Enjoy this BONUS episode of Untangling Prayer as Bob Crittenden, Faith Radio Host of the Meeting House, asks Rachel Wojo the hard questions about her new book, Desperate Prayers: Embracing the Power of Prayer in Lfe’s Darkest Moments.
Get the scoop on the Bible’s prayer desperados and what we can learn from them as we process our own challenging circumstances.
Preorder your copy of Desperate Prayers: Embracing the Power of Prayer in Life’s Darkest Moments and get the first three chapters via digital download right away plus more bonuses!
Bob Crittenden
Well, good afternoon to you and thanks for joining us here. The intersection of faith and culture. This is the meeting house on Faith Radio. Great to welcome to the program, Rachel Wojo. She is an author, a speaker and a podcaster. She’s known for her popular blog at rachelwojo.com. She has. We’ve got daily Bible reading plans on that particular website, as well as other content. She’s also written books, including one more step. And her latest, which is coming out in October, called desperate prayers embracing the power of prayer and lifes darkest moments. Rachel Wojo joining us today here on the meeting house on Faith Radio and you are someone whom I would describe as being a storyteller. You share about what God has done in your life and how that’s impacted you and how it can impact other people. How have you seen? God really establish you in this writing and communicating space.
Rachel Wojo
What a great question, Bob. Well, thank you for having me and thank you for asking that question. It it definitely is the Lord. Many years ago when I believed God was calling me to write and speak for him and to lead people to his word, I began this little tiny. Blogspot blog that tells you how back in the day it was. And.
Bob Crittenden
I know that yes, I know that platform.
Rachel Wojo
It’s been over a decade ago. Let’s see, probably 15 years. And I started that blog, it was called just a mom with a heart for God. I had no clue what I was doing. I did not know that God had gifted me with a very unique gift in that I found technology easy to maneuver. I found HTML fun to write and I just believe that the Lord really set me up for success by saying this is the way walk in it. So thank you for asking me that question. It’s a great.
Bob Crittenden
Question. So does that mean you’re a coder?
Rachel Wojo
I would say that I could code. I can code my favorite code though, as you know, based on the book I’ve just written is prayer code.
Bob Crittenden
Ah, I like that. Very good. Nice answer. Well, the title or the subtitle of the book really refers to life’s darkest moments, and I know you incorporate some Bible characters in this book, but there’s also a a series of, as we might say. Dark or desperate moments that you’ve experienced in your life? To what degree did those kind of? Impact what you wanted to cover in this book.
Rachel Wojo
Sure. So if I only had the opportunity to write one more book, I figured I’d better make it good. And I write and prayed about what I should write about, and I felt like the deepest need in my own life was encouragement to know that in the dark spaces. When you’re facing disease facing desperate circumstances, looking at death right in the face that you need to know that God is there. And I experienced his presence with. Me and I wanted other people to understand that he is with us. He is available, he is ever listening to the cries of our hearts. And so that really was the the bottom line reason why I chose to write this book.
Bob Crittenden
You are listening to the meeting house here on Faith Radio. Rachel Wojo is joining us today here on the program. She is the author of this book called Desperate Prayers, Embracing the power of Prayer in Life’s Darkest Moments. What was your? Starting point, as you began to really compile the thoughts that you wanted to express through this book.
Rachel Wojo
Well, I began to read. I loved to study the Bible, and I began to read the actual prayers of people in the Bible who I would call Desperados. They were at rock bottom. There was no way out. No way. Up and they didn’t know what to do other than to pray as I dissected their prayers and read each one individually, some of them more well known than others, but not many of us have dissected habakkuk’s prayers, right. And so, as I began to study those. Unique characters and. What God did through their prayers I’m I realized that their lives mirrored my own, and that there’s so much in today’s culture and in today’s environments that we can learn from these Bible characters. So that really was the starting point as far as a study of how to write this.
Bob Crittenden
And I think Hannah comes to mind. I know that’s one of the characters that you actually portray or that you you talk about in this book, Hagar. Those are a couple of characters that and and I think a number of our listeners can relate to this with respect to. Children and childbearing and. Obviously there’s a lot that can be learned through parents that are or perspective parents that are going through some some crises with respect to that overall issue coming on that if you would please.
