Take time to open your heart and your mind to the life you have lived so far. Try and recall everything from your very earliest memory. As you progress from “prayerful encounter” to “prayerful encounter” move from year to year, or event to event in your life, looking for identifying those persons who have helped you along the way. With your heart, look and see, listen and reflect.
Identify persons who have "walked" with you during those years. Classmates, friends, uncles, aunts, teachers, nurses, neighbors, employers... persons who, over the years you may have forgotten to pray for... to thank... persons you may have hurt... persons you may have taken for granted, friends who may have died tragically and otherwise. Try to identify a few on each day of prayer. With your heart, look and see, listen and reflect. Many persons have been placed on our paths, have cared for us, have seen to our needs, have guided us through any number of hazards, giving us a hand here, pointing the way there, comforting us, standing by us, helping us take root and grow, protecting us from "worms and animals" that would have devoured us.
Through these loving hearts, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, teachers, nurses, friends and persons of goodwill, God's love watched over us, sustained us and protected us. Identify those persons through whom God has brought His love to you, and who have assisted you in reaching this point in time and in eternity. In, with and through Him you will now pray for their needs, for their salvation, for their place in God's Love, the very same Love they brought to us. In your heart, in Jesus, in the Kingdom, talk to them. Reflect and be thankful to God who has loved you so much through these hearts. With your heart, look and see, listen and reflect.
Identify all those hearts who in turn have come to you for help, for your prayers. Identify all those hearts that through the grace of God you saw their needs, their difficulties, and their sufferings. With your heart, look and see, listen and reflect.
It is through this glorious ministry of prayer, in, with and through Christ Jesus, that you will bring God's love to each and every one of these precious hearts. It is in this glorious ministry of prayer, that you will share in Christ's priesthood, His Kingship and His prophetic Love. Reflect.
Stop and list their names and your petitions for them in your book of prayer intentions. With your heart, look and see, listen and reflect.
In Spirit and in Truth, at the foot of Christ's cross, locate them there with you, person by person. "Father, in, with and through your beloved Son Jesus, receive these prayers on their behalf." Reflect. (Suggestion only, pray as you are inspired by the Lord Holy Spirit to do so.)