Thankful

I know the road is hard ahead, but I am amazed how you have opened the path before me, prepared the people around me, given me so many possibilities that it astounds me at the moment. I dare to hope. I dare to believe things can change; more specifically that I can change. There are pitfalls and many challenges ahead. But this time I am ready to fight for my life and you have given me a helicopter, rowboat and safety net so clearly that I would be a fool not to see it. I don't know why you find me deserving (even though I have prayed for your mercy here for years!) with so many who have not had this chance, but I am so grateful, Father, so appreciative how you have worked this out so perfectly. Oh how wonderful it is to see your hand in this and how you carefully laid things out as they should be when the time was right. You sent people who you knew would understand the complexities of who I am, who have told me they will believe until I can see it myself, who have been where I am now, who want to help me. Thank you. Thank you. Be with me on this long and arduous journey but help me to remember you are always by my side, ever present, that I can do all things through you who saved me, that I will get on my knees every morning and not forget you are the one who orchestrated this, who worked through the people and arranged the scenario I could never have even dreamed of.

I can do this. I will do this.

The Lighted Path

Lord,
I do feel as if you have lit the path before me clearly. The long stretch of waiting and wondering feel as if they are coming to an end and I am astounded how things seem to be working out. Of course they come with fears of their own, but Father! How you have set in place, seemingly, a team of people who can help me, and in addition the chance to write, and even better, perhaps a way to help other women along the way who struggle with these same things. I am awestruck and overwhelmed. Please be with me as I go through this journey. It will be long and I'm sure full of pitfalls that this time I hope to finally overcome with the help you are placing around me. Thank you Lord.

Thanks also for a great trip to California; intense, productive and a great time with my brother. You have used him to be so instrumental in this new journey as well and I grateful! As much as he knows you, I see how so very far he has to go to have the peace and understanding I have had the luxury to gain by your grace and the many studies I have taken which has helped me understand you further. You have graced him with so much brilliance it is hard for him to understand it all, as it has always been all his life he searches for his purpose in you even though he has had incredible worldly success, known by many, yet he still feels scared. Still wonders in confusion at time. Happiness has always been an elusive thing in our family. I pray we find it in completeness with you and that we continue moving forward towards it until we do so or you take us home.

Ben is in a tough place once again. Feeling like he's not fitting in which has plagued him all his life. Oh Lord, pry open his heart more fully. You and I know how deep that goes within him in such incredible ways. Let the love more fully flow in and out. I pray he allows you to guide him, that he allows himself to feel your peace, acceptance, complete love, that he will realize you do not condemn and judge him as he does himself, that he value himself as you (and I) do. Ignite his passion again, get him through this time. Comfort and encourage him and give me the right words to say that can in some way help him through. Send him someone he can relate to outside this home. He is the love of my life and he has so much to give that he can't see himself. Show him, Lord. And give him strength until he sees it himself.

Be with Chris. Be in Chris. Push him forward into a better life with you and give him more meaning in life than what he has. There is so much more! I pray people will not give up on him and will extend grace to him as you have, as unmerited as he deserves it.

Forgive me when I spend too little time with you. Forgive me my pride and when I am a hypocrite in my faith. Help me to be all that you want me to be. Help me to be a vessel for you, as fragile as I am in ways, and to reflect who you are to others. Forgive my weaknesses, my lack of faith, my abusing this temple as I have. I pray you can move me forward in these areas so I can be more of what you want me to be and go where I need to go. Help me to be fearless and to have the inner strength to fight in the many areas I need to, but with grace and love and dignity.

Help me to always remember I am a child of the king, no matter what others think of me.

Oh yeah - and thanks for the rain we had. Our grass was like straw no matter how we tried to water it, so the soaking 24 hour rain was a gift. Be with us as we enter hurricane season in a few days as well. Oh Lord, so many calamities all over the world I feel guilty for even asking you anything. Be with all those who are in such dire need of you.

All these things I ask according to your will.

Amen

Surrender

So I'm trying hard to be at that point of surrender, Lord. I have felt a change coming in my life for some time now, and it is as if I am finally at the bend where it really is going to happen. Please be with me through the changes and decisions ahead. It's exciting and daunting at the same time and I try to stay in a state of surrender, but boy is that hard at times.

Thank you for the possibility of help in restoring my health to the way it should be. A lot, if not most, will be in my hands and after constant failure in this area for years it's scary to have hope, but I know it is your will for me to do so and I must lean on you all the more.

I am so excited about the possibility of a writing venture with my brother. Please be with me as I go through this process. What a blessing!

Thank you for working through me as I wrote and debated Pastor K through email. He thanked me for the "theological exercise", said I had done a great job and called me a theologian! Imagine that. I replied that was the best compliment I had received all day! But really, you gave me the words to say (from your very Word!) that helped him to understand things in a different way from my point of view and he didn't refute it! I am grateful for that, as well as strengthening my thoughts on the matter that you helped point me to.

Be with me as I travel to Los Angeles next week. My brother is hungry to hear of you and my being his only spiritual feed puts pressure on me to say the right thing, so I lay it at your feet. You have already worked great things in him for you the past couple of years and I just want to raise my hands and say "hallelujah"! I pray the trip will be good time together for many reasons, but mostly for that. If you can use me to get him closer to you than it would be answered prayer indeed.

I pray for the thought that entered into my mind about the new half way house for girls who need someone to help with Bible studies on Sunday nights. Having a bit of experience in this now which seems to be going well, there was a catch in my heart (from me or from you?) that maybe I could do this for teenage girls. Of course in the next nano-second I thought "No, I couldn't handle that." and I do wonder if I am ready to give a study with unbelievers or perhaps even young girls who don't really want to be there. And yet. And yet.... I so want to get outside of the church walls. I don't want to always only be preaching to the choir, you know? You told us to go out in the community. It's the Great Commission, but I've been (am) so scared sometimes. So please help me to be discerning here.

I pray you make a way for Ben to find a Christian school near his job so that he can go back to school and study about YOU! Talk about a theologian - he would be such a good candidate for that and he has such a yearning to learn about you and your word. I pray if it is your will you will make it so for him.

As always I pray for my son, that you will mature him, reveal yourself to him, that he will find his identity in you and not of this world where he continually looks for validation. Oh I pray for my son, Christopher, to see you and life and his family in a new and different way. Lift the veil, Lord!! And at the same time I am so grateful for all the good things about him, that you gave him caution that has stopped him so many times from doing things he should not, that we communicate, that he has a good sense of humor. Oh, if only he had eyes for you as well. But surely our many conversation will help plant the seeds which will be harvested for you in time. I keep telling him to continue to ask the big and hard questions. You're big enough to take them! So please give him an answer, Father. Oh how I pray that this is so.

One more little thing. Or should I say two. Though I pine to be in a place where I can have dogs again, I sure do thank you for my two cats, Lucy and Georgie, who have been constant friends and companions for over a decade. Georgie will be 13 this month by the grace of you, and they add such measure and meaning to my life. Thank you that they are still in good health.

And all God's people said.

Amen.