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Tag Archives: Healing

Mark 1:40-45

15 Jan

40 A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said.

41 Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” 42 Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed. 43 Then Jesus sent him on his way with a stern warning: 44 “Don’t tell anyone about this. Instead, go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.”

45 But the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone what had happened. As a result, large crowds soon surrounded Jesus, and he couldn’t publicly enter a town anywhere. He had to stay out in the secluded places, but people from everywhere kept coming to him.

Mark 1:40-45

Dear God, how bad was it that the man disobeyed Jesus? I mean, the word was going to spread one way or another. On the one hand, I want to be frustrated with this guy for disobeying Jesus, but on the other hand I don’t think I’ve ever felt that kind of desperation coupled with the elation of it being resolved. This man was desperate, Jesus met his need, and then he had to keep it quiet? No way.

And the way Mark (or Peter through Mark) tells this story, it’s almost as if Jesus went against his better judgment in healing the man because he could see this outcome, but his compassion wouldn’t allow him to not heal. That’s who you are. Compassionate. If there’s any doubt that the God of the universe is loving and compassionate, here is a tangible example of your love and compassion. You loved this man. You had compassion on this man. You didn’t tell him to go away because he was inconvenient for you or he would make your plan more difficult. You met his need regardless of what it would cost you.

Then there’s the idea that I’m supposed to be like you. My love and compassion for others are supposed to override everything. I’m in a church group right now that has been meeting for over twelve years. However, it feels like it’s starting to come to the end of its life, and I think that might be okay. But as I sit here now and soak in this scripture, I think I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t be asking what each couple needs right now at this stage of our lives. When we first met in the summer of 2013, we were all at a different phase in our lives and marriages. We felt like this was something we needed and we committed to each other. But now things have changed. Each of our needs have changed. Maybe the question we should be asking each other is not whether the group should continue, but what are each of us needing and how can we help each other meet those needs, if at all.

Father, I feel like I got off of the subject a little, but what I’m really trying to think about is the compassion you want me to have for others and to see everyone around me, including these friends from this group, in a fresh way. I want to be more like you. I want to love with your love and care with your compassion. I want to be a part of meeting needs you’ve called me to meet as I love my neighbor as myself. So please give me eyes to see and ears to hear today.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on January 15, 2026 in Mark, Uncategorized

 

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Mary, Joseph, and Confusion – A Christmas Eve Prayer

24 Dec

Dear God, as I sat down this Christmas Eve morning to enter this time with you, I struggled with what scriptures to use as my base. Then I started thinking about friends who are struggling right now. I have a friend who just lost her mother-in-law a month ago (I found out yesterday). It was difficult. The family relationships with the woman who died were complicated. There is pain this morning. Maybe even some regrets on the parts of some. It can all be so confusing and overwhelming. I ask that you please be with this friend, her husband who lost his mother, his sister, the grandchildren, and anyone else affected by this loss. Father, in your mercy, hear my prayer.

I have another friend who texted me yesterday about her mother being taken by helicopter to a hospital because of a stroke. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but I know that relationships with this woman are similarly complicated as the ones with the woman I just talked about. There has been a lot of pain and hurt between people. No one is innocent. No one is completely guilty. It’s just the pain we cause each other when we are hurt. The old saying: “Hurt people hurt people.” And some awful things have happened. But our human love and sense of loyalty that you put into us–that is part of your nature–is still there drawing us to each other. So I ask that you make this pain count. Don’t let it be wasted. For the woman who is sick, do exactly what you need to be doing in her life. Love her. I know she worships you although I’m not sure she knows what discipleship looks like. But I think there is mercy for that. Heal her relationships with her children, grandchildren, and everyone else around her. Use this pain as an opportunity to heal relationships, draw each person into a deeper relationship with you, and make this family a beacon of light that draws others around them into your presence and relationship with you as well. Father, in your mercy, hear my prayer.

I have a list of friends who are facing challenges. Health challenges. Relationship challenges. End-of-life challenges. Loss of a loved one. Long-term care challenges for their aging spouses or themselves as they age. I know people who are struggling financially. Struggling in their careers. Struggling to make sense of life. Use these, please. Heal. Guide. Provide. Comfort. Strengthen. Support. Father, in your mercy, hear my prayer.

