Breathe and pray extra today.

 Some days we need a few extra prayers. Many people in our families are hurting, emotionally, physically and financially. Lord, we ask that You be over all that concerns us and our loved ones. We ask for special favor, blessing, a touch from You, to be held in Your great Father arms when we weep.

I thank You, Father, that a day of great favor is coming for those who are clinging to You, watching for You and Your answers to our prayers. We ask that You search the hearts for the unspoken or secret petitions and that You help us to pray in line with Your will for us.

We sometimes can only breathe the name of Jesus as our prayer when things seem hard. Breathe and pray, breathe and pray and may your day be blessed. Thanking the Lord for each tender mercy that He sends us.

Today, we pray for the one who is already dreading Christmas because of their grief. Their feeling of loss because there is going to be someone missing from their table, life, their family this year. We pray that You, Lord, send great Father arms of comfort to them. Give them the gift of peace that can only come from You in Jesus’ name. Help them to get their eyes off their own situation and be a source of love and comfort to others.

When I was reading about the children of Israel in Exodus 3, I felt like the Lord had a word for us, too. I am paraphrasing it a bit.

And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Somebody's Mother Group and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, (The hurt and pain of the love they have for their family members who have are struggling) for I know their sorrows. So, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the of the enemy and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where you can have peace and praise the Lord

For the real deal read Exodus yourself.

TGIF!

 

Another Friday and many of you are on my mind. And the Lord’s. I pray He will be front and center in your life as we press on to more holidays. I pray you don’t get sucked into the “buy, buy, buy” mode and forget that your presence may be the best present ever. Live your life in a way that will make people want to be around you. Remember where you came from.

We pray especially for unspoken requests for families today. Families may be a source of pain, at times, but families can also be a source of healing. Choose which one you want to be.

 

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make it count for good. Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together, forever.

Sunday quotes and a blessing.

 

My soul is a broken field plowed by pain. ~ Sara Teasdale

 

Her past was a tragedy to lament, but her future was an epic to anticipate.

( Mark Buchanan)

He won't brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won't disregard the small and insignificant, but he'll steadily and firmly set things right.  Isaiah 42:3 The Message

 

Three quotes, with the third ending in hope. More than hope even is faith, that regardless of the hurt, the Lord is on the move to set things right in your life. May you be blessed this Sunday and every day this week. Blessed for your service, blessed for your kindness and blessed for the love you pay forward to others in Jesus’ name.

Grief is learning to dance with the limp

 

“Grief is just love with no place to go.” Jamie Anderson*

 

"You will lose someone you can't live

without, and your heart will be badly broken,

and the bad news is that you never completely

get over the loss of your beloved. But this ...

is also the good news. They live forever in

your broken heart that doesn't seal back up.

And you come through. It's like having a broken

leg that never heals perfectly--that still

hurts when the weather gets cold, but you

learn to dance with the limp."

― Anne Lamott

 

Learn to "dance with the limp."

I love that line but I know it's easier said than done and on Saturdays we pray strongly for those who grieve. Sometimes we grieve those we lost and sometimes we grieve those still among us that seem lost to us. Put your "little faith" together with mine and we will get through it, even if.

* Quote from Tending Dandelions

Praying for families in recovery today.

 “Family connection is harm reduction.” Michael Nolan

It’s Thursday and a great day for recovery for your family. No one said it would be easy but anything good is worth working towards. Yes, a day at a time, as speculating about the future can be overwhelming. Praying for anyone who needs a jump-start, anyone hitting a wall, and anyone who has the glow of finally getting it and overcoming, today.

Change comes. Change hurts, sometimes. Change must occur for help to come. A phrase I use a lot it seems is “Nothing changes if nothing changes.” It’s recovery related and can mean, if you keep doing the same old things expecting different results, it’s not going to happen. Change is essential to life. And life as we know it, will never be the same, it seems. But it can be better in Jesus’ name.

Just as there is no "one way" to recovery, there is no one way to be their family, either. My motto is "Do what you can live with." Some days I can live with what would be entirely impossible to live with for an entire life. That's why we do it one day at a time. In my case and many others, it's with the Lord. So let His praise ever be on our lips this day as we pray for those in a recovery walk and those who need to be. Open their eyes to reality and that there is always help available if they want to be well.

Praying for families, today

 A good thought from Chuck Swindoll: 'What seems frustrating and wrong and unfair is not the end of the story. It is just the end of a chapter."

"My story is more than the sum of my experiences. It is more than what I have seen and done and endured. It is more than what has happened to me.

I, too, am more than the sum of my chapters. I am more than my past or my present or my future. I am more than my history, forgotten or remembered.

I am His.

No matter what.

