My grandmother was a prayer warrior. Every Thursday morning her senior friends gathered on her enclosed porch—the one where all the old family recliners found their final resting place. The street was lined with cars as godly women came to study God’s Word and pray. I could always ask my grandmother to pray for me, but when I needed an extra “boost,” I would ask on Thursdays when her fellow warriors would be gathered for battle.
College was a defining time in my walk with God. I made a choice to stay with Him and He used events in my campus years to profoundly affect my spiritual trajectory to this day. During college, I found a prayer partner, and we held one another accountable to pray for an hour each week.
Prayer has always been a big part of my life, and I attribute much to my grandmother’s example. Little did I know, and little did she know, that 32 years later my own prayer group would meet on Thursday mornings to pray for college students—including my own kids. And what’s more, we didn’t imagine that I would be working to reinvigorate an incredible historic movement of prayer, the Collegiate Day of Prayer, which happens annually on the last Thursday of February.
In our nation’s history prayer movements, college campuses, and spiritual awakenings have been intertwined. Who were those moms and others praying in the 1700’s that God used to help spark the First Great Awakening (1741-1745)? Who were those praying one and two generations later that helped achieve even greater results on college campuses during the Second Great Awakening (1790-1845)? Renewed monthly Concerts of Prayer in the 1780’s fed the Second Great Awakening (read more here). Finally, many were praying in the early to mid-20th century and God ushered in the Jesus Movement of the sixties and seventies.
I know a grandma who prayed in the 1980s. What moms and grandmas in concert with praying students and faculty will be found interceding for the next spiritual awakening on February 28? I encourage you to register to pray as part of the Collegiate Day of Prayer. Will you pray with me?
Julie Loos is the College Groups Facilitator of Moms in Prayer and is also the director of Ratio Christi Boosters, a ministry that defends truth and Christianity on university campuses.