Of course, I have my own pain, sorrow, concerns, needs, etc. For my wife. For my children. For my relatives, friends, work, community service, etc. It can all seem so big, and I can feel so small. Maybe that’s where these two songs are coming in this morning. Confusion with your plan or what to do next isn’t anything new. Sorrow, pain, and hurt aren’t new. Doubt. Fear. Anxiety. They have all existed for a long time. And Mary and Joseph were no strangers to them. Two thousand-ish years ago, they were sitting next to a manger with a tiny baby wondering how this would all work out. And while you sent them affirmations in the form of angel visits, shepherds, and later Simeon and Anna, they were still left to take it all one step at a time. That’s us now. That will be us for as long as this timeline marches on. Wars and rumors of war. The sorrow, pain, hurt, doubt, fear, and anxiety. They will always be with us. But there is something you uniquely add to the equation. Hope. Peace. Somehow, you pierce through the darkness and give us a hope that there is something bigger than all of this. An existence with you that transcends the mess we create here. Help me to embrace this process now. I don’t want to kick against the goads. I just want to flow through this river with you as my guide. Steer me around the rocks so that the boat of my life might be there for the other boats in the water. Thank you for being the one constant. Thank you for being the same God in the Old Testament as the one that Jesus described in the Prodigal Son parable. Thank you for being that God today.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on December 24, 2025 in Hymns and Songs

 

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Matthew 8:5-13

01 Dec

5 When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, 6 “Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.”

7 Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.”

8 But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”

10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel! 11 And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world—from east and west—and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. 12 But many Israelites—those for whom the Kingdom was prepared—will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

13 Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.

Matthew 8:5-13

Dear God, there are obviously all kinds of things to like about this story. First, a centurion who recognizes Jesus as a man of authority and power. Not presumptuous, but honoring of Jesus. It’s lovely to see.

Next, Jesus being impressed with his faith. Oh, that you will be that impressed with my faith! Better said, oh, that I might have a faith you would be impressed with!

Finally, the thing that really caught my eye this morning was the idea of this centurion being a model for Gentiles coming into the Kingdom. People like me. People with no birthright. No preferential treatment beyond just receiving your love.

Father, help me to be a man of faith. Help me to be a Gentile who leads other Gentiles to you. Help me to be exactly who you need me to be today. I have friends who are sick. I have things that need to be accomplished. I have people around me who need love. Help me to be exactly who you need me to be in all of this.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on December 1, 2025 in Matthew

 

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Psalm 116:3-4

05 Apr

3 Death wrapped its ropes around me;
    the terrors of the grave overtook me.
    I saw only trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Please, Lord, save me!”

Psalm 116:3-4

Dear god, I happened to read a verse out of Revelation this morning when I was looking something up, and it makes me think of these verses from Psalm 116. The passage in Revelation was Revelation 12:11: “And they have defeated him by the blood of the lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.”

Death is such an interesting thing for us. And it’s a hazy mystery. As much as we had to go through birth to get here, we will go through death to leave. And what will happen then? I mean we have some ideas of heaven and even hell, but none of us REALLY knows what will happen. Once a soul is born, can it be killed, or does it really exist forever? Honestly, for the sake of those who are not brought into your kingdom, I hope a soul can just die. Why torment it forever?

So this all brings me back to these two verses from Psalm 116 that Sister Miriam highlights in today’s entry in Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation. To add context two them, here they are again, but this time with the two verses that preceded and followed them:

1 I love the Lord because he hears my voice
    and my prayer for mercy.
2 Because he bends down to listen,
    I will pray as long as I have breath!
3 Death wrapped its ropes around me;
    the terrors of the grave[a] overtook me.
    I saw only trouble and sorrow.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
    “Please, Lord, save me!”
5 How kind the Lord is! How good he is!
    So merciful, this God of ours!
6 The Lord protects those of childlike faith;
    I was facing death, and he saved me.

A psalm of reorientation. God is good! Things were bad and I called for saving. God protected me. God is good!

Here’s something I like from Sister Miriam’s commentary today:

The bearing of wrongs, not with bitterness or numbness but with patience, is a great and crucifying gift. It means that there is a real way to freedom and restoration through suffering and the wrongs that others inflict upon us. It means that there is resurrection even in experiences of death.