And that is my story."--Alece Ronzino

Lord, we wanted to live happily ever after, but You alone, will be our happiness. Let us look for that today as it is Monday, a good day to praise the Lord as we pray for families and those who love them. And for those in a season of grief or experiencing a recent loss of a loved one, or the death of a dream, please hold them close, Jesus.

Please send Your strength, help and protection to families, today. Please give us vision and hope as we look to You. And as always, I pray You wrap Your great Father arms around the one who is hurting the most.

Grief Prayers

 

 I read an article by Lori Hatcher and she put in a anonymous quote about grief that said, “I felt like my body had been cut open and all my happiness pulled out.”

 

Is there anyone else that can relate to that quote? As we go toward this week when on the 20^th it will be a year since I received the call that breaks a parent’s heart, it is very relatable to me.

 

We pray on Saturdays for those who have lost loved ones to death. The many senseless deaths in our nation and even our cities bring us once again to our knees. We must go back to the proverb of trusting the Lord with all of our hearts and leaning not on our own understanding. The evil is from the enemy of our souls. He is against our families, our nation and our very lives.

Many among us have lost loved ones, mates, children and young adult children. The most unnatural thing in the world they say is burying your child. I now, can attest to that as being so very painful.

 

Lord, send your strong father arms of comfort to those who are grieving.

Give them strong memories of good times with their loved one. Grief takes time and it is different for each person, so when we don't know what to say, praying is the best thing we can do. Though families are worn, give them new strength and vision for life. Give them the hope to press on and the ability to have joy again.

 

He is Faithful for our Families

One day I would love to sing this song, together with my family. Who could add words to lyrics like these? They are God-inspired and written by a brother who has paid his dues through pain and heartache, yet he sings on. How many of us will do the same?

It starts off:

"Here we stand, here we are

With all our wounds and battle scars

From all the storms and all the wars we’ve weathered together

We had no way of knowing when

We started way back there and then

How the road would twist and turn and bend

We just knew we belonged together

And if it wasn’t for God’s mercy and His grace

There’s no way we would be standing in this place

But because He has been faithful

Every step along the way

Here we are together."

Lyrics poignant to me are: "And we’ve crawled on our hands and knees

Through valleys cold and dark and deep

Sometimes not even sure if we could make it out alive together.

And if it wasn’t for God’s mercy and His grace

There’s no way we would be standing in this place

But because He has been faithful

Every step along the way

Here we are together, together."

I am so grateful that the Lord allows people to take the pain that they have suffered in life and create a beautiful song of hope to heal the brokenhearted. That is my prayer for today, hearts be healed, families by restored, and sweet comfort be given. Today!

"Together" by Steven Curtis Chapman

Repost of an old blog

 

I found this old blog and am reposting. I thought I wished my life was different back then, but would go back to it, if I could still have all my children alive. Tomorrow will be the eleven-month anniversary of Amber’s homecoming to the Lord.

Blog written several years ago.

 Right now I’m thinking of the kid’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, as a way to describe my day. Or maybe I’m having what may be called a Velveteen type day. I think this song is so poignant and I come back to it often.

When perfect (never quite, but that is the lyrics) turns to perfect mess and all I have is Your love, Lord, left, I’ll be as real as real can be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF29lM8Hz5I

 

But sometimes I’d rather live a different life, a better life, a life where good hair days are the norm and when you eat the proper amount of protein, you lose weight instead of gain it. Sometimes, I have to admit I want to be a Walton’s family where everyone takes turns saying “Goodnight” to their mom and dad and everyone is at home. You know where everyone you love is, and that makes you happy. Because you know they are safe.

A day like this is the kind of day where I go back and reread journals and find once again, wonderful quotes that enhance my day. And I’m hoping, maybe yours.

‘‘It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world’’—(Dorothy Dix) A quote like this is made for a  sister, a mother, a daughter among us and all the groups like Somebody’s Mother Online Prayer Support Group, Thrive, Silver Linings, Winning Women and others. One thing we all have in common is eyes washed clear with tears. Tears that shine like diamonds to the Lord and others who meet us.

“And I never knew if you were the lighthouse, or the storm.” (anon) I put that one in my journal. I feel something about it concerning Jesus as the Lighthouse but he also allows storms and brings us through the storm. But I also feel it deeply concerning people. Hopefully we can shine a light to help others through their storms. The storms of pain, trauma, and family division.

 

“Beginning today treat everyone as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the love, care and kindness you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.” (anon) If I choose to do this, I’m sure my life would totally change. It is something I aspire to do.

I’m still looking over an old journal and some of the letters I wrote to people over two years ago would make you cry. I know I’m writing through tears but  Glory to God! We’ve been through a whole lot more than a bad hair day and survived and even thrived. I’m grateful for every little bit of healing that Jesus has brought to our family and looking forward to much more.