On a Foreign Battlefield

This is a story about Ben. He enlisted in the army and went to fight in the Gulf War. Back home in Texas he knew that his parents were praying for him. Then it happened!! During a fight, he was taken from his troop by an Iraqi soldier. He didn't know if he would live or die. He prayed and asked God to help him. Then he remembered that his parents were praying for him, too, and he asked God to let his parents know that they needed to be praying for him. Back home in Texas at about the same time, though it was about 2:00 am their time, his mother was awakened with an urgent need to pray for her son. The Iraqi soldier left and Ben was able to return to his troop.

The scripture reading, Exodus 17: 8-16, talks about how Moses lifted his hands up to the Lord during the battle the Israelites were having with the Amalekites. Every time that Moses dropped his hands, the Amalekites were winning and every time Moses lifted his hands, the Israelites were winning.

It doesn't say it in this reading, but I believe that Moses was raising his hands in prayer to God. I believe that our prayers give strength and power to God and the angels. I don't believe that God needs our prayers, but he does want us to have a relationship with Him and prayer is a means of communicating with God. It is a means for us to ask and for Him to give. I do believe that prayers gives the angels power to protect us and guide us. We need prayer, to be able to pray for ourselves and each other!!! I don't know if I have told any of you this, but there has been a few times when I have woken up during the night wide awake and have the urge to pray. I don't know who I am praying for or what for or why, but I pray. Maybe I'll get the answer someday in heaven.

1 Timothy 2:8 "I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing."
Psalm 134:2 "Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord."

God is in Control

I decided this time, I'd post the scripture reading first (since that's easy to do and I know not everyone gets to the Bible prior to reading the blog):

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

A Time for Everything

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Above all - we need to know that we do not determine these times - God does. And we need to remember that he is in control.

In this story, Miranda, 67, is losing her elderly mother, who initially had a series of ministrokes and then a nurse gave her the wrong meds and put her in a coma. Miranda, in her grief, is visited by a man and reminded that God is in control. She finds peace in this and can put aside her blame of the nurse.

I really don't want to even imagine losing anyone close to me (us). I think the closest loss was Kelly - and that was hard. I truly hope and pray we all live to a healthy old age and die of natural causes. But I also hope and pray that no matter what happens, and when it happens, that we can all have peace in God to get through it.

Angel in the Police Car

Angels come to us in many different forms and in this story as Kara was driving home she found herself falling asleep and prayed to God to keep her awake. God answered this by having a police officer pull her over and lead her to a rest stop. I can think of a couple moments where I was almost falling asleep while on a long drive and having my phone suddenly go off waking me right back up. While in those moments I don't think of God as being the one who interfered but I'm grateful that He's looking out for me. Some days I struggle finding faith but it's in moments like these that help to reassure that He is looking out for us.

A Mother Who Sees

I believe the point of this week's message is the power and strength in mothers and how important they are to the family unit. This weeks bible passage is about a wife who cares for her family, is strong, smart, capable, and follows the Lord. The weekly reading was about a mother who encouraged and supported her son in everything. As mothers we have a lot of responsibility in raising our children to know God and to be strong people. We play a critical role in the development of our children. I think it serves as a good reminder that if we stay positive and do our best, our children will follow suit. As they say, "Monkey see. Monkey do." If we want our children to have a good relationship with God, then we need to make sure WE have a good relationship with God.

The Miracle of Love

This morning as I was working, cleaning the house, I was thinking how thankful that I am for all 10 of my children. How thankful that I am that everyone gets along. None of us are perfect. We all have our irritating traits, but we all love each other and accept each other for who we are and for that I am thankful. (Sorry, but I am feeling thankful and sentimental this morning.) What started all this thinking was thoughts of birthdays and birthday gifts and celebrating birthdays and that being someone's special day during the year because yesterday at work I was talking to one of my workers and she feels the same way about birthdays that I do though they celebrate 1/2 birthdays in their family and yearly birthdays, too, and I thought how could we ever do that in our family when everyone is so busy and I was wondering if I had ever hurt any of you in any way by forgetting to do something for your birthday that I had done for someone else. I have always thought that a gift, cake, and eating out or making a special meal shows you that you are special and loved and I have always tried to do that for everyone. I like to make sure that someone is getting at least 1 cake anyway (now when we are older, 1 is enough :-) and sometimes we get to celebrate with extended family, like this year, we had the pleasure of being invited to celebrate Greta's and Meghan's birthdays with their parents. Now when everyone is so busy and the family is growing, it's hard to get together more often than we do and I don't always remember if we have gone out to eat for your birthday or not. (I know that we did not get out to eat this year for Denise's birthday.) We had talked about getting together monthly to celebrate birthdays. I want each of you to know that if I ever hurt or upset you in anyway I am sorry and in the future, please let me know as otherwise I won't know to do it differently or what I have done. If there is something that I forget, please remind me. I am going to pray that we would always be considerate of each other and accept each other for who we are and that we would all be able to talk to each other honestly and in love if we are ever hurt.

Then I got this strong urge to read the next reading in our book and it wouldn't go away, so I finally decided to sit down and read it.

I don't know who all is reading the book yet, but I would encourage everyone to read this story or if you talk to someone and they haven't read this story, encourage them to. It's a good true story that could happen in any family and I have read this story before. It's about unconditional acceptance and love. The scripture reading 1 Corinthians 13, we often hear at weddings, but don't take the time to read it very often. It's about love and it's a scripture reading that I know I should be reading often.

A Gift of God

This reading has to do with prayer. In Samuel 1:1, Hannah prayed that God would give her a son and God answered her prayers. In the book, Jared prayed for a blonde, brown-eyed girl. That was his heart's desire, though he was willing to leave it in God's hands and accept and love whatever child God would give them. I can't help but think that even though he was openly willing to accept whatever child God had in mind for them, don't you think he still secretly said, but God, if there is a blonde, brown-eyed girl, remember me!! The bible does tell us to pray continually and for everything and that is what God wants us to do. He also wants us to have a relationship with Him and to know Him and the only way we can do that is through reading and praying and sharing with others. The bible also says that God wants to give us the desires of our heart. Now, having said that, I think we need to examine our heart and motives when we pray for something that we want because it is in our nature to be selfish and want things that we want and don't necessarily need and aren't in line with God's will. I believe that if we pray for and ask for things that are also in line with God's heart and God's desires, those prayers will be answered. We have to remember, that the answer might not always be what we want or expect, but I believe that God will answer with what is best for us and we may not fully understand His answers until someday when we are in Heaven. I do believe that God wants to give us the desires of our heart while we are here on earth. Sometimes, we just need to pray and say "God, your will be done". (When God does answer your prayer, share it with others because it affirms in your own mind that He answers prayer, it encourages others to pray and it brings glory to God.)

One Easter Sunday

I must admit that I do find it hard to see a deeper meaning other than the one that's on the surface. That you must have faith in God and follow his word, for He loves you and will always know what's right. However, I am struggling to see the correlation between the story of Bonnie falling into the pond and God saving her with the bible passage of Jonah.

Bonnie was a child who was just curious about the fish in the pond. While Jonah was summoned by God to go to Nineveh, he disobeyed and tried to travel to Tarshish. God caused the sea to go torrent and the sailors threw Jonah overboard. God chose to save Jonah by having a whale swallow him. While in the whale Jonah recognized that he should have just listened to God and followed his word. God forgave Jonah and had the whale carry him to land.

What did you all find from this passage and scripture? I'm curious about all of your insight and what correlation you pulled.