Awake, awake!!

Isaiah 51:9 ESV
Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?

Love The One

Confession:

I have not read the book 'Awake' but I am trying, for the past 10 years or so, to live my life fully awake for the Lord. 

Does world poverty overwhelm you? 

Do you think that it is just too big so you just ignore it? 

Sometimes I think that if I do anything it will go unnoticed. How can just one person, like me, make a difference in this huge scale of poverty, or sickness. I thought, how can this blog make a difference for God. 

How? 

Proverbs 21:13 ESV
Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.

One person at a time, loving on one person at a time

Love the one. 

Romans 13:11 ESV
Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.

Our Lord is ready to take over if we will only take the first step in helping those who are in need. 

Love the one and He will multiply that into hundreds and thousands. 

I'm sure lots of you are doing this already but if you haven't yet maybe you might be interested in checking out these sites:

Sponsor A Child

Cause Life

Operation Baby Rescue

If you are looking for some motivation why don't you check out the book 'Awake' by Noel Yeatts. I watched a few of the above trailers and I found what she had to say was full of passion and love for the one.

In March 2012 I did a post on Love The One

This post was centered around Heidi Baker and a message of just loving the one, that is what we need to do. If you want a bit more motivation please check it out here.

Remember Love The One

Update on:

Jaxson Eugene

My babies heart surgery was an absolute success!!! Things couldn't have gone any better!!! He doesn't have a breathing tube, he's breathing all on his own already!!! He still has the chest tubes but that's completely normal!! I just want to thank each and every one of you for all your prayers and all your love!! You all are the reason everything turned out so perfect! I can't even express my appreciation and my gratitude!!! I love you all so very very much! I thank god for the miracle and I think him for all that he has done!! I'm just so happy! Thank you God!!!!

Thank you for praying for Jaxson!! Please keep the prayers coming for a quick recovery and for a perfect functioning heart.

PRAISE GOD!!

Psalm 100:1-5 ESV
A Psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

Blessings,
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Another Miracle

Remember Joy? 

You can read her miracle story here and here.

I have been following her on Facebook and she has been up and down but nothing too serious to make a report about. Actually all of those who are on the prayer page are either doing really well, or I haven't heard a word about.

Well, today Joy's mom reported yet another amazing miracle in Joy's life. I have copied and pasted it here below since there are a lot of you that either are not on Facebook or are not following her story.

Attention Ladies and Gentlemen,
When Joy suffered her severe lung damage in October, one pulmonary doctor told us we would be lucky if Joy was off of oxygen by the time she started preschool, but the goal would be for her to not need it during the day when she started Kindergarten. She has needed oxygen all the time since October. Well last night Joy and God must have had a long talk.
Joy weaned HERSELF off of oxygen in just 3 HOURS last night! She is doing amazingly well without it! i cannot begin to express how unexpected this was! We will be keeping oxygen here, just in case, but it was amazing today to walk around with her without any cords!
We are so grateful and humbled to be blessed by another miracle working in our Joy. We are so very unworthy! The only way we know to honor what HE has done is to shout it out!
GOD IS GOOD! HE WORKS MIRACLES EVEN TODAY! HE IS WORTHY OF PRAISE! HE STILL LISTENS, STILL LOVES, STILL CARES FOR HIS CHILDREN!
WE ARE BLESSED!

This mom and dad have given Joy and her health completely over to God and have asked for His will to be done in her life AND just look at what He is doing!!! I am so thrilled!

Please join me in praising and worshiping Jesus Christ, healer of all!

Psalm 148 NIV

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord from the heavens;

praise him in the heights above.

Praise him, all his angels;

praise him, all his heavenly hosts.

Praise him, sun and moon;

praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, you highest heavens

and you waters above the skies.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for at his command they were created,

and he established them for ever and ever—

he issued a decree that will never pass away.

