Please Pray

Would you please pray for the Hughes family?

Pam Hughes was a friend of mine - we compared notes on homeschooling through the years. 

She had been quite ill - but was on the road to recovery.

She passed away this morning, and is in the arms of Jesus right now.

Please pray for her husband and five children. They need God's grace more than any of us can imagine.

Thanks.

Sunday Sentiments: When the Answer is "Yes"

Many, if not most of you have heard already.

Dearest Kathryn received a Presidential Scholarship to Samford University here in Birmingham.  While it won't cover all of tuition, the award she received, along with her University Fellows scholarship, gives us enough confidence that the Lord is indeed directing her steps there.  (Although she's still in the running for 3 more scholarships - so keep praying!!)

But that's not what this post is about, ultimately.

It's about what happens to a dry, parched, and withered heart when God pours the wellsprings of "Yes" to water the thirsty ground.

Many, if not most, of you also know that our family has been on a 3+ year journey of God deepening our faith through. . . . . . unanswered prayer.  It's not much of a secret that we've been in what Paul Miller* calls 'a desert experience' - a desert where it has appeared there is no way out, we don't know when it will end, and there's no relief in sight.

But while we're in the desert, we've clung tenaciously to the belief that God has not abandoned us - although it has certainly, to our human frailty, appeared that way sometimes.  We're stubbornly believing that God is weaving a story in our lives, one that will ultimately bring Him glory and honor.  In the words of Peter, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life."  (John 6:68)

Which doesn't make it easy.  I've written before about my latest temptation - the temptation to give up hope.  Lately, though, God has allowed hope to spring in my heart - a tender, frail seedling of hope - rooted in Who He is, not what He will do for us.

And so.  When this "Yes" came, this much desired, prayed-for, hoped for "Yes". . . . . .

I bawled.  Like a baby.  Thankfully, in private. 

It was as if the waters of grace came spilling down from heaven, nourishing the seedling of hope, and overflowing in my heart.  And I am so thankful for a God who not only cares deeply about me knowing Him, but also for a God who cares about our situation.   A God who doesn't withhold blessings, but can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

All praise to God, who is writing the story of our lives.  May we watch, wait, and wonder in eager anticipation as He enables us to participate in His glorious kingdom.



*Remember how I told you to go find Paul Miller's A Praying Life?  I wasn't kidding.  Go read it!

On Trust, Hope, and Praying for Your Heart's Desire

Here we go!

Later this morning, our dear, wonderful, cherished eldest daughter will be interviewing at her top choice college, competing for a spot in the University Fellows program and for the Presidential Scholarship.  As in, full tuition.

It's been a long week for the mother, here.

I've been so torn - knowing this is where her heart's desire is, praying the Lord would allow favor.  And yet, as I've been praying for her, my faith has been bumping head-long into the smashed and shattered dreams of the past five years, all the time we have prayed and hoped and pleaded with the Lord regarding my husband's job situation, to be told "No" or "Wait" again and again and again.

Sometimes it makes praying tough.

Sometimes it makes trusting tough.

And yet. . . . . .

 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"  (Matthew 7:8-11)

 How often do my own kids ask for something they want with all their heart at the moment, and I know that in the long run it will be bad for them?  Or that they don't see the full picture, as to why I can't say "yes" at that time?  And that in saying yes to their desire, I would in effect be giving them the proverbial stone instead of the bread?

Do I not trust the God of all the Universe to do what is right?  Do I not know of the love, the lavish, profound love, that God the Father has for me? 

And more than that - do I not know how He loves my daughter so much more than I ever could?  He knows what she needs in all aspects of her life.  He can see her path and her future, and will work all things so that her life will be more and more conformed to the image of Christ.

And so.

I hope, and trust, and pray, and ask God fervently that she may do well this weekend.  Represent herself, her family, and her Savior with all that she is.  I pray that she may find favor with the interviewers, and that it would bring glory to God to provide her with the scholarships necessary to attend this university.

And yet, I rest.  Rest in the knowledge that God's ways are not our ways, and that His thoughts are much higher that our thoughts.  That He may direct our paths in very, very different ways that we would ourselves have chosen.

So join me, won't you?  Join me in praying - not for our situation alone (although I sure would appreciate it!) - but pray with abandon to a Father who loves you and wants to hear from you.  A Father who can be trusted to work all things for His glory. 

He can be trusted with your heart's desire.

**Can I recommend The Praying Life by Paul Miller?  It has really energized and changed the way I view prayer.**

for tonight

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive faill
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's
he makes me tread on my high places.

Praying for Yurii

Praying for my husband today - lots of big decisions to make in the next few days.

And rejoicing that God has given me a man of such integrity and honor, who seeks His will in all things. I am beyond blessed.