How to Make Prayer Cards

I shared last week about using my new beautiful stickers to create new Prayer Cards. Here’s what they are and why I love ’em.

::What they are::

I used to make them out of index cards with a bic pen–no nonsense. But why not make them beautiful?  Now, as you know, I made them from textured paper, a colored header, and good black pen that makes me write neatly (is it just me or does your handwriting improve significantly when you use a nice pen?)

There are 8 of them. One for each day of the week and one that says Daily. On my little cards there’s a title and then a list of what to pray for each day. It’s simple but it works for me. I break it up into categories like this and then list specific names under each one.

• Sunday: WCC staff and elders
• Monday: Women’s Ministry and Bible study ladies
• Tuesday: Friends
• Wednesday: Prayer ladies & WCC prayer requests
• Thursday: Family, extended family
• Friday: Loved ones, neighbors, etc. who I want to come know Jesus.
• Saturday: Foreign Missions work and missionaries

The “Daily” card is our immediate family, my own personal prayers, and any upcoming decisions, etc. Under each header I list out all the names or specific things I need to remember to lift up to God’s throne.  It’s a convicting exercise because it usually shows me how much there is in my life that’s not under the umbrella of prayer!

::Why this helps::

• Objective accountability: Of course there are lots of ways to pray, but this is just one way to help stay accountable to praying regularly for those in your life.  When I leave it all to chance I find that I pray about my own little stuff about 99% of the time and then I’d run into a friend who was actually going through something hard and realize I hadn’t even prayed for her!  That’s certainly no fun, but I just have to be honest about myself and know that I need something objective to help me keep others in mind. Otherwise it’s pretty much all about me. I especially noticed this with the Foreign Missionaries one. I’d get their newsletters and realize that I hadn’t prayed for then since their last month’s newsletter (if at all!).

• Helps maintain margin: It is a wise rule to never take on more than we can pray about.  If I have more things going on in my life than I have time to pray for, then there’s a problem! Whenever I take the time to update/create prayer cards it really helps me get an idea of how much is in my life and if it’s too much.  God gives us 7 days a week and if we can’t pray for it during that time maybe it’s meant to be on someone else’s prayer card (and plate!).

• Portability! I have tried having a big prayer journal in the past and I think they are awesome but it just ended up being too much to carry around with me. I love having these little cards that I can tuck anywhere–usually just in my Bible. I love that I can pull them out at any time and have my beloved prayer needs right before my eyes. I love I don’t have to have the pressure of trying to keep track of all that I’m supposed to pray for. When we write it down we take the pressure off. It’s there, just waiting for us. (I also jot down notes in pencil if there are specific things for a certain time, then I can just erase as time goes on and needs change.)

When we do something like create beautiful prayer cards we’re setting ourselves up for success. We are wise to do all that we can to build godly habits into our lives.  You may have other ideas that work for you–that’s great!  Let’s do all we can to make every moment His.

*I’m also using my stickers for beautiful Scripture Memorization Cards.  More on those later.  Happy praying, happy beauty-making!

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What practical tips do you have for building prayer and beauty-making into your life?   For making every moment His?