord's people there so that I may come to you with joy by God's will and in your company be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all.

Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for Paul's urging that the believers pray on his behalf. Help us to do the same for others who are hurting, feeling lonely, or just needing answers. Your promise to be with us wherever we are fills us with peace when we need it most. And as we pray for others, may your peace fill them too. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. His encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.