Pray for our men!

I thought it a good time, on this Father's Day, to unveil a prayer burden God has put on my heart.

Friend, I am praying for your husband, and mine...faithfully.

If there are seventy readers out there, there must be seventy husbands, give or take.  I know something about only three of the husbands:  one lives in Ohio and works in corporate management.....one lives in Canada and works in the computer field...one lives in Michigan and teaches. That's it.  That's what I know, primarily because this is a Mommy/Faith blog, and the few of you that blog also cover motherhood.  Dads just don't come up much.

If I know you by name, I pray specifically for your husband.  If I don't know you by name, I pray for your husband under a readership husbands label.


I'm sure you pray for your own husband, but do you pray for the husbands of friends and family? How much stronger the Body of Christ would be, if we women would pray for the men!  Just imagine it.

Here is what God has put on my heart to pray.  I encourage you to form your own prayer list for husbands--for your own, and for those around you.

Our Father, I pray these things for _________ husband:

- That he be saved, if this is not yet a reality.

- That he will develop a consistent prayer habit.

- That he will look to the Lord for daily wisdom, daily strength, and not follow the world.

- That he will be a strong but patient leader in his home.

- That he will have at least one godly man in his life, holding him accountable for studying and obeying the Word, and for staying sexually pure--no sexual immorality and no emotional attachments to other women.

- That he will lead his family in devotions, as often as his schedule allows--making time for this above pleasures.

- That he will pray for his wife and his children, daily.

- That he will humble himself before the Lord, confessing daily.

- That he will be a leader concerning the household money, tempering wants, and giving to his church and to those less fortunate.

Who needs toys when.....

there are Colorado potato bugs in your midst?

My gratitude List:

I'm thankful for...

...an abandoned robin nest getting new tenants.

...new tenants giving life successfully.

....learning to use the macro button.  Now if I could just focus some of these better.

...Colorado potato bugs on seven-year-old toes.

....a lawn mower from the "lawn mower fairy" (aka my Uncle David).  We couldn't fix ours.

....a $10 ladder from a garage sale.  We've needed one for six years. 

....the first night of firefly magic.

....Miss Beth's legs wrapped around me.

...kids engrossed with mirrors and the sun (science learning in action).

...little girls engrossed with magnets and steel balls.

- the way the boys reacted upon looking out the window and finding fireflies.  Palpable glee.  They've never donned shoes so fast, nor been so willing to give up storytime (which they hold sacred).  For the first time ever, I let them catch fireflies for as long as they wanted.  They went to bed at 10:00 PM and then watched the fireflies in a jar in their room until 10:20. So far, no emotional fits today.  They are growing up, these boys.  

....this little arm, looking so kissable (at least when it's bugless)

....carpenter ants to remind me that even if the house gets eaten from the inside out by these awful creatures, we still have an eternal asset called salvation.  And it's portable.  You can take it anywhere.  Even to a tent in your backyard if your house gets eaten. Okay....maybe I'm exaggerating.  There aren't that many.  But we are thinking about an exterminator, since the neighbor told us the previous owners had to replace the dining-room roof after carpenter ants damaged it.  Yikes. 

....the garage-sale resident saying I had a beautiful family.

....sneakers on sale at Walmart for $5.  I think flip flops cause athlete's foot. I've surmised this after two years' experience. They need a pair of sneakers for play and a pair for going places.  Then they have to change their socks promptly, upon feeling any moisture.  I love laundry...and summer.   Or not.

....ice cream...because it's too hot to bake dessert...and because Walmart sells a generic version of Breyer's all natural ice cream.

...Miss Beth and Miss Mary planting radish seeds.....here and there and everywhere.  We're seventeen days late, but we have tomato plants, pepper plants, strawberry plants, squash seeds, radish seeds, corn seeds, sugar snap pea seeds (because Curious George said they were good), and bean seeds....all finally in the ground.  We should be okay, harvesting the latest things in late August.  The morning glory plants are growing well.  We planted those from seed a few weeks ago.  Those we started indoors in March died.

....Mary being so delighted by amphibians that she'll play with a toad for an hour.  I can trust her now, finally.  She just puts him here and there and watches how he moves.  Miss Beth, however, can't be trusted.  She must be sleeping for anyone to play with a toad.

...Paul going outside with paper and pencil, observing the toad while Mary played with it.  Twenty minutes later he brings me a science report all about toads...how they move, their colors, their bumps, their sounds, their eyes.  I love homeschooling!

....spray bottles of water entertaining little ones for hours.  They water this and that, spray each other, "clean" the windows, give the creatures a drink.

....being able to concentrate better when Miss Beth wakes up during my prayer time.  I can finish it, or do the whole routine in bed now when necessary....without falling asleep.  The falling asleep part is one of Satan's tactics.  I'm convinced of this.  He attacks prayer times aggressively.  

Day in the Life of a New Prayer Warrier, Week 4

Previous posts in this Day in the Life of a New Prayer Warrior series are here: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5.

A Shifting of Weight...from me, to Him.

