Can You Praise and Pray?

I feel like I've been bombarded with prayer requests lately...so many people are getting sick, dealing with diseases, fighting for life. "It's not the way it's supposed to be", I think to myself.

I was at a women's conference at my church this weekend and one of the speakers, Cynthia Brazelton brought light to this subject in my life. She was talking about how we are the apple of God's eye (Deut 32:10). It says that He found him (us, the people I'm praying for, etc) in the wilderness, in a wasteland (in a dry place where they don't have the healing they need). It says that He threw His arms around us, lavished His attention on us and guarded us as the apple of His eye. Well, praise the Lord!!! When we are struggling, he is wrapping his arms around us, giving us all the attention and love we need and guarding us as very precious to His heart.

Psalm 22:3 says that God inhabits the praises of his people. We are to praise Him, and He simply can't help but be present when we do so. He longs to visit us when we are praising Him--what parent doesn't love to hear his or her kids say how much they love Mama or Daddy? I know when I'm putting Ella down for the night, I long to hear those words, "Wuv you, mommy" pass through her pacifier, especially when they're unsolicited.

So, I want to praise God for who He is, in light of a few people who are close to me and need to be wrapped up in His arms right now. In fact, they need Him to move in a mighty way, and I'm believing for them that He will. In Acts 16, we find Paul and Silas...they had been preaching the gospel through a town and casting out demons and healing people. Some people got mad at them and had them thrown into jail. They weren't just put in a holding cell. They were put in the deepest dungeon in the jail. No doubt there were rats and all sorts of nasty things down there, and it was dark and wet and....ewwwww! Then they were shackled and so their hands were bound and they couldn't do anything about those rats and creepy crawlies all over them. (Double ewwwww!) What did they do? They were praying and singing to God. And not just some woe is me kind of, "I praise you, God. (sniff, sniff)"...No, they praised and prayed so loudly that the other prisoners who were not underground heard them through the thick stone walls and dirt that separated them. This was a serious praise. And then do you know what happened? An earthquake came (I don't think it was a coincidence), the foundations of the jail shifted, and all the doors opened and everyone's chains were loosed.

What Paul and Silas did was praise. What God did was free everyone who even heard them praising. Everyone who was bound. Paul & Silas were in jail for no good reason, so maybe some of the other prisoners really were innocent, too. And they all were able to be free.

My three big prayer requests have been for:

1) My mom, who is battling the last stages of pulmonary hypertension, and has been for 4 years now. We are at the point where we have to have a miracle or lung transplant. She is #1 on the transplant list, but her antibodies are so that there is a very small percentage of people who would match her. I am praying for God's healing touch to touch her, heal her. OR...if He'd get more glory through a transplant process, then I am praying for the match, or a change in her antibodies...anything.

2) My friend and college roommate, Ashley. She and her husband are missionaries in Botswana, and she has always been someone who I've looked up to spiritually. This girl is a ball of fire for God. She recently gave birth to their second child, a boy named Caleb. Unfortunately, during the birthing process, his oxygen was diminished, and now there is significant damage to his brain which, barring a miracle, could mean a lifetime of round-the-clock care and almost no quality of life. Ashley and Percy have each felt God telling them to believe and ask for healing in this situation, though they were prepared to simply deal with the diagnosis and still give Him glory.

3) My "aunt" (she's related somehow through my marriage on my dad's side) Leslie who is in the last stages of cancer. She is fighting and battling, but has been dealing with it a long time, and I'm sure she's tired. I can't imagine how hard it must be to go through all that she's gone through, and as a mama, I can't imagine the torment that she deals with when thinking of her two sons and husband. I am praying for a miracle in this situation, too.

Overall, may God's will be done...He is worthy of praise even if things don't turn out as I have hoped and prayed. He's amazing and his ways are higher than my ways. I'm going to praise Him because of these situations. I am going to continually give Him the love and admiration He deserves, and He will inhabit these praises and the anointing that comes from it can be transferred into their lives, just as it happened with Paul and Silas.

Will you please take a minute and praise God with me? Thank Him for answering these prayers. Thank Him for wrapping these three people in His arms and lavishing His love of them and guarding them as the apple of His eye?

Twtter

FYI, I had installed a Twitter application to my page a couple days back, and it worked at first, but apparently got switched with some random's tweets. If you read any of those wierd ones that didn't sound like me...they weren't! I deleted it. If you really want to follow me on Twitter, my username is coleyberry. Sorry bout that!

Been Thinkin'

I've had some time to think. It's an anomaly in my world, actually. Here's a look into my brain lately...nothing profound or special...

When going to two stores across the street, parking lot, etc... (or nearby each other) it's just easier to take the kids and walk with the cart than to load them back in the car, then unload them again in 2.5 seconds.

I did this the other day when I just had Allie. We were at Target (ahhhhh...) and I had her in the Baby Bjorn (by the way, I think I'm gonna need a chiropractor soon). We also needed to go to the sports store across the street, and since it wasn't a busy street, I decided to just keep things as they were and hike it. I mean, I was going to a sports store, why not actually get some exercise doing it!?! This is good for one, but especially true for shopping with two kids. In and out of the car routines can shave precious minutes off of melt-down free shopping/errand time.


When deciding whether or not to purchase designer jeans, one should take into account the probability of getting pregnant again soon...

Brandon and I spent a morning date at Stax Omega and then wandered over to the mall. This was the first time we'd been to the mall in a loooong time. I guess my motto has been one-stop shops are better for shopping with babies, so I frequent Target or Wal-Mart, and occasionally have a few minutes and enough guts to hit up the TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross kind of stores. But we had grandma watching the children so we decided it might actually be FUN to walk around the mall like we did when we were in high school on a Saturday night. We looked at lots of great clothes in lots of great stores, but weren't there to buy anything. We went into this store called Buckle..it's all the rage here. You've probably seen something from there...the swirly, printed pieces of clothing with lots of flashy, sparkly things on them...We'd never really been in there, but walked through and I got talked into trying on some jeans...The nice girl said, "what kind of fit do you wear?" I answered, "The kind that fits a preggo belly and have a band on them." It's been at least 3 years since I've bought jeans because I've been battling preggo body since then. But I did, and while I found some really cute ones that actually fit this soccer booty and "powerful" legs (lol), I thought twice and decided not to take the plunge...yet.

Here's the problem. I don't really want to spend that kind of money on jeans that I love, only to find out in a couple of months that Baby #3 is on the way (no, this is NOT an announcement). My history of pregnancies says that I won't be wearing them long. That will leave me longingly staring at them in my closet every time I reach for the jeans with a band on the belly.

Soooooo....no new jeans for me. Maybe I'll use that money for something that will be better put to use.

Like I said...nothing profound. Maybe even a little trivial. Believe me, as the wife of Brandon (who I believe is gonna be used by God to change the world one day), the mama of Ella and Allie (also world changers), the daughter of Cris (battling everyday with a disease that wants to take her out), and the friend to so many who are really running hard after and doing great things for God's Kingdom...I have a lot of other things on my mind that go a bit deeper...that's why these silly thoughts stick out to me. I hope that they bring some relief and laughter to you as well.