Hey – God must be listening to your prayers!

Guess what? Somebody must be praying and God must be listening to your prayers!

I’m mainly referring to my last entry about Hannah, who was having a pretty rough time with her two year molars. Soon after I wrote that, she began feeling a lot better. It’s funny because her molars are still coming in now, a couple of weeks later, but ever since then she’s been in a much better mood. So praise the Lord! What an answer to prayer!

We are home again now; I haven’t written much more about our trip here because soon after we got home I updated our Family News page and prayer requests, so if you’re reading this in the next few days you should still be able to see a summary of our trip (which went very well) there. Thanks so much for your prayers and gifts that made the ministry in Central Saskatchewan possible!

And now, back to the topic of health. 🙂 I myself have been the sickest one for the last couple of weeks; we try to rotate as much as possible. 😉

Seriously though, please do pray for my health, which has been rather frustrating. I’ve been to a doctor 3 times since returning from our trip, and expect at least a couple more visits in the next couple of weeks. I won’t list all the problems I’m having, but let’s just say I’m not feeling the greatest from the waist up!

I have to say that God really has been teaching me throughout this time. I often think of a song (by Twila Paris) about how God teaches us through the “thorns” in our lives. He exposes the selfishness and pride in our lives, and teaches us how to rely on Him. I found the lyrics online, so rather than typing them out, I direct you to click on this link to read the lyrics for yourself. It starts:

Thank you for this thorn, embedded in my flesh
I can feel the mystery – my spirit is made fresh . . .

So praise the Lord for all He can teach us through pain! Do continue to pray for us. For healing, yes. But also for the more important things – humility, love, joy.

Isn’t it interesting that these things in themselves are often taught to us in times of pain, but these things often actually improve our health? I always remember what a friend of mine, Bruce used to say. He said that he didn’t mind a little pain or discomfort now if it helped him avoid something worse later. Simple principle, right? God so often allows hardship in our lives to teach us lessons of character, so that we can avoid a bad spiritual fall in the future. I can only hope and pray that I will be a willing student!