prayer

Tonight is our monthly prayer meeting with our group of friends. Is it a coincidence that I visited my friend Amy's blog this morning and read this? Probably not.

I have been doing some praying and waiting of my own lately, about a few different circumstances, and waiting is hard. I have been losing patience and giving in to feelings of sadness and helplessness, and Amy's reminder that God hears us was like a heavy seed sinking into my heart. I closed my eyes and reflected on that for a moment. God hears us. God hears us. God. Hears us. Hears me.

And that brought to mind a memory verse I learned years ago (I had to look up where exactly it is found in the Bible, but I had memorized it in a sing-songy rhythm that brought back every word in my mind):

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we ask of him." - 1 John 3:14-15

I know that prayer is not a formula for getting everything I want. God is personal, he is relational, and following him is more like following a person than following a recipe or a list or a math problem. We don't always (or even often) know the end result. And I can get so focused on the end results of things that I miss this point: that God hears me. That he loves me. That he has a will, he knows the future and the end result, and he has all the power and control that I grieve over not having. So in all my limitedness and powerlessness, I can rest in God's nearness and His very real, very close and loving concern for me.

So often we weep and rail and rage and demand answers. But often (usually?) God's response to me is not an answer but a relationship. We want facts, He offers us Himself. And man, that really is so much better anyway.

Eternal Love

The flowers I chose for my mother's casket were unknowingly the same ones from her wedding bouquet, pink roses and daisies. Oh to be blessed with the vision of the beautiful bride stepping into glory to be united with the bridegroom. Thank You, Lord.

My God is good to me.

The blind will see, literally!!

This past weekend I participated as a leader in a kids retreat. It dealt with some pretty heavy stuff and we really pressed into the Presence of God too. Kids are capable and desire so much more of the Lord than we give them credit for!

In one of the sessions a young girl who was deaf in one ear was completely healed! These precious kids were set free from a lot of junk that weighed them down. And bless the Lord, He uses free people to free people!

At the end of a retreat like this we always have a celebration service, and this time we felt as if these kids were supposed to pray for those who needed healing. After inviting people to the front, immediatly I saw Tao and his dad, Dan. I know Tao, he's a precious boy, about 8 years old. I know he's had tumors on this brain, and I know that he has been blinded by them, and he uses a cane to find his way. Another thing I know of Tao is his faith in the healing power of Jesus Christ is greater than anyone else's I know. This boy has faith. So a dozen kids, armed with the Holy Spirit and a new found freedom in Christ started praying for Tao. Little girls were weeping tears of intercession at his feet, while boys declared that his sight return in the Name of Jesus. And wouldn't you know that it worked. God healed Tao and all of a sudden he is telling us how many fingers we're holding up! Hallelujah!!! Tao could see!

What a sight to see him declare that his vision was coming back, and to trust in the full restoration by breaking his cane and throwing it in the trash! His vision has increasingly improved all week following as well!

All glory, honor, and praise be to our God forever! The deaf will hear, and the blind will see, let us believe!!! May faith arise as you read this! Amen!

Applebees, really?

"And, God, thanks for Applebees."

He can't be serious. My husband did not just thank the good Lord above for our Applebees dinner.

Yes, he did.

Especially since we had just watched a (marriage-valuing, yet slightly inappropriate) movie the night before that had a whole set-up and pay-off involving Applebees.

Here are the facts:

1) Minutes before leaving on our big family road trip, my husband says "Hey, should I grab that Applebees gift card that's been sitting in the drawer for months and months?" He grabs the gift card.

2) En route from Atlanta to Michigan, we stop in Knoxville overnight. Pulling off of the highway into the hotel parking lot, my 4-year old sees a sign and shouts "Applebees!" Brand recognition or emergent reader, we'll never know.

3) The hotel key card has an offer for 10% off your Applebees bill.

4) We were hungry.

5) We walk in to the Applebees and, lo and behold, it's kid's night. $1.99 kids meals and a craft table. Does it get any better?

6) Our total bill with tip ended up being $7.26 for 4 very full bellies and a take-out box.

That's something to be thankful for!

our carpool friend

This year was the first year our family has done *real* school. Yeah, yeah, we've had 2 years of preschool a few blocks away, but this was the real deal.

Kindergarten.

Overall, we were very excited. But the one question mark, the one point that still made me nervous, was the drive. I really wanted to find a good family to share the driving. Even though the school is just 6 miles away (pretty close for our area), sharing the gas, time, and energy seemed like the right thing to do. What seemed like common sense was to be a way that God showed my family his blessing.

So I put a little notice on the school's yahoo group asking for interested families in our neighborhood. All the while, I'm wondering, "do I really trust a stranger to transport my often volatile daughter in a motor vehicle?"

Well, just one family responded. And listen to this. The family lives less than one mile from my home. The family has an older girl (that the child be older was crucial because my sedan couldn't accommodate another carseat, that the child was a girl was just a bonus). As for the trustworthiness, I took it as a good sign that the family is part of the exact church where I was baptized as a baby. The mother is also a nurse, so I felt that my daughter was in good hands.

So for the past few months, we've been sharing rides in the afternoons and it's been a huge blessing! The girl has even expressed an interest in babysitting in the future and I feel like we're setting a good foundation for that.

Thank you, God, for providing our carpool friend!

Here's the kindergartner herself, shortly after school started this past fall.

Blessing the King of the Universe

I started a new book and will probably want to share way too much about it, so bear with me :). It's called Blessing the King of the Universe, written by Irene Lipson. It explains using traditional Jewish blessings to transform your life, basically how to praise God. I thought I'd share one today. I won't write in Hebrew because none of us could pronounce it.

"Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us and brought us to this season"

This one can be used simply when you see the beginning of something new, like today when I saw my first flower bulbs coming up. It can also be used at the beginning of special occasions. Jesus would have said it at the beginning of every Passover.

So here's some thoughts I had...

"kept us alive" - sometimes we take living for granted. God gives us each day that we have and we should use it to the fullest.

"sustained us"- God is with us through every pain. Sometimes the pain around us seems unbearable, but He is always there to bring us through.

"brought us to this season"- The author says today is a door to a new season and we must go through it. Each season in our life we are brought to by God. We must choice to move through it and live each day. Philippians 3 says forget what's behind and strain towards what lies ahead.

Lord, help us to see you in the everyday events of our lives. Help us to lean on you in the hard times and rejoice in the new seasons of our lives. Blessed be your name!

Money at the end of the month

My envelopes were totally empty. I needed like $6 for some other boy scouts stuff--- boy scouts involves more money than I thought it would, but Michael absolutely loves it. It also involves a lot more women than I ever thought, but that's for another blog:) I had bought my tax software after searching 4 stores to find it "cheapest" at WalMart for $58 w/ tax!! Yuck! Having a business costs so much money- no wonder things cost so much...all those taxes! Anyways, I had it on hold in my closet for a week but I wanted to do my taxes. Okay, I'll take one more stab at it and try nextag.com. They had the same one listed for $36 on amazon.com. I had it on my computer in 5 minutes! I hopped in the car and returned the one from Walmart and was never so happy to see 22 dollars. Oh what you can do with 22 dollars at the end of the month!! Praise Jesus!!:) I celebrated with a candy bar...a FULL priced one!