Praise the Lord from the earth,

you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,

lightning and hail, snow and clouds,

stormy winds that do his bidding,

you mountains and all hills,

fruit trees and all cedars,

wild animals and all cattle,

small creatures and flying birds,

kings of the earth and all nations,

you princes and all rulers on earth,

young men and women,

old men and children.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,

for his name alone is exalted;

his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

And he has raised up for his people a horn,

the praise of all his faithful servants,

of Israel, the people close to his heart.

Praise the Lord.

Blessings,
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Prayer & Praise

Romans 8:26 NIV

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

Prayer is needed for Easton and a 5 month old baby and father who were shot. Thanks!!

PRAYER

BABY AND FATHER SHOT! 

CHICAGO — A 5-month-old girl and her father were shot Monday afternoon as the man changed the baby's diaper in Woodlawn, authorities said.
The baby was rushed to Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. Relatives gathered there identified the baby as Johnylah Watkins. She's the daughter of 25-year-old Jonathan Watkins and Judy Watkins, 21, who herself was shot several months ago while pregnant with Johnylah.
The baby was in serious-to-critical condition, police said. A University of Chicago official said Johnylah remained in surgery as of 4:30 p.m.
Jonathan Watkins was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, police and family said, where he was in serious-to-critical condition. Police said he is a known member of the Gangster Disciples street gang.

Please click above link to read more, thanks!

Easton

Prayers please! Easton was rushed to the ER this evening when he passed out and lost consciousness twice, turned blue and seemed like he was hyperventilating. They are still waiting on blood cultures but right now he has rhinovirus&cronovirus. Xray was extremely cloudy so pneumonia is a definite. His blood gas level was 102+(intabation happens at 79+). Will keep you updated as I hear!!! Thanks for your prayers ♥ ~cousin Amy

PRAISE

Phoebe

Phoebe is on the upswing. Right after she received her platelets and blood transfusion yesterday, Nathan sent me a picture of her walking to the playroom! The difference in how she feels pre vs. post transfusions is really incredible. Blood is so important, and having the right amount of the right things in your blood makes you able to function properly. 

The best news is that her ANC (Advanced Neutraphil Count) is 30 today, which means that her immune system is revving up again and she could be headed home as early as tomorrow. It's wonderful to think this might be her last transfusion for a very long time, and that soon enough we can take her all around town and to church without worrying about her immune system! What a feeling that will be, to just be able to go places with our whole family intact. 

Eventually we will work towards weaning her off her ng tube, giving all of her meds orally, and teaching her that she has to drink despite her lack of thirst. We will also be setting up a set-caloric intake to help balance out her weight. There are still many challenges ahead, but having been through the last fourteen months, they seem minimal in comparison to chemotherapy and learning to swallow, breathe and walk again after sepsis. We can do it! She can do it! We have so much to be thankful for.

Here's to Phoebe coming home to stay!

~Amey

Thank you to all of you for intercessing for these sweet precious souls.

Blessings,
<><

We His Flock Praise Him

PRAYER

Lucy is having scans this week and the scan anxiety is setting in on the family. Jack, Lucy's brother is having terrible asthma attacks and it just seems chaos is happening. Please pray for NED (No Evidence of Disease) for Lucy, relief from asthma for Jack and peace in the family. Thanks!!

PRAISE

Phoebe had scans on Monday and they were clear!! There is no evidence of disease but she still must undergo chemo for a while yet. Please keep praying for this precious doll.

Ian has had his scans and they were stable and he is now completed the chemo therapy. He still has many issues to overcome and because the scans were only stable, he will be having follow up scans every 2 months instead of every 3 months. Please keep him in your prayers and his mom too as soon to come on the scene is adorably loved baby number 9. :)

Psalm 95:1-7 NIV

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;

    let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before him with thanksgiving

    and extol him with music and song.

For the Lord is the great God,

    the great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth,

    and the mountain peaks belong to him.

The sea is his, for he made it,

    and his hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us bow down in worship,

    let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;

for he is our God

    and we are the people of his pasture,

    the flock under his care.

Praising and praying!
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Praise to God

A prayer request and some praise reports

Psalm 68:19 NIV

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,

    who daily bears our burdens.

Information from: Chelle's email concerning Wayne, Joy's Facebook page, Joey's CaringBridge page.

PRAY

Wayne:  

He has been having radiation and will actually be done with it on the 8th. But for right now it is making him sick and unable to eat much. They are hitting the cancer hard and some of the lymph nodes are right beside the esophagus. Sometime in mid December they will do a pet scan to see how things are going. Wayne could really use some prayer today as he is having a hard time right now. 

Thank you Chelle for keeping us up to date.

PRAISE

Joy:

Thank you all so much for your love, support, prayers, and encouragement. We are humbled by the way our God is using our little girl. Your stories and words speak to our hearts everyday. We are blessed!

Joy is doing well enough for them to try to wean her off of the bypass (ECMO) machine. They have just started doing this now. Please continue to pray for our Joy, we can SEE GOD in this room!

Joey:

•he has had no more seizures!

• (consequently) sodium holding strong at high 130's with last reading at 140. Really good!

•we just moved back over out of PICU to HemOnc floor. Always the last stop before heading home

We still have concerns and he has benchmarks we need to hit before anybody feels comfortable taking him home, but we are certainly moving in the right direction. 

...Thank you TEAM JOEY for praying for us. 

Psalm 103:1-5 NIV

Praise the Lord, my soul;

    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul,

    and forget not all his benefits—

who forgives all your sins

    and heals all your diseases,

who redeems your life from the pit

    and crowns you with love and compassion,

who satisfies your desires with good things

    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Thank you for reading and joining in to pray for these sweet, precious people. 

If My People 2012

Click on the link above and join in with Joel Rosenberg for a 5 minute prayer for Israel. God tells us to pray for the peace of Israel and I found this a neat, quick way to join in with millions to pray for God's chosen people. 

Psalm 122:6-9 NIV

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

    “May those who love you be secure.

May there be peace within your walls

    and security within your citadels.”

For the sake of my family and friends,

    I will say, “Peace be within you.”

For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,

    I will seek your prosperity.

Blessings,

<><

Praise Report on Joy

Quick update on Joy that is taken directly from her Facebook page Joy's Journal.

PRAISE REPORT: 48 hours ago we were told there was nothing left for doctors to do to save our daughter and they would be removing her ECMO (the bypass machine working as her heart and lungs) the next morning. We cried, we believed, we prayed, we reached out to others asking for prayer. 24 hours ago we learned there was something the doctors could do, but they were not sure if it would help. Today our little girl (just 29 days old) had her 2nd heart surgery which repaired a hole in her heart valve! She already looks better!!! She still has a long road to travel, but God is Great and God is Here! Our whole world changed in the past 48 hours because you prayed with us and God worked miracles. Thank you is not enough, but it is all we have to give. Thank you!! We are blessed!

Thank you all for praying! Please continue to cover Joy in prayer as she has a long road to recovery.

Psalm 95:1-7 NIV

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;

    let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before him with thanksgiving

    and extol him with music and song.

For the Lord is the great God,

    the great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth,

    and the mountain peaks belong to him.

The sea is his, for he made it,

    and his hands formed the dry land.

Come, let us bow down in worship,

    let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;

for he is our God

    and we are the people of his pasture,

    the flock under his care.

Praising and praying,

<><

Praise You God!

Praise Report!

Samuel, Rachel's youngest son, Finding Joy, just announced that the biopsy report came back clear!! Here are her words...

 his small intestine has healed

and his protein levels are higher

and he's absorbing nutrients

and vitamins

 and fats.

 

What good news this is! Thanks to all who were praying!

Luke 17:15 NLT

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, "Praise God!"

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How does your garden grow?

Man's garden

This past week has been a week full of prayer for people in need and there have been times that I felt I wasn't praying enough or in the right way; I felt inadequate. Yesterday I was at a loss and was feeling very overwhelmed by the weight of my brothers and sisters who are suffering. To top it off I was having a few family issues to deal with and as I prayed my mind was flying from one prayer request to another without even completing the previous. Seriously, I was stopping mid word to only start praying for someone else. I cannot say that I felt the responsibility of the weight on my shoulders, no; it is on God's shoulders but I just didn't feel like I was praying properly.

God is so faithful and He reminded me that it was the Spirit of God leading me in prayer for those He loves and cares about. Romans 8:26-27 NIV

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. 

Really how could I forget this?! Satan and his sneaky ways came in and aimed his fiery arrows at the right spot in me to make me question myself. He made me feel inadequate with myself in prayer so I would give up and focus on me and feel bad about myself! But, God is in control and He showed me that this was His leading and His Spirit took up where I left off and jumped into another urgent prayer. I have been in prayer groups where the Spirit is thick and when I start praying He will lead me all over the map and someone who is a bystander would think me a little more than scattered brained but God knows exactly what I  am saying for He is the one directing.

God's garden

Abandoning ourselves to God can be a very scary thing as we let go of control and give it to Him. I love how Paul Young, author of 'The Shack' likens it to a wildflower garden planted by God as opposed to a flower garden planted by man. This image, for me, is very powerful in trying to understand how God directs and leads. People like to have things organized in straight lines and patterns but God doesn't do things the way man does. Just look at nature and you see the wild beauty of God. God likes to come in and dig up man's garden, which by the way really can hurt, then when the soil is well worked He throws a handful of flower seeds everywhere. When they take root and grow the beauty that beholds the eye far surpasses the beauty of a well planned, organized garden. The wildness of God's garden is thrilling yet scary at the same time.

I am so thankful that God cares enough about us that when we are willing to give control to Him, He will step in, tear up our lives and plant His seeds. If we are patient and willing to leave the control in His hands then the garden that grows will be unique and all together exotically beautiful beyond belief.

God Bless,
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                                     Photo courtesy of Nikon Sniper: Mount St. Helen's

Happy New Year!

                                                  Google Image
2010 is on the way out and here we are to welcome in 2011! I read a great devotional this morning, Our Daily Bread. It talks about looking in the rear view mirror. Kind of backward to what we normally hear, "don't look where you have been but where you are going", but this one focus' on looking at how God has moved in your life; watching His hand directing and orchestrating our lives. Hebrews 13:5-6 NIV Keep your lives free of the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?"
This past year I have seen God's mighty hand move in my life and the lives of those I know, either in person or through blog land. When I look back over 2010 and the foggy places of my life when I didn't know what to do, I see that God was there the whole time directing me, guiding my footsteps. Yes, I was scared because at the time I couldn't see, I didn't know what was in front of me or around the next corner, but as I trusted Him to not run me into a wall or into falling off a cliff, I see that I wasn't blind I just had a whole lot of sin in my life clouding my vision. Worry, control, anger, insecurity and the such, these things were in my way but as soon as I rebuked them and ask God to forgive me for entertaining them, my vision cleared up and I could see just what God was doing. God is good all of the time and the best thing He gave us, a side from Jesus, is prayer.

Prayer is powerful and I have learned this from Grandpa D and Grandma L. These two sweet people are very powerful prayer warriors and they have taught me a lot on the power of prayer. When they pray you can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room. Their faith in God amazes me and has made me crave that type of relationship with our Creator. I have seen miracles because these two people have abandoned their lives to God. I really want to see more of this and I know I will because this is God's heart, to see people becoming His children.

2011 has a lot to offer and I am very excited to see what God is going to do this year.

God's Blessings on you,
<><






                                                                                        Google Image

Praise God

Pray continually                   Google Image                                                        

  Rejoice always

    Acknowledge Jesus as Lord

       Involve yourself in what He cares about                           
                                                                                               
         Share your faith with others                                                 

           Elohim reigns; yesterday, today and tomorrow


                            Give to those who are in need

                               Obey His voice always

                                  Dedicate your life to Him