Prayer Time!

Good thing I pray more than I document praying....

Lord, I just spent 15 minutes or so cruising around random websites.  I think I'm being distracted, and I also think I don't know where to start.  I'd like to think that I pray enough about most things that I'm not way out of touch with you.  I hope that's true.  So, instead of talking to You about the many things, activities, and issues in my life, may I do something else?

May I talk to You about me?

In some ways, that may seem selfish.  However, it's not about asking things for myself.  I find that I am a complaining, discontent woman lately.  Because my heart is deceitful above all things, as You say (in Jeremiah 17:9), I really can't trust it.  The problem is that everyone else's heart is also deceitful, and I can't really trust them either.  What a dilemma!

So, how do I manage these complaints and this discontent?  How do I know when I am wrong?  Arrogant as I may sound, I may be too smart for my own good.  I often make sense.  :)  I can reason things through.  I certainly don't know everything, but I know a good many things.

Love, love, love!

If my ... 1 Corinthians 13 just popped into mind.  "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."  Am I loving the people--the leadership?--at Heritage?  Am I loving my husband's family?  How about my own sister?  What does it mean to love those people?  To NOT see their flaws?  Well, that can't be right, because You love us and You know all our flaws.  To not count their flaws against them?  That's much more like it.  The problem with that comes in the application.  To listen to them graciously...to see them with YOUR eyes and Your heart...to want the best for them, and to work to make that happen.  Yes!  That's what You have done for me.

Of course, Lord, I am finite and You are infinite.  If You listen to me so graciously, would You help my deaf ears to listen to You graciously on a daily basis?  Who am I supposed to "love" each day?  I really like my oldest daughter's focus on intentionality.  (I just looked that up, and it is in fact a word.)  Each day, may I "love" someone of Your selection for that day.  Something active and intentional.  Someone unexpected?  Someone for whom You have to give me the energy!!

Right now, I should go home and love my dog, who is awaiting his supper.  :)



Other Daughter!

Lord, now it's time to pray for my younger daughter.  I get the sense that she is doing really well at college, and for that I am so grateful.  Please bless her studies.  I have done the Jesuit education "thing," and I know it's challenging.  I also know that she can rise to the challenge!  Please bless her relationships and allow her to be a shining light for You in that place.  THANK YOU for having led her to a church where she can be comfortable.  I cannot wait to hear about it!  Please keep her physically and spiritually safe in the city.  You live there, too!  In fact, an urban ministry is something right up her alley, I think.  Meet her every need, and thank You again for providing for this wonderful education.  (P.S. It's expensive, Lord, and the savings in her college account have taken a big hit in this recession.  We are leaning on Your promise to provide where You guide.)  In the most excellent name of Jesus.  Amen!

Praying for Daughter

Lord, one of the wonderful things I love about my older daughter (not that this is not true for younger daughter as well, but that is another post) is her dependence on prayer.  She frequently texts me and asks me to pray for her tests at college.  I am in every instance honored and humbled.  So it is today as well.  She has a Developmental Psychology test today, a big one, since it is in the middle of the semester.  She mentioned it when we were up at the college for Homecoming/Family Weekend, and I remembered it last night and offered to pray for her.

The test happens in 11 minutes, Lord.  Please bless her faithful, trusting heart.  Thank You that she knows that her success ultimately comes from You and not from her own efforts.  Please grant her outstanding recall of the material as well as, and maybe more importantly, an ability to apply the material creatively and competently.  Help her to breathe deeply, to release any anxiety into Your hands, and to know that all her paths are directed by You.  For Your sake as well as for hers, may she please earn a great grade.  Most of all, may her strengths always be used by You for Your glory and the extension of Your kingdom.  Please encourage her, dear Lord, by success in this test and in this course.  In the name of Jesus Christ, in Whom all wisdom and knowledge resides.  Amen!

For Husbands

In the past week or so, the adventures of my youngest daughter have underscored the renewed urgency of praying for Godly husbands for my girls.  The ongoing friendships of my oldest daughter have prompted wonderings along that same line in the recent past.  Wow.  How did I get to this point in life?

That's a facetious question, of course.  As we adults raise our children to adulthood, we need to be very mindful of their eventual marriages.  I know I have prayed for their future husbands before, but I certainly have never been so impressed with the imminence of the need for that prayer than I am right now.  Better start praying in earnest!  I am a little more concerned about the pool of applicants for my younger daughter since she is not attending an openly Christian school.  Then again, I didn't go to a Christian college, either, and I didn't even meet my own husband in school at all.