Wasted hours...so many wasted hours...spent worrying about my children, my parenting, over the past nine and a half years.  Yes, my oldest is 9.5 now.  How different these years would have been, had I started out as a prayer warrior!

Certainly I covered worrisome issues in prayer, but I spent far more time lamenting.  My ratio of lament to prayer was probably 4 to 1--four times as much lamenting as praying.

By the grace of God, that has changed!  Now approximately 28 days into a daily, disciplined prayer habit, a knee-jerk reaction is born.  A worrisome thought comes to me, and I handle it with prayer--snippets here and there as the thoughts come, and later at night, as part of my structured prayer.

The Spirit has so convinced me that I'm powerless without Him, and so convinced me that my part is to pray and then obey the Spirit's instructions......that I believe with my whole heart, my whole mind, this very important truth:

I'm walking in His will!  I'm an approved worker in Christ!


The future is His.  Today is His.  I'm at peace, because I'm doing my part.

The Power of Confession

Even when I fail, which I still do of course.....I find peace quickly through confession.  Confession--part of a daily prayer habit--is a constant humbling.  

Confession brings immediate forgiveness, an immediate fresh start.  The enemy loves to drag us down over every failure. His way is to bring an hour or a half-day's depression over a two-minute failure.  Can't control your sharp tongue with your children?

You stupid, no good, failure of a parent!  You don't even deserve these children.  You're ruining them.   

These whisperings are not of God. Defeat them, through immediate confession.

Remember that the only thing keeping us from a habit of confession, is a preoccupation with Satan's lies.  Drown his voice out....with Truth!


Choose humility and peace, through confession.


Improve Your Marriage Perk


Do you and your husband spend a lot of time--waste a lot of time--discussing each child's difficulties and failures?  Does it ever help...or just drag you down...drag your relationship down, as you argue over what should be done?

Sadly, we used to do this.  With a special-needs child in our midst, and another entering a heavy whining phase (4.5-year-old Mary), together with an into-everything 2-year-old, and a 7-year-old who suffers from moderate insomnia, perfectionism, and a picky-eating habit.......well, we always had plenty to discuss.

And due to second-shift hours, we have precious little time together...certainly none to waste.

Tense discussions about the kids can kill libidos, too, which is unhealthy on many levels.

Satan attacks marriages in many ways, and instigating arguing--drowning out prayer--is one of his favorite tactics. Don't succumb.

We've defeated this unhealthy cycle by a consistent, three-times weekly husband/wife prayer habit.  We're doing our part.  The answers will come to us, through the Spirit.  We just have to be on alert for His instructions.

Pray....and walk away.

That's my new self-speak.  Pray...and walk away.

A life without consistent prayer stalls you, keeps you spinning....rather than moving forward.

Pray....and walk away.  Walk away from pain, depression, failure, lies.  Walk away from stagnant Christianity.

Into a Life of Prayer; A Journey, Part 4

Links for earlier prayer series posts are here:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3




The Lord's Prayer, Our Model, Vol. 2

Last week we explored the words Our Father, establishing the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. In this post we'll explore Who Art in Heaven, and then separate the preface of the prayer from the seven petitions--the petitions to be explored later.


There is a rather complicated abstract matter we must deal with, and then we'll discuss more practically what this phrase means for our prayers.

Though I've read a number of complicated accounts of the phrase Who Art in Heaven, I still feel unqualified to put these ideas into my own words.  Thus, I offer an excerpt (full article here):

Having shown that God and man are parent and child, he goes on to delineate the function of each in the grand scheme of things. He explains that it is the nature of God to be in heaven, and of man to be on earth, because God is Cause, and man is manifestation. Cause cannot be expression, and expression cannot be cause, and we must be careful not to confuse the two things. Here heaven stands for God or Cause, because in religious phraseology heaven is the term for the Presence of God. In metaphysics it is called the Absolute, because it is the realm of Pure Unconditioned Being, of archetypal ideas. The word "earth" means manifestation, and man's function is to manifest or express God, or Cause (emphasis mine).

In other words, God is the Infinite and Perfect Cause of all things; but Cause has to be expressed, and God expresses Himself by means of man. Man's destiny is to express God in all sorts of glorious and wonderful ways (emphasis mine). Some of this expression we see as his surroundings; first his physical body, which is really only the most intimate part of his embodiment; then his home; his work; his recreation; in short, his whole expression. To express means to press outwards, or bring into sight that which already exists implicity. Every feature of your life is really a manifestation or expression of something in your soul.

Some of these points may seem at first to be a little abstract; but since it is misunderstandings about the relationship of God and man that lead to all our difficulties, it is worth any amount of trouble to correctly understand that relationship. Trying to have manifestation without Cause is atheism and materialism, and we know where they lead. Trying to have Cause without manifestation leads man to suppose himself to be a personal God, and this commonly ends in megalomania and a kind of paralysis of expression.

The important thing to realize is that God is in heaven and man on earth, and that each has his own role in the scheme of things. Although they are One, they are not one-and-the-same. Jesus establishes this point carefully when he says, "Our Father which art in heaven."