Father, I have been wronged and I have wronged others. Help me to know how to apologize for the wrongs I have done to others, and help me to heal from the wrongs done to me through grace and mercy given by me to them. Where there has been pain, don’t let it be wasted. And sometimes the pains are just from life. I have a friend who lost his wife one year ago today. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it left it’s mark. It was a long, hard illness that exacted a toll from him. It still hurts for him. Where there is pain, bring healing. Where there is healing, use the scars to help us know how to help you heal others. In his song “First Family,” Rich Mullins talks about his parents losing a son: “But the pain didn’t leave them crippled. Only scars that made them strong.” Heal my would into scars, and use my scars for your glory.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on April 5, 2025 in Psalms, Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

 

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John 5:1-6

01 Apr

5 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches. 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

John 5:1-6

Dear God, off of the top of my head, I can’t think of many or any examples of Jesus proactively approaching the sick person and offering healing. Maybe there are, but when I read this passage this morning, that is what struck me. Maybe this is semantics, but Jesus didn’t say, “May I heal you?” He asked, “Would you like to get well?” Again, maybe I’m reading too much into this and there are cultural norms and customs at play, but the intimation of this verbiage in 21st Century English is that there is a chance the man wanted to stay sick by the pool. It had been his life for 38 years. It would be a lot to take it away. Even though it was awful, it was all he knew.

I have so many analogies running through my head right now for how this can be true of us now. Do I want to give up my sins and follow after you? Well, I’ve gotten kind of used to my sin and this life. The devil I know is better than the life in you that I don’t know. Or when I think of how we are all afraid of death, but I wonder if you don’t see this life for us as the equivalent of us lying by this pool. That’s not to say you don’t have us here and have a role for us here. Our human lives are precious and important. But you have the perspective of what we don’t on the life that is to come. “Don’t be afraid.”

I suppose I should read Sister Miriam’s commentary on this passage from Restored: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation. She focused on being present with you and letting you heal us, and then for us to be present with others, allowing you to flow through us to them.

Father, I have sorrows. I have areas of my heart and soul that need healed. Some are of my own making. Some are things done to me. Some, I can’t tell whose fault it is, mine or someone else’s. But I want to sit with you in this moment and tell you that, yes, I want to be healed. I don’t know what that healing even looks like because I do think sorrow is important sometimes. I think lament is appropriate. I think mourning is appropriate. Jesus even said it is blessed to mourn and to be comforted. So help me to use my sorrow and turn it into comfort for others. I have a friend who’s coming up on the one-year anniversary of his wife passing. Help me to comfort him. Love him through me. Love the people I touch today through me. And use the comforting process to heal my own heart as well.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on April 1, 2025 in John, Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

 

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John 4:43-54

31 Mar

43 At the end of the two days, Jesus went on to Galilee. 44 He himself had said that a prophet is not honored in his own hometown. 45 Yet the Galileans welcomed him, for they had been in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration and had seen everything he did there.

46 As he traveled through Galilee, he came to Cana, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick. 47 When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Jesus to come to Capernaum to heal his son, who was about to die.

48 Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?”

49 The official pleaded, “Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.”

50 Then Jesus told him, “Go back home. Your son will live!” And the man believed what Jesus said and started home.

51 While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. 52 He asked them when the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at one o’clock his fever suddenly disappeared!” 53 Then the father realized that that was the very time Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and his entire household believed in Jesus. 54 This was the second miraculous sign Jesus did in Galilee after coming from Judea.

John 4:43-54

Dear God, as I read this story this morning, I was struck by the words exchanged between the government official and Jesus:

Government Official (assuming what he said): Jesus, please come and heal my son!

Jesus: Will you never believe in me unless you see miraculous signs and wonders?

Government Official: Lord, please come now before my little boy dies.

Jesus: Go back home. Your son will live!

Jesus challenges the official, and the official proves that he isn’t there for a show. He doesn’t care about water being turned into wine. He isn’t there to be impressed and convinced of anything. He just wants his son to live, and he sees Jesus’s power in that moment as an avenue to getting what he wants. And Jesus has mercy on him.

I wonder who this man later became in “The Way.” What about the boy he saved? The rest of the family? How did they respond when they heard Jesus was killed? Did they believe in his resurrection?

I like the first paragraph of what Sister Miriam wrote for today’s entry in Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation: “Jesus does not refuse those who come to him and ask in their need. He never refuses an earnest prayer of the heart. Although the way he answers our needs and prayers may be different from what we anticipate, Jesus always gives to us from his heart.”

Father, I have earnest prayers, but they are ignorant and all over the place. The truth is, I don’t know what you want to do in some of these difficult situations. I know my goal for the people I love is ultimate healing in their hearts, souls, minds, and bodies, regardless of what it costs me. I will give anything for that. So as I experience pain, hurt and fear, I give it to you. I trust you. I appreciate your love and comfort. I am grateful for the ability to even come to you in this moment and have your Holy Spirit pray with me and comfort me. Thank you.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on March 31, 2025 in John, Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

 

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Collect for Mass of the Day – March 28, 2025

28 Mar

Pour your grace into our
Hearts, we pray, O Lord,
That we may be constantly
Drawn away from unruly
Desires
And obey by your own gift
The heavenly teaching
You give us.

Collect for Mass of the Day – March 28, 2025

Dear God, I decided to start with Sister Miriam’s reading from Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation instead of just starting with the text presented and going off on my own from there. I liked this paragraph from her commentary today. When speaking of “unruly desires,” she said:

We commonly get stuck at the level of “disordered desire,” and as we mentioned earlier, we try to manage that desire or the sin without exploring with the Lord the deeper roots. Christianity is not about sin management or mere behavior modification but rather a complete transformation unto glory. Christ came to help us with these places and to heal our sin and division. He came to bring us into his own divine life.

I had a relative text me a couple of days ago about their 44th anniversary of sobriety from alcohol. I think he would say that his addiction and addressing it a process of addressing some of the things in his life or psyche that he was numbing with the alcohol.

So how do I numb myself from pain, insecurity, or fear? Do I lash out in anger towards others? Do I create noise around me that keeps my mind from being still and feeling the “feels” that are tormenting me? Honestly, these prayer times with you are some of the few moments of the day that I allow for quiet and self-reflection.

Father, yes, I have disordered desires. Help me to address them. It’s not just a matter of repenting for them. It’s also a matter of bringing them to Jesus with the Holy Spirit and seeking the healing he offers from the life he lived, the death he suffered, and then his resurrection. Now, he stands there ready to love on me, comfort me, and heal me. Holy Spirit, walk with me today and show me moment to moment how to experience this healing.

I pray this to the Father in Jesus and with the Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on March 28, 2025 in Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

 

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Psalm 38

19 Mar

Psalm 38

A Penitent Sufferer’s Plea for Healing

A Psalm of David, for the memorial offering.

1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
    or discipline me in your wrath.
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
    and your hand has come down on me.

3 There is no soundness in my flesh
    because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
    because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
    they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.

5 My wounds grow foul and fester
    because of my foolishness;
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
    all day long I go around mourning.
7 For my loins are filled with burning,
    and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am utterly spent and crushed;
    I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

9 O Lord, all my longing is known to you;
    my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me;
    as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
11 My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction,
    and my neighbors stand far off.

12 Those who seek my life lay their snares;
    those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin
    and meditate on treachery all day long.

13 But I am like the deaf; I do not hear;
    like the mute, who cannot speak.
14 Truly, I am like one who does not hear
    and in whose mouth is no retort.

15 But it is for you, O Lord, that I wait;
    it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.
16 For I pray, “Only do not let them rejoice over me,
    those who boast against me when my foot slips.”

17 For I am ready to fall,
    and my pain is ever with me.
18 I confess my iniquity;
    I am sorry for my sin.
19 Those who are my foes without cause are mighty,
    and many are those who hate me wrongfully.
20 Those who render me evil for good
    are my adversaries because I follow after good.

21 Do not forsake me, O Lord;
    O my God, do not be far from me;
22 make haste to help me,
    O Lord, my salvation.

Dear God, context is so important. Just knowing that this was written by David and then provided to the people to be used for a specific purpose–the memorial offering–sets the stage for the words here. I’d guess David wrote this for others to use to repent, but it also came out of his own heart and experience. Maybe or maybe not the experience of that moment, but a past experience at the very least.

For my purposes today, Sister Miriam, in Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation focused on the last two verses, 21 and 22. Here is part of what she says about pain from our past impacting our present (the one point in time when we have the opportunity to interact with you): “there is a wonderful saying in healing circles that I find to be true: ‘Suffering that is not transformed is transmitted.’ Every experience of suffering we have had that has not yet been redeemed and transformed by the love of Christ is transmitted to those around us. The suffering we have experienced does not just disappear; it is most often buried alive. And that pain buried alive continues to afflict us and those around us.”

Yeah. I can definitely see this. Earlier in today’s meditation, she asks where we have “experienced war being waged against [us].” I can think of a few times in my life that were disastrous. Some were because of my sin. Some were because of sin done to me or to someone I love. What was my response to those things? Did I invite you in to heal me? Did I confess my sin to you?

Father, thank you for not forsaking me. Thank you for not being far from me. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for healing me. Thank you for meeting with me here this morning. Thank you for accepting my presence–my very existence–and giving me your Holy Spirit to reside in me and guide me. thank you for protecting me in ways I cannot even see. Thank you for loving my wife and children. For hearing my prayers for them and everyone else I love. I know I have put you into too small of a box in my mind. I know I have limited you and your power in my conceptions of who you are. No matter how big I might think you are, I know you are even bigger. I just cannot imagine it. So give me the imagination you need me to have to pray the way you want me to pray.

I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on March 19, 2025 in Psalms, Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation

 

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Matthew 8:5-13

02 Dec

5 When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, 6 “Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.”

7 Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.”

8 But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”

10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel! 11 And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world—from east and west—and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. 12 But many Israelites—those for whom the Kingdom was prepared—will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

13 Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.

Matthew 8:5-13

Dear God, I was reading something from Tony Campolo yesterday out of Red Letter Revolution: What if Jesus Really Meant what He Said? about Jesus being your presences among us. You are the God of the Old Testament, triaging the continual mistakes of the Israelites, but when Jesus showed up, he showed us who you really are. You are loving and compassionate, but you also do not suffer hypocrisy. This story is an example. When this powerful human approached you, he found a God who respected and appreciated his humility and faith. You also, I think, liked the fact that he was there out of compassion for his servant (slave?) and not for himself.

My wife and I were talking while we drove to family for Thanksgiving, and while we were talking about you I mentioned to her that I know you are good and loving because the closer I get to you the more loving and compassionate, without judgment, I find myself being. You put on skin. You didn’t only show up to live and be a sacrifice, but you shared through our own paradigm of life through a human life lived what your nature is. You are amazing. You are good. I’m so grateful for a God who loves and forgives.

Father, thank you that you have as much compassion on me this morning as you had through Jesus’s earthly body on that centurion 2,000 years ago. I am grateful for your love. Help me to share that love with others.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen

 
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Posted by on December 2, 2024 in Matthew

 

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Praying for Sick Friends

20 Feb

No verse.

Dear God, I am going to take a break from my normal patter this morning and just pray about something that is on my heart: grave illness.

My wife and I were talking over breakfast about a seminar she recently attended. As part of her presentation, the speaker talked about her son being diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma when he was a young teenager. He is now 22 and, I believe, in remission, but the process of going through that pain of treatment and fear of death was obviously life-altering.

I told her about a Facebook post I read yesterday from a high school friend whose daughter is in high school and fighting cancer. I cannot imagine that kind of suffering in watching my child go through something like that. It’s one thing to experience some of the typical and even atypical things we’ve experienced as parents, but to watch your child suffer a tragic health thing and then through difficult treatments must be brutal.

One of the things I said this morning is that it is one thing to say, “Well, if I got so sick that only radical treatments would save me, then I would just not get the treatment and accept my impending death.” It’s another thing to 1.) actually be faced with that decision, but 2.) even more so to have to make that decision with your minor child. At some point, I would think that CPS and the courts might even take that decision out of your hands. I don’t know. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

Father, the amazing thing about you is that you CAN wrap your head around it. You know all of this and what is going to happen. Thankfully, this high school friend is a believer and follower of you. She can see your mercies and grace in the midst of pain. I want to pray for her this morning. I want to pray for her entire family. And I want to pray for her daughter. Please be in the midst of this situation. Please make their path straight. Please heal. According to your will, Father, please flood this family with your presence, your peace, your mercy, and your healing. I also want to pray for another friend who is older than me and announced a couple of nights ago that he has elected to stop treatments for his disease and go on hospice. Flood him and his wife too. Help them to bathe in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Help them to float in your grace and joy. As your eyes move to and fro throughout the earth, strongly support them because I know their hearts are completely yours.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

 
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Posted by on February 20, 2019 in Miscellaneous

 

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