Grace for the Day, May 19th, 2014

I am catching small glimpses of prayers being answered in ways that I would have never contemplated. The Lord is so much wiser than all of our ways of figuring things out, planning or controlling. He will not, He will not, He will not at all, He will not, no never, forget those things we have prayed. He will not forsake our children, He sees into their futures, He sees their hearts down deep. He will send help and He will send journey-mates. He sees and He does not forget the labor of love. Philip Yancey gives us the metaphor of a hearing aid: "pain gives us the opportunity to turn up the volume and pay attention to things that we might otherwise overlook." Listen to the whole interview go to Focus on the Family.

Parts of Psalm 30 sound great for today, as I remember last week just praying to be back safe from Oklahoma by today. The Lord has been so good to me and to you:

"I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up,
And have not let my enemies rejoice over me.

² 

O Lord my God,
I cried to You for help, and You healed me.

³ 

O Lord, You have brought up my soul from Sheol;
You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit.

⁴ 

Sing praise to the Lord, you His godly ones,
And give thanks to His holy name.

⁵ 

For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for a lifetime;
Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning...“Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me;
O Lord, be my helper.”

¹¹ 

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,

¹² 

That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever." Psalms 30

I am so grateful to my Lord, my family, my friends and will ever live to praise His name. Thanks to all for the birthday wishes.Bill gave me a gift early knowing it would be cold in Oklahoma and I could use a new coat. My girls were ready to bless me when I got home with cookies from Ashley, Regina sent a cake, macaroni salad and flowers, Amber worked on a 3-pasta sampler for me and Shiloh and Brian want to take me to lunch today. As you can see we eat for comfort around here, that's how my family rolls, I guess. Mama didn't live to be 63, she nearly made it though, and she used to say we have food on the brain:). I guess the Lord isn't quite through with me yet:) I didn't realize how rough and old a 19-hour car trip could make you feel but we have the Rhema graduates back in Port Orange now:)