A more practical understanding of the phrase Who Art in Heaven, comes in remembering that though God is everywhere, His specific dwelling place is in Heaven, where we will one day go.  We are merely pilgrims here on earth. When we pray we must try to detach ourselves from earthly matters, and put on a homeward mindset. In doing so, we are beginning our prayer by placing ourselves, and our thoughts, in the presence of the Father.  

We must remember our purpose as described above....."to manifest or express God in all sorts of glorious ways".  Notice that expressing ourselves is not mentioned.  We belong to the Father.  We're bought and paid for, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Most of us probably spend much of our day self-centered. Prayer is the only thing that changes that.  Prayer makes us God-centered.

We must live for Him, express Him, through our every action. That's why we pray!  So we can express Him. Without consistent prayer--which essentially sticks us like glue to the Father--we cannot fulfill our purpose, which is to express God.

Without a prayer life we only express......guess who?

Ourselves.

Now that I've completely beat that into you (sorry!), we'll move on.....

Our Father Who Art in Heaven is the preface to the Lord's Prayer.  All other parts of the prayer are considered petitions, of which there are seven.

The first three petitions:  (1) Hallowed be Thy Name; (2) They Kingdom Come; (3) Thy Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven....all pertain to the glory of the Father.  They draw us toward the Father.

The last four petitions present our desires to the Father. (4) give us this Day our daily Bread; (5) And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us; (6) And lead us not into temptation; (7) But deliver us from evil.

We'll explore the petitions in the next few installments.

For now, go and express Him!

Author's Corner - Lois Lowry, Joan W. Blos

My last author's corner featured the BFG (Big Friendly Giant), by Roald Dahl.  While he enjoyed Dahl's humor, Peter requested that we only read the BFG during the day. His OCD was telling him a giant would come through his window at night (he had trouble falling asleep one night).  While I did try the day-reading arrangement, I couldn't read it without Mary, age 4, listening in.  She rather liked it, but it wasn't for her age group and didn't seem appropriate.  Paul was disappointed, but I told him he was welcome to finish it on his own.

Not previously an avid reader, Paul soon found himself engrossed in the Magic Tree House book series, so the BFG sits on our shelf, waiting.

The other problem with reading a novel to the boys during the day, is that every paragraph is interrupted by me checking on the two-year-old's whereabouts.  And too many other things have to happen during her one-hour nap, so for now, our novel reading is limited to evenings.

We moved on to Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry (Book Level 4.5).

Number The Stars, by Lois Lowry

Set in 1943 Copenhagen, Denmark, this 1990 Newberry-award winner details the lives of two young best friends, Annemarie and Ellen, during Nazi occupation of Denmark. Ten-year-old Annemarie must be very brave as her family shelters Ellen, who is Jewish, from the Nazis.

Rich in historical detail, this book fascinated us with its expertly woven storyline. Many tears were shed, mostly Momma's, who found it so intriguing she stayed up late one night and finished all 137 pages.

Seriously, Newberry medal books always leave me wanting more, more, more!  I can't put them down, even if it means going to bed at 3:30 AM. Reading ahead prevents my lack of self-discipline from keeping my boys up too late.

More information about Lois Lowry, now in her seventies, can be found at her personal website, which features her autobiography.

Also on her website, Lois lists the Newberry Medal winners from 1922 through 2005.  She won another Newberry in 1994, for The Giver.

Following Number the Stars, we read a 1980 Newberry Medal winner entitled A Gathering of Days; A New England Girl's Journal, by Joan W. Blos. (Book Level 6.1)

A Gathering of Days, by Joan W. Blos



Set in 1830, this novel, written in journey-entry format, details the life of Catherine Hall, a thirteen-year-old New Hampshire resident. Catherine, who has a quiet, lovely, God-fearing personality, takes care of her widowed father and young sister after the death of her mother and baby brother, though the details of these earlier deaths are not part of the novel.

During the two-year journal, Catherine's father remarries, gifting Catherine with a step-mother and a same-age brother. The historical detail, again, is very rich, providing children with an in-depth look at 1830 farm life, as well as some detail about the slavery politics of the day.

Catherine's best friend and neighbor, Cassie, dies during this time. Paul and I shed tears over many pages, but notwithstanding the sadness, this very Christian novel is a gem, keeping even my boys intrigued.  Here is a biography for Joan Blos, born in 1928.

Since finishing A Gathering of Days, I've spent much time wondering what happened to this country's Christian beginnings.  So many of the novels set in Colonial and early America depict deep abiding faith in Jesus Christ. It grieves me to think of the tragic turn America has taken!

Last night we began Miss Hickory, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, the 1947 Newberry Medal winner.  We loved the first chapter, detailing the New Hampshire countryside adventures of a doll.  Yes, you read that right.  A doll.  Miss Hickory is an apple-wood twig doll, with a hickory nut for a head.  This is a very imaginative tale, in which the countryside animals, Miss Hickory's companions, are given real-life, intriguing personalities.  I bookmarked this homeschool page, detailing many rich lessons derived from Miss Hickory.

Miss Hickory, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey