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:)

Fort Mountain: The Main Event

Have you ever prayed sometimes for years, and wondered if the Lord is going to come through for you? Have you ever wept for someone else that had a need, a desire, a want for a relationship and it looked like they might be waiting forever? Yet we cling to the promises of God that what two or more agree on touching the heart of God will be answered. Fort Mountain, Georgia, was where it started and Fort Mountain, Georgia was where we joined together to see an answered prayer.

We go on a home-church retreat to cabins at Fort Mountain State Park each year whenever possible. The scenery is so beautiful the cabins are great and being with friends and family just can’t be beat. We end each night with food together, prayer, worship, beautiful and glorious music and whatever the Spirit leads us to do or share. Some years back one brother had a burden for another brother, Mike, who was single and so wanting a wife. We gathered around this precious brother and prayed that the Lord send his help-mate, soul-mate and that he would find love.

A lot of times when we pray, we think, that’s it. We might even assume to know God’s timing, “Well, next year this time, Mike will have his wife,” we say.

That is our timing, but the Lord may have different timing as I well know. When Bill married me, he wanted a baby nine months after we got married and it took nearly eight years for that prayer to be answered but that is another story, for another day.

It was many years later that the word came to us that there was going to be a surprise engagement on the top of Fort Mountain. This year Mike had found the love of his life and she was coming from Puerto Rico to join us at the mountain gathering. To God be the Glory!

He wanted all of us to be there when he asked her the big question and to share in their joy! Oh the fun we all had keeping the secret, getting together and making the long trek to the top of the mountain overlook. When he got down on his knees with that unique jewelry box, she grabbed him and we weren’t sure if she was ever going to let go. Praise the good Lord; it did us all good to be a part of the joy that comes from the manifestation of the previous prayers.

Earlier in the day, I’m told that Raquel thought that Mike wasn’t ready to commit to a relationship yet. What she didn’t know was on his previous visit to meet her family in September he had asked permission for her hand. The lovely thing she told us later also was her whole family had been praying for this coming of her Prince Charming. And a special little niece had been praying since she was five years old! Wait on the Lord, I say, again, wait. He has good things for us all and He isn’t done yet.

For pictures go to my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/donna.c.tinsley?ref=tn_tnmn