Good morning…
Down every prayer avenue I knew, I immediately sent this request.
“URGENT PRAYERS NEEDED: CALLING ALL PRAYER WARRIORS: Wesleyan moms have reached out to our prayer group asking for urgent prayers now and at 2:45pm today. Please pray for William Parker, a Wesleyan eighth grader who was injured in a football game on Saturday at Woodward. William is at Egleston and has received 2 brain surgeries already and will have the third at 2:45pm today. The majority of the left side of his skull has been removed. Please set an alarm on your phone for 2:45pm as we join with families and schools across our community to pray boldly and earnestly for a miracle, asking for a full recovery for this precious child. And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).”
Prayers continue in earnest across our community for this teen and his family, ordinary people who could easily be our teen and our family. After forwarding the prayer request, I returned to my email to receive this message from a loyal “sue2you” subscriber:
“A freshman dorm mate of my son’s at Auburn passed away unexpectedly. A dear friend’s 18-year old neighbor was killed in a car crash last night. Life is so fragile. I love this verse that opens the book I am reading: God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful – as beautiful on the inside as the outside (1 Thessalonians 4:7).”
Quickly I wrote back: “I appreciate your open heart to life’s pain and life’s joy. Seems they are all knotted up at times and we either accept or reject the whole jumbled ball, welcoming or denying God’s holy beauty in our everyday lives.”
Later I read aloud this quote to my afternoon class:
“We take the journey in faith – not the kind of faith that knows all the answers and has mapped out the right and proper paths, but the faith that says simply, “I don’t know, but I do trust” (p. 9 in Margaret Silf’s The Other Side of Chaos: Breaking Through When Life is Breaking Down).
Don’t run roughshod over the concerns of your brothers and sisters. Their concerns are God’s concerns, and he will take care of them. We’ve warned you about this before. God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside (1 Thessalonians 4:6-7, MSG).
…Sue…
