God is teaching me many things about praise and one is that it does not come so easily to my lips! Requests are so easy… praise requires work on my part. I am finding my prayer time is filling with more visual prayers as I praise GOD over situations. This is a new lesson for me all together. I must give you one that involved me. The last week of Ladies Bible Study I felt like I could not reach heaven with my prayers. Ever been there? The actual visual that I had was of a child holding a plastic cup over me like he would a bug to suffocate it! I just keep buzzing up and down hitting the clear plastic cover! Needless to say, I spent three days confessing, sitting, waiting, and trying to write… NOTHING! All I had was a scripture outline and handout for them to fill in the blanks, but none of the pretty stuff that pulls it all together. I kept beseeching GOD and again nothing. One day before I was to teach I had a visual come to me through a flower in my yard. We had placed a huge boulder beside our sidewalk along our flower bed last year. We completely forgot that we had tulip bulbs waiting to bloom lying dormant in the earth. As I set out to walk, hoping that spending time praising GOD out doors would lift this feeling, I saw my lesson! This tulip knew it needed the sun. So it grew up under the boulder to reach around it and then bend up higher until it rested on top of the boulder to catch the sun perfectly. It opened its bloom up to receive maximum rays from the sun. I thought “THAT IS ME!” No matter what boulder is placed on me I will do whatever it takes to get to the Son! I called a friend and asked her to pray for me for I knew now that I was dealing with oppression not sin. It was as if the evil one did not want the lesson taught! I taught the last lesson and release immediately came! What about you? Do you have any boulders in your life right now? Do you feel like you have a plastic cup on top of you preventing you from getting fresh air? Are you giving up? DON’T! Do whatever it takes to get to the SON! If you do… YOUR bloom will shine in HIS light for HIS Glory!