Rachel Wojo
Well, you know, Bob, I lost my daughter after caring for her for 22 years, she was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disorder at the age of 4. And that disorder is a very complex disease. Mucopolysaccharidosis her particular subtype is called Sanfilippo syndrome and the. Kind of cliche name added to Sanfilippo syndrome. Or maybe not cliche, but it is often called the childhood Alzheimer’s. So gradually, every skill that has been. Obtained in the child’s life is lost, and so at the age of 22, Taylor graduated to heaven after caring for her and watching over her and watching her suffer. For many years I prayed many desperate prayers during that time, and so the mothers that you’ve referred to in the Bible. Hannah and Hagar, my mother’s heart clings to their situations and their prayers for just a validity of my own and understanding that God sees me. He hears me, he knows my. Needs and I hope that your listeners who are listening to this today can just grab on to that same hope and that is what I share in the book.
Bob Crittenden
And when you think about Hagar, and I’d like for you to maybe take us into her story just a bit more. I think about and. And in fact, you even used the phrase similar to God seeing a particular person that that seems to be a real element in that story in her story. 3.
Rachel Wojo
For sure. Absolutely. So she is the only person in the Bible who labeled God with a very intimate name that we know as Elroy, which means God sees me. And she had this experience of affirmation in the wilderness when no one was around. When no one could help her when she had been abandoned and all she had was herself and her child to care for as a single mom. And there’s so many single moms out there probably listening right now who can relate to the weight of that response. Ability. She cried out to the Lord and he answered her prayers not just once, but twice. Hagar was in the wilderness and so this intimate name of Elroy. God sees me, is very evidence of her in her life. It’s very evident. Of how God really showed up and then showed off. He showed her what he wanted her to do, how he wanted her to live, and he did not forsake her. He promised he would make her sons nation a great nation and he has fulfilled that promise.
Bob Crittenden
Rachel Wojo is joining us today here on the meeting house on Faith Radio. She is a public speaker, a writer, a podcaster, blogs at her website, rachelwojo.com. The author of this book called Desperate Prayers. David, I know occupies a space in this particular. Book and there’s a word. And you. We read the Psalms and, you know, David’s life has some some very, as you could say, desperate moments. And he uses the phrase in the songs about crying out. To God, what do you find? Are the marks of a desperate prayer? I mean, we should each have a prayer life where we’re regularly communicating with God. But these prayers of desperation. What? What are some of the characteristics or elements that you’ve found?
Rachel Wojo
I think a lot of these Bible characters show us what those characteristics are, but we can examine our own lives as well. When you look at David’s life, one of the times that he was crying out to God was when he was on the run from his own son trying to kill him. And so if that’s not a current reality TV show, don’t know what it is. He really needed God to intervene in his life. His own son was chasing after him and and he had trained his son in battle. He knew what he was capable of and at his age I’m sure that he was thinking this young son is going to get the better of me. He’s. Going to wind up telling me as he desires. So that’s just one scenario. There were multiple others where David faced battle after battle as Saul chased him all throughout the Salms we get those times of where David was in hiding in a cave or he was being chased from his. Enemies there are just so many notes in the Psalms. At the beginning of each Psalm where he explains the desperation of his circumstances, or we get a little view into the backdrop of what was happening. I think most of us today. Would relate to losing a child specifically, and that is one of the Psalms that David has written when he had lost the child that he had with Bashi bin, he knew that life was not as it should be. He knew that there were decisions that he made that were poor. Sometimes our lives take on circumstances that are the results of others decisions, and sometimes they’re our own. But either way, I think that that period of time where we don’t know what else to do, that is often when we pray. And that my hearts cry in this book is is twofold, really, Bob, it’s to help people understand that panicked prayers create a powerful pathway to peace. And that’s the first main concept. The second main concept that I feel that. I really want people to get is to drop prayer, perfectionism. We all have this idea of how our prayers should be, what our prayer life should look like and how we want to create a perfect environment. Or we want to create the perfect wording. And so my encouragement to everyone. Is that we’re in those desperate places. We’re really just laying ourselves before the Lord and just saying, God help me. It’s the simplest three word prayer and yet so effective.
