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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?

 

 

Posted in Prayer

     In my reading recently, I came across an idea for making one's prayer life more focused and meaningful by creating a prayer journal.  I really like the idea of having a record of one's prayer life.  Many of the psalms are prayers, cries from the heart of the psalmist to the Lord.  So much of the book of psalms is the psalmist sharing his heart, his fears, his joys, his pain, his love, his blessings with his God.  To have a similar book of my own struggles and triumphs in this journey of life would be a tremendous blessing, not only for me, but for my children who my someday read these prayers.

     I have always appreciated the idea of keeping a journal, though I have not been very consistent at it.  Because I learn and retain things best by seeing them, writing things down is very helpful for organizing my thoughts.  A prayer journal is something that can assist in giving my prayers a focus and perhaps more vibrancy and fervency.  It will also give me something to look back through to evaluate my walk with the Lord and whether I am growing in my spiritual life.  I hope to be able to look back over it's pages some day and see, through what I have written there, that I have grown closer to the Lord.

     What about you?  Will you join me in starting a prayer journal?  Mine won't be anything fancy, just a simple pre-bound book with blank pages on which I will share my heart with my God.  A little bit like I do with you here on this crazy ol' blog of mine.

 

 

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     When I logged in to HSB today, I had no idea that a beloved member of our community here had gone home to be with the Lord this week. 

     After a busy few days, I was looking forward to doing a little blogging.  Imagine my shock to read about the unexpected passing of Missey Gray.  She was a fellow AO user, and was in fact using the same year plan I have been using with my oldest.  I am surprised by how greatly the news of her death has affected me.

 

This was taken from Pattycake's entry on March 2:

 

Yesterday (March 1) Missey went in to get her stress test that she's been getting every 2 weeks.  The test showed that Missey was loosing amniotic fluid and that she had lost enough of it for  it to be alarming. That's when they decided to go ahead and take the baby.

After they lifted the baby from her body, some of the amniotic fluid got into her blood stream and caused a blood clot, which is what caused her death. She never came out of surgery. Her mil said that this only Happens 1 in 200,000.

She said that the girls are holding up OK. She said that they all slept, no clung, together in their bed last night. The oldest got up at one point and asked if little Nathan could also sleep with them, so they moved him into the bed with the 3 girls. She said that Tom is just in a daze. He has gone to the hospital this morning to be able to feed the baby.

 

Tom and Missey had chosen a name for the baby, but after Missey passed on they decided to name the baby Melissa Kate.

 

 

     I visited her blog for the first time this morning, and was struck with the feeling of time being somewhat suspended there.  Aside from the fact that there are over 100 comments on her last entry offering condolences and words of love and comfort to the family, the actual post, which was written on Wendesday morning as she was headed to her doctor's appointment, seems so normal.  Just another update from the life of a loving homeschooling mom and her family.

     If you have a chance, visit the Company Porch to read a very touching tribute to Missey.  It is obvious from all of the wonderful things written there that Missey made a difference in all the lives she touched, including those of her many online friends who looked to her for encouragement and advice.  What a beautiful soul she is, and how greatly she will be missed.

     Please, keep her family in prayer.  As a mother of young children (of similar ages to the Gray children), it is heartbreaking for me to think of what her husband and little ones (as well as other family members) are going through at this time.

     Life is so fragile.  May we all be reminded that none of us is guarenteed a tomorrow.  Let us make the most of our todays to love our husbands and children and to make a difference for the Lord with the time He gives us here.

 

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     Please pray for a little girl named Emily who will be having surgery tomorrow.  Pray for her family in this difficult time.

    Thanks to Amy (Dandelion Seeds) for mentioning this urgent request.  If you would like to sign up to pray at a specific time tomorrow, go to Amy's Prayer List for Emily.

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     Amy at Dandelion Seeds has been asking for prayers for a little girl named Candace who is very sick.  Please visit her family's website to read the details of her very serious illness.  She is scheduled to have surgery today; please keep her in your prayers throughout the day.  If you would like to commit to a specific time during the day to pray, sign up for Amy's prayer list.