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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

In Honor of our New Pope, Francis I

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.


O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

A New Spin on Prayer Requests



“…You do not have because you do not ask God. James 4:2

Update: Within one week, one very clear blessing was given.  Within two weeks, two other prayers were clearly answered.  This prayer board isn't going anywhere....

 

                My husband and I heard God calling and answered Him.  He wanted us to lead a couple’s prayer group in our home.  So last night, two couples joined us in our living room to discuss our spiritual backgrounds, our goals for the group, and some nitty-gritty passages from the Bible. 
                I am pleased to say that, although a small gathering, God brought the people He wanted to hear His message to our home last night.  I am looking forward to growing together, with one another, and hopefully, I can be a vessel he is calling my husband and I to be.
                One of my husband’s strengths as a leader is his ability to concoct some pretty out-of-the-box ideas.  When one of these ideas comes to fruition, the results are always beautiful.  Last night, at our first small group meeting, he introduced a new spin to the typical prayer request format.  When we were wrapping up our evening, my walked into another room and returned with a dry erase board.  He announced that instead of going in a circle, stating our prayer requests, he wanted us to each think of one thing we have been praying for.  He encouraged us to consider a prayer that is easily measurable, so that we can easily see the prayers answered.  The idea is to erase the request once it is answered, even if the answer isn’t what we had desired, and write a new one.  As each of us took our turn writing our prayer request on the board, we were able to explain it further, which allowed us to understand one another and connect to each person’s request. 
                When the board was finished, I took a picture with my phone and texted the picture to each person in the group, so we can remember to pray for each request as possible.  My husband and I even changed the wallpaper on our phone to the picture of the prayer board, so we will remember to pray for everyone in our group as often as possible. 
                I cannot remember where I heard this or who said it, but recently I heard of a man who stated that he never prays longer than five minutes, but he never goes five minutes without praying.  I hope to at least pray fervently for each person’s request each time I pick up my phone. 

Prayer Board...Requests are blurred to protect our privacy

I was blessed to share my testimony in www.lifebyheart.com.  Reserve your copy today!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Life After NICU: Reve's Birth Story

With beautiful poignancy and faith, my sweet little sister tells the story of her precious son, Thomas, and his birth story.  My guest post for today is...

Life After NICU: Reve's Birth Story: To Thomas: The Story of Your Birth On July 12, 2010, Daddy and I found out the most wonderful news. We were expecting! I simply cann...


To Read More about God's Divine plan in our lives, hurry and reserve your copy of Life By Heart at www.lifebyheart.com.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

When God Speaks...

         When God speaks to you, you listen.  How strange is it that when we hear of instances of God speaking to someone, our humanness leads us to question whether it was truly the voice of God.  For me, flags begin to go up in my mind and it's like, "Biblical Radar!  Activate!" While I listen with an open mind, there is always an inkling of protection, preparing for something that does not align with what my Bible says.

But I wonder...who do I think I am?  Through years and years of selfish prayers, asking, talking, rambling...I have finally learned to be quiet; and in the quiet, I have begun to hear God's messages to me....and He has a lot to tell me.  There's a lot I need to hear. So why do I think God will only speak to me through my own meditation?  How presumptuous of me to assume that God wouldn't speak to me through others?

So what do I do with these messages?  Are they all for me, or does He call me to share them?  Yesterday, in the midst of very slow moving 5:00 traffic, God started speaking to me.  The message needed to be recorded, written down, but I was driving.  So I pressed the handy "speech-to-text" button on my phone and began saying out loud what God was speaking into my heart.

I didn't even really grasp it until later, when I read it to my women's prayer group two hours later. Maybe I still do not grasp all of it.  So in the spirit of faithfulness, I will share these words here.  I invite discussion.  I encourage comments asking, debating, whatever you feel compelled to write in response.

You need to find out for yourself what God expects of you. You need to do some research. Get out your Bible, go on the Internet, ask other women what do you think God expects of me? Then, make a list. But you must remember, that first and foremost you will never be able to do everything on that list every day. You will always fall short. And God expects that from you. Because that is why he sent his son to forgive your shortcomings. So if you want to know where you should go, what you should do, and who you should do it with, go to your list that you made your self based on your own research. Just remember it is not a list you expect to live up to. But it will form your decision-making process, and hopefully it will ingrain in you the character that you wish to develop.

If God expected us to be perfect, He would not have sent his son. There would not have been a need for Jesus to die on that cross for our sins.

In other words, if God expected us to be perfect here on earth, he would not have had to come in an earthly form as Jesus. We are perfect in God's eyes. We are forgiven for everything we've ever done or will do. We were given that when we decided and chose to believe in Jesus. That is Grace.

To learn more about my journey, read my story at www.lifebyheart.com.

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