Two posts ago, I told you about how I recently started using a new Bible reading plan from Zondervan to help give some structure to my morning devotional Bible study times, and I mentioned that within five minutes of reading the first day's selection (Numbers 11), I got the feeling that God was speaking to me about a specific prayer request I recently laid before him.

Last post, I told you what that prayer request was. I shared with you that for my recent birthday, I made a specific birthday wish (a.k.a. prayer), asking my heavenly father for husbands for several of my close single girlfriends who are over 35 and really want to be married.

My birthday was Monday, May 17, but the celebration of my birthday has become more of a season than a day. I am blessed to have a lot of really amazing friends, and we are celebrating with mini-parties of 2-4 people at a time, going out for dinner, seeing plays, going to museums, and more.

The first celebration took place on Thursday, May 13, when my friend Kara took me to one of my favorite restaurants in Staten Island, Adobe Blues. Then, Friday I was with relatives for dinner at Beyoglu, Saturday was dinner (Thai) and a play (Falmouth Theatre Guild's "The Secret Garden") and then drinks and live music at Liam Maguire's in Falmouth (Cape Cod). Monday was lunch with my co-workers at one of my favorite restaurants in Manhattan, Simply Pasta, and then dinner with my two NYC-based cousins at Persepolis, which was a replacement for our original destination, which was packed with a long wait. (This was a fortuitous change of plans... I found out about Persepolis from my OpenTable iPhone app, and it was a wonderful dining experience. Their homemade rose ice cream - yes, I said rose - was heavenly.)

I shared in the last post why we need to pray for ourselves,  but of course a vibrant and holistic prayer life also needs to include prayer for others. Often called "intercessory prayer," praying outwardly is, first and foremost, an imitation of Christ. After all, Jesus modeled intercessory prayer beautifully in John 17:

I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. ¹²While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. ¹³"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. ¹⁴I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. ¹⁵My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷Sanctify^[b] them by the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (Jesus Prays for All Believers) ²⁰"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. ²⁵"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."