This morning, while I was walking on the treadmill, I began praying for friends and family. But each friend I prayed for reminded me of someone else who needed prayer. It was a never-ending list of broken hearts, broken bones, flu symptoms, and life gone wrong. It began to leave me feeling a bit overwhelmed as I wondered if I’d ever get to the end of the list. How could I remember to pray for everyone? How could I stop praying when I ran out of time if there were still names on my list? The fear and the guilt began to settle in.

But as I walked and talked with Abba, I remembered what my grandmother had told me. She had a reputation as a prayer warrior and people often came to her asking her for prayer. She told me that when someone asked her to pray for them, she never promised that she would. Instead, she sat down with them right then and there and they’d pray together. Then later, during her time alone with God, she would ask Him to bring up the names of the people she should be praying for at that moment. She put all of the responsibility right where it should be – in God’s hands.

God knows what the problems are. He knows whose heart is breaking, who’s struggling and about to cave at this very moment, who’s lonely and needs a boost right now.

I can’t remember every heartache and every need. I don’t know all of the hidden fears and worries or the preexisting conditions or difficult circumstances around the next corner. What’s happening in someone else’s head and heart at this very moment. But God does.

I can’t carry the guilt of forgetting to pray for someone or running out of time before I get to the bottom of the list. And I don’t have to.

I just have to be open to the prompting of the Spirit, and to have an ongoing conversation with the Father. No fears, no guilt, no stress. Just the blessed assurance that He loves all of my loved ones even more than I do. And He’s holding them all in His hands.