Reposting this from Riverside Reflections where it was originally posted December 21, 2011. 

Jamie, one of bloggers participating in the InCourage community at Blog Frog, asked:  What ornament would we place on  Heaven’s Christmas tree?

Her goal was to get us to “shine the light on how God is working in our lives this year… to take a moment to remember this past year and  how God has shown his goodness in your life.”

The hardest thing is to narrow it down to a word, and an image.  This has been a pivotal year for me in terms of struggling for faith against the tide of empty religiosity.  I have rejoiced in seeing God in the small things and offering praise daily due to the influence of Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, I have relaxed some due to Ann Spangler’s Peace.  But in terms of God working in my life in the last year, it would have to be prayer.  I have learned so much more about prayer, by praying, and by not praying.

Stunning – what prayer can do. 

Sad- to struggle along without God.

For an ornament, I take as inspiration the Scripture from Revelation of John 8:4-5

And the smoke of the incense,
with the prayers of the saints,
went up before God out of the angel’s hand.
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar,
and threw it to the earth;
and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

My ornament is a ribbon to symbolize the prayers of the saints in the incense that rises to God.   Philip Yancey in his book, Prayer:  Does It Make Any Difference, quotes Walter Wink regarding this portion of Scripture,

“The message is clear, history belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being.”

Yancey goes on to say,

“The pray-ers [those who pray] are essential agents in the final victory over evil, suffering and death.”

Do you have an ornament to place on Heaven’s tree?