hover...

I just read a post by a dear friend of mine. She was talking about how God seemed to be wanting her to "be still" while back here on Earth, her three young boys were running around, the laundry needing doing, dishes needed washing and meals needed cooking. Oh, how I remember those days.

It's so funny now that my children are young adults to look at moms with young children. I always say something like, "Don't blink. They will be grown before you know it." Part of the time, they will look at me like I'm a loon as they are tired and ragged and worn out from trying to keep up and keep it all together.

But seriously, young moms, DON'T BLINK!!! Their childhood will be over all too soon. Mark my words.

So back to Brandi's post, she obeyed the Holy Spirit and did spend some quiet time praying and she shared about all the different people she prayed for.

The list was impressive. Not because it was long or contained 'the' most tragically needy persons, but because it was MASSIVE in its scope.

She mentioned the soldiers who are willingly defending our freedoms, the persecuted who are being targeted or imprisoned for their faith, the orphans, the homeless, the starving...

I don't know about you, but when I start to think about all these people who NEED, some in DESPERATE need, our prayers it makes me feel...

What?

Overwhelmed. I feel like I can't pray for all those people. And if I do, since I don't "know" them personally, that it's not doing much good. Sometimes a particular group comes to mind, for instance abused children... and in my mind, it seems so useless to say, "God, watch over and protect these children." But is it? I KNOW I serve a God Who is well able to do what I just asked, but somehow, to my fleshly mind, it seems so inadequate.

As I'm mulling this over with a new perspective, I wonder if perhaps when I pray such a prayer, maybe there is one certain child out there who needs an intercessor. What do you think? Do you think such 'vague' prayers are "assigned" to people like that?

I dunno where this train of thought is coming from and whether it upsets me more or eases my mind. *hmph!*

I mean, if I sincerely pray for "children" but in actuality there's one child who "gets" the benefit of that prayer... well, is that fair??

*chuckle* I'm disturbing myself now. Good grief!! I have honestly never thought about it that way before.

Guess I need to do some study.

And speaking of study, since I can't seem to write one post on one topic...

I think I've told you about how the hubby and I became community group leaders at church a few months ago, right? Well, after several months, the church offered a "Covenant Marriage" course that we thought would be helpful and since our group is all married couples, we just decided to 'take' the whole group to this 6 week course.

That was a disaster. First of all, the course wasn't quite what we'd thought it was going to be. It was geared more towards couples who didn't have a decades-old marriage. Some people hated it and let us know.. and consequently, never came back to the group!

Others merely didn't like it and didn't attend the class. But they did come back once we went back to our regular meetings.

Now the church is offering a financial study, Navigating Your Finances God's Way from Compass. We were not planning to attend at all. After the last disaster, we just didn't even consider it, even though the two other couples who are core members (they're almost always at group) were planning to attend.

It started this past Sunday night, and we were there in case anyone else showed up expecting to join out group. But no one did, so at the insistence of the other couples, we went into the room where the finance class was being held.

We didn't realize there would be curriculum to purchase, but we paid for the two books and put our names on the list. It seemed as if maybe God had other plans for us in this.

So, we are now doing the homework for this course. We're reading the book Your Money Counts by Howard Dayton. It's a great book. Just reading it without the other book would be a good idea for anyone who's not as good with their money as they ought to be AND who wants to handle their money according to scripture.

Hubby and I are both feeling like it was God's plan for us to be in this class, even though it's planned to be 10 weeks long!! God will work it all out.

I gotta hit the sack now. It's almost 2 am!! Guess this is what I get for going to bed at 8 pm! *shrugs*

Blessings!