Lord, You are Lord.  You are Lord of my daughters' lives.  I know they both love you with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strength.  Please lead each of them to the life partner that You have already chosen for them, and in the event that the life partner doesn't yet have a relationship with You, then please take my prayer and use it to lead him to Yourself.  In Jesus's name and for the sake of Your kingdom, Amen.

Answer to Two Prayers

My mother, a little on the elderly side but just about as sharp as ever, called yesterday.  That in itself is not unusual.  She asked about the girls, of course, but then she interrupted herself - that was funny - and announced that for the second month in a row, she has not needed an injection for her AMD.  Answer #1!  In fact, just a couple of months, or maybe three months, ago, she experienced a sudden decline in her vision.  We were both frightened.  I recall praying very hard for her over those few days, and begging the Lord to have mercy on her.  She was quite philosophically resigned to whatever the Lord's will for her might be, but there was a deep, disappointed sadness.  I couldn't blame her or preach to her.  I felt it myself.

Answer #2 was perhaps more surprising.  She said, in recalling her discussion with her ophthalmologist over this great news, "I wanted to ask him if he was a believer."  Haha!  She knows where this blessing originated!  And she is being prompted by the Spirit to make it public.  She was too unsure to ask the question--this time.  I think she might ask it on a future visit.

Outstanding, Lord.  SOOO cool not just that You do heal, even today, but that You are changing my elderly mother and making Yourself real in her life.  Thank You so much!  When the inevitable happens, we will have comfort.  Now--her husband, please?  ;)

Also, I want to piggyback on this prayer and ask for a good, strong, believing church in the Bronx for my YD.  Alternatively, a great Christian campus ministry would be completely acceptable.  She needs fellowship in order to stay close to You, Lord.  I know this is dear to Your heart as well.  Please lead her unmistakably to the right place.  In Your name and for Your sake I'm praying this.  Amen!

My Girls

(Just wiped out an entry.  Grrr!)

My daughters are growing up and away.  I don't hear from them often any more, although I think of them every day.  That's as it should be, I know.  It is an adjustment!  I come home exhausted, and I don't get many tasks done in the evenings.  :(  Even as I sit here and type this, I know I should get up and do a load of laundry.  So I just did!

It surprised me that my allrecipes.com blog received comments!  Someone even said, "Great blog."  I am both proud and disapppointed by this reaction to my posts.  The pride is self-explanatory, I suppose.  The disappointment comes from now being aware that others are reading my writing.  That is why I keep this blog secret!  It's therapy for me.  May I be for myself what I want to be for my clients: accepting, nonjudgmental, wise, insightful, loving, understanding.

Lord, I titled this "My Girls."  They, of course, are important to me and perhaps two of the few most important people in my life.  I want them to be certain always that I am interceding for them with You.  I want them to be secure in that certainty.  Most of all, though, I want them to have an intimate, obedient relationship with You.  Will you grant my request?  Especially right now, will you lead YD to the right church in the big (bad) city?  I think that's my "worry" since I know how tempting it might be for her to become lazy in her faith.  Bless them both bunches.  In Jesus's name, AMEN!

Mentoring the Coordinator

Dinner with Christine at Olive Garden on Monday, September 12:

• She is confident!
• She is insightful.
• She is a little prideful.  (This may come from being the youngest of four.)

Will flesh this out another time.

Just a Minute

That's about all I have...a minute.  I almost don't even want to record this, but it is most assuredly a matter for prayer.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY SISTER?  She behaved SO badly at Mom's house yesterday.  I cannot fathom what happened in her life, or in her relationship with Mom, that makes her so difficult.  Mom claims that it's because she was "Daddy's little girl," and I suspect that might be partly true.  Sis certainly learned at a young age that Dad would side with her in most face-offs with Mom.

Was there abuse?  Sexual abuse?  (I hate asking that.)  Is there depression?  I'd have to come down in the camp of a personality disorder of some type.

Treatment?  Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the one that keeps coming to my mind.  Of course, she probably wouldn't go.  She has such idiosyncratic interpretations and memories of things that reasoning with her is not only useless, but incredibly frustrating.

Lord, this is horrible.  I'm glad that Mom calms down when she talks to me.  She says so!  :)  But what about my sister?  Why did she even come up this way?  What is she hoping to accomplish by staying with Mom?  What is her purpose?  (if one accepts that all behavior has a purpose)  If her behavior is not driven by a purpose, then perhaps it is a response to something.  If I jump into traffic, for example, it may not be my purpose, but maybe someone pushed me.  ?????

Please intervene.  Give me, or better yet, them, some wisdom about how to rebuild their relationship.  Sister is not a happy person and has not been for years, probably decades.

What do You think about an antidepressant?  Is she really depressed?  Or is it "just" a personality disorder?