Bob Crittenden
Umm. And as I understand it in this book desperate prayers, each chapter has a three word prayer focus.
Rachel Wojo
Yes, yes it does. There are 15 chapters and each word has a simple three word prayer focus and I really believed that. Tying those three with prayer focuses to each chapter would help us simplify our prayer lives, help us recognize that we don’t have to follow anything complicated. We don’t have to keep 50 prayer journals and exact right formula in order to have. A vibrant prayer life. I love prayer journals. But crying out to the Lord is often our very first step, and we want to train ourselves to have prayer to be the first pick and not the final straw.
Bob Crittenden
And I don’t know to what extent you deal with this in the book, but when you think about desperate prayers, and sometimes I think about Hannah, she was. Really. In that story, really having a hard time, really praying to God and and Eli observing her really. Either marveling or being puzzled by it, but you know, so I think so often we we may not feel like that our prayers are are very effective. We may be feel like they’re we’re hitting up against a a brick wall and we need some way to press through or or break. Through the is that something that that perhaps you can relate to as far as just not having the words to say or just not feeling like you’re breaking through, you’re in a desperate situation? But you don’t necessarily feel like that you’re getting through.
Rachel Wojo
Yes or not even being able to formulate the words because. The thoughts are. Swirling so wildly in our minds that we just can’t even get words to come out of our mouths, and I have definitely been there. Bob. I know what it’s like to sit by.
Bob Crittenden
Yeah.
Rachel Wojo
The bedside of my daughter and watch her suffer and die. And I don’t say that lightly. I say that to help people understand that I know there are people listening who are in the same situation. You are sitting by the bedside of your loved one and you’re thinking I can’t even pray. I don’t have words because my mind is just swirling. With these circumstances, and I don’t know how to process this, it’s just too hard, too much, too soon, and so I would encourage that person to think about the verse that explains that the Holy Spirit. He is intervening for us. He is groaning for us. Jesus sits on the the throne of heaven and the God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are all three working together on our behalf. But the special job of the Holy Spirit is. What the New Testament promises us is that if we do not have the words, the Holy Spirit is intervening for us to God the father, and he’s saying, look at your child, here’s her site. Let’s minister to her. Shower her with your strength and mercy and grace and the words that they speak to one another is a whole language that we don’t even understand. But it is part of understanding that we don’t have to have the words that God is. Omniscient, he is all knowing and he is able. To care for us and bring his presence in our presence when we trust him, when we believe in him, and when we make the effort to open that door and communicate with him, so I would encourage the person listening today to really just open your heart to him and say, Lord, I don’t have the words. But I know that you do. You and fill me. Fill me with your mercy and your grace and your strength to cope with my current circumstances.
Bob Crittenden
Well, I commend you on the phrase that you used about thoughts swirling because of course the enemy will get in there and he will bring these discouraging, hopeless thoughts. And those thoughts will swirl around and we just have. To really press through and shift our focus so that we can experience what you just described for us and recognize the presence of God with us in those desperate times, the name of the book is desperate prayers, embracing the power of prayer and lifes, darkest moments available in October. But there’s a website that’s been set up people. Then go ahead and get more information on that book, correct.
Rachel Wojo
Yes, absolutely. You can go to desperateprayers.com the pre-order form is available now. There are some special bonus gifts that you receive if you go ahead and pre-order. Pre ordering lets the publisher know that people really need this book and then it allows us to get the book in the hands of more people who need to hear. The hope in their hurting. So I pray that many of your folks will find this episode a blessing. Thank you so. Much Bob.
Bob Crittenden
Rachel Wojo joining us today here on the meeting house on Faith Radio. Thank you so much, Rachel.
Rachel Wojo
My pleasure.
Rachel, I enjoyed listening to your interview on Faith Radio with Bob Crittenden. I can’t wait to get my copy of your latest book, Desperate Prayers. I can relate to desperate prayers in many ways – especially when we don’t know what to say. Your ‘three-word prayer’ prompts will be invaluable to so many of us.
I pray God continues to bless you, your family, and your ministry.
Jackie
Thanks so much, Jackie, for the kind note and your encouragement! I’m glad you enjoyed the interview. May the Lord continue to bless you and yours!