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Please pray for the Drews family.  Marsha is a blogging buddy of mine and a frequent commentor here.  She and her husband and family are greatly in need of prayer as their little three-year-old son Christian passed away last Tuesday.  This is heart-wrenching news, and the thoughts and prayers of my family are with these dear folks in this time of great sorrow.  May they find comfort and peace in the arms of their Lord, the same arms that now hold their precious little boy.

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Praise the Lord for His goodness in bringing my son safely through his hernia surgery.  The procedure went very well, and just about twenty-four hours later, he is up and about, playing with his brother and sister as if nothing happened.  God has taken  wonderful care of all of us!

My son was such a brave little trooper!  Though he was nervous, he faced the process with determination, and came through beautifully.  As his mommy, I was a bit anxious over the weekend as I anticipated Monday morning, but when the time came to head to the hospital, the anxiety fell away, and God replaced it with an overwhelming peace.  My little boy was in His hands, and I had no reason to worry.  And God proved Himself so very faithful.

Thanks to all of you who shared your prayers and encouragement with us at this time.  We felt the power of your prayer and greatly appreciate all the encouragment.  Praise God for His goodness, and for the kindness of His people.

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My six-year-old son will be having surgery to correct his hernia on Monday, March 19.  We would appreciate prayer for him as he undergoes this operation.  (And, if you remember, maybe you could pray for his momma--that's me!--, who is a bit nervous at the thought of her baby being under anesthesia and being operated on.)  My son is being very brave about the whole thing.  Praise the Lord, it is a minor surgery, but it is still surgery.  Thank you for your prayers for us.  As the hospital where the surgery will take place is two hours away, (what can I say, we live in the sticks!) I will share an update when we return home.

Isn't it a blessing to know that God is sovreign, and that He cares about His children?  What a relief it is to bring our burdens and concerns to Him and know that He is in control.

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As if the everyday, day in, day out challenges of raising children weren't enough, there are times when God chooses to test our faith and give us something we never expected and wouldn't wish on our worst enemy.  Sometimes, God chooses to allow one of our precious little ones to be sick.  And I don't just mean a sniffle or a touch of the flu.  I mean something that makes us get on our knees and beg for His strength and for faith to believe He will work it out for His glory.

You see, over the weekend, my husband made a trip to the emergency room with our six-year-old son.  What started out as a family sledding activity turned into a frightening trip to the hospital.  There is nothing in life worse than seeing your baby in pain.  My little guy was diagnosed with a hernia; not an uncommon ailment in young boys, from what I understand, but nonetheless a reason for concern.  The diagnosis also brings the very likely possibility of surgery to correct it.  I can't begin to describe to alarm this can cause in the mind of a six-year-old little boy whose main associations with hospitals revolve around his grandfather's open-heart surgery.

Through this experience, the Lord is teaching my husband and me, as well as our little boy, to trust Him more and be thankful in all things.  As I listened to my husband pray for our son this evening, I was overcome with thankfulness that we know the Lord and can look to Him for strength and for healing for our boy.  He cares for His children even more than we do for ours.  What a comforting thought.

I will continue to update on this situation, and we would greatly appreciate any prayers for our little guy.  He is very nervous and concerned as he faces the process ahead.  Please pray for wisdom for the doctors and strength and healing for our son.

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My husband and I are blessed to attend a church pastored by an excellent preacher.  Our pastor never fails to bring forth a timely and convicting message.  More than once, his weekly sermons have been used by the Lord to speak to my heart on some certain issue.  Lately, he has been doing a series of sermons on prayer.  This past Sunday, he told us, “God answers prayer in four different ways: ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘wait,’ or ‘I have something better planned.’”  He went on to say that although we may pray for something to be a certain way, God may have something planned for us that is even better, or at least different, than what we were praying for.  Over the past week, I have seen this very thing happening in my own life.  I have been asking a very specific prayer of the Lord for about six months now, believing that He would answer in His time.  However, I have seen Him answering this prayer in a very different way than I would have expected.  It is exciting to see what He is doing in this area, because it not only affects me and my family, but will have an impact on many other people as well. 

 

God is so good, and I am honored to be called His child.  Through no merit of my own, but purely in His own grace, He chooses to bestow gifts and answers to prayer upon me simply because of His love for me.  This is an incredibly humbling thought.  I serve an amazing and powerful God, and I am so thankful He hears the prayers and heart-cries of those who belong to Him.

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     For those of you who have chosen to join me in prayer journaling, I thought it was time to share an update.  The Lord has used the time I have spent writing in my prayer journal to greatly bless me.   As I have poured my heart to the Lord onto the pages of my journal, I have felt His presence and have had sweet communion with Him.

     I keep my journal on the little table beside my comfy chair in my bedroom.  During my quiet time with the Lord, I write a prayer (sometimes short, sometimes several pages long), then I read it to the Lord.  I have already been wonderfully blessed by this time.  I have also felt spiritual attacks in many of the specific areas I have prayed about.  Never before in my walk with the Lord have I been quite so focused in my prayer life, so I know these attacks from the enemy are inevitable.  Praise the Lord, He is helping me, and I am finding renewed strength in the time I have spent in prayer and in His Word.

     The other spiritual discipline which I have felt the Lord's blessing on is my goal of reading throught the Bible in a year.  I did this a couple of years ago, and decided at the beginning of this year to do it again.  Praise the Lord, I am still on schedule (made it through Leviticus!) and each day I discover something new about my Lord.  It is amazing that in 16 years of being a born-again Christian, there is still so much about the Lord that I don't know.  He reveals more of Himself to me all the time.  Being a Christian is such an incredible privilege!

     I would love to hear from those of you who are joining me in prayer journaling.  How has the Lord used this in your life?  Have you been blessed by the time spent in journaling your prayers?