Help.  Please.  I hate family disharmony, and I think You do, too.

Way Too Long, and Way Too Much

Lord, I have so many things that I really want to talk over with You.  I have certainly been praying.  That never stops.  I haven't had much time to journal/post or whatever it should be called.  I like the recollection that looking back on these entries allows.

I just don't know where to begin.

Perhaps the first, or one of the first, may be the Junior Church program.  I will and I suppose I even must admit to a high degree of frustration and disappointment with Heritage over their treatment of children.  In a more accurate way, I might even call it their ignorance of children.  Not ignorance about, but the ignoring of them and their needs.  Lord, for years now I have said that Heritage needs at least a part-time, paid Christian Education director.  It has been hinted that the new youth pastor may eventually take on the entire Christian Education program.  God help us...God, help us!  I do love the children, and I love teaching You and Your word to them.  I am getting older and much more tired.  Working full time is also hard.  I don't have as much time to do the multiple, myriad things that would make Junior Church as effective as possible.

Well, enough about the overall picture and on to this summer.  Please, Lord, help us to put the summer schedule together smoothly and easily.  I feel overwhelmed (see above regarding the multiple, myriad things) by even thinking of what needs to be done, and soon.  Help me to strategize and prioritize the first, and only the first, thing.  (A July schedule for staffing PreK/K and the large group?)

Lord, my eyes are not focusing well right now, probably due to fatigue.  DH is not home yet.  He's undoubtedly more fatigued than I am.  So, prayer request #2 (not in order of importance, Lord) is his stamina. 

He's home!!

New Favorite

My new favorite for several reasons!

 

I will need to spend some more time on this entry since I don't have a lot of time right now.  It looks increasingly like our younger daughter is being called by God to this school.  (So much for my former preference.)  This is an exercise in listening to God revealing His will and saying, "Not my will but Thine be done."  That is my prayer, Lord.  May it be ever more true as I submit my will to Yours.

College Considerations



My preference....


Yes, I do admit it.  I hope fervently that my YD will choose BC!  I think it is the best choice for her future, and I think I am not terribly biased because it is my alma mater as well.  Lord God, You are Lord and God.  I know that my daughter loves You and wants to serve You.  I also know that she listens to You, and that You speak to her.  So, I ask You to guide her in the path which You have chosen for her regardless of my opinion!  You know her future.  You know her heart, her talents, her gifts from You, and her calling.  Help her to make the right decision.  In Jesus's name and for the sake of Your kingdom I pray...Amen.

TOO LONG

I have perhaps 20 minutes to write here and try to capture some prayer ideas.  (I'm afraid if I just sit with my eyes closed and "think," I'll drift off to sleep.)

If I do try to rest in the heart of God, what do I sense? 

• Marriages in trouble (clients)
• Women who do not feel cherished by their husbands
• Children (Joey P) who are not cherished by their parents
• Children (John L) who are not understood by their parents or teachers
• My own husband's sacrificial toil at a distant job for the sake of our daughters' education
• A messy, violent, vicious world (a Bangladeshi teen of 14 tender years whipped to death for "adultery" when it was really rape)
• A call to rest--really rest, really trust, really surrender all the anxiety about the future of my daughters (education, spouses) and my husband (almost 50 and tiring intellectually)

This reminds me of me.  I am on a journey, and I need to stop from time to time and rest.  Love the dog companion, although I wish it was a Sheltie!

(Oops.  DH came home earlier than I expected and surprised me!  Since this and my other blog are totally private, between God and me, I closed out without officially logging off.  I am so grateful that a draft was saved!  But I'm at work now and can't spend too much time.  :(  Later--and I crave this time.)

Big Addition!

THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI IN JAPAN!

Dear God, this is major.  I am trying to read through the Old Testament this year, and I have encountered so many instances of Your disciplining Your people through wars and natural phenomenon.  May we all--Japanese and others--turn to You with all our hearts in this disaster.  And--Maranatha, Lord!!



More to Pray About

1. My student Lindsey and her sister
2. My older daughter's graduate school decisions
3. My younger daughter's college decisions
4. Sick kids and adults all over!
5. Clients
6. My own relationship with God

Prayer Journal

So much to do today--and I have called in sick with a slight headache and a slight sore throat.  For today, I'll just outline some things on my heart and share them with God's heart.  Love you, Lord.  Take these?

1. MOPS Steering Committee meeting March 24
1. Anna Harvey
2. Roles for everyone
3. Kathryn Dennett
4. Jackie Pawlowski
2. Husband!
3. Daughters
1. Husbands for them?
2. Julie's college choice
4. HBC Children's Ministry
5. MOPS on Thursday
6. Mother/stepfather: Alzheimer's