He never sleeps, nor does He slumber

I always go into summer with grand and lofty goals. I will plant a larger garden than last year and buy no fresh produce this summer. I will completely organize my house and clean it from top to bottom. We will down size the junk in the garage, organize, and shelve it all, I will read through the bible, I will get caught up on my fiction reading, I will get caught up on all of the scrapbooks which are behind.... and yes the list goes on as does yours I am sure. In reality, summer seems to end up being plenty busy if not busier than the school year sometimes. It gets filled with projects that can't be done during the "school" year. People come to visit or come over for dinner more often. Yard maintenance takes much more time than we realize and as our kids get bigger, transporting them from either home and a job, or home and a friends can fill up the hours quickly. It is just full and usually that is a blessed thing.

In the middle of our crazy summer days, lets encourage each other to not let go of the prayer time we all so desperately need with our Abba father.


Prayer Requests:


Stephanie is undergoing her chemo and has lost a lot of her hair. At the same time this is a huge praise report. Her faith in God is abundantly evident in her blog updates. She is walking hand in hand with her savior and her hope is solidly in him. Let's keep her in our prayers. Her blog should be linked to mine if you would like to read and get updates not to mention be inspired by her walk of faith.


Cyrus - The update I have on him is that the tumor in his brain is the type with fingers which some of you may know is not good. He too is rock solid in his faith and trust of his Lord. His wife Joni is struggling. She is battling fear, anxiety, and probably some depressions with that. This can be a terrifying and completely uncontrollable feeling while you are experiencing it and it can quickly get out of hand and cause serious physical side effects. Let's pray that God would be her refuge and her strong tower. A place where she can run and find shelter from this storm.


Brian - My brother is still battling an infection and the anti-biotics don't seem to be kicking it. He is on his third round and is having some pretty scary side effects. This feels incredibly discouraging I can imagine as he has been really feeling the hand of God in his life. The spirit of doubt is a crafty one and weasels its' way in where ever it can. Lord we rebuke this spirit in his life and ask you to remove it and cast it back to the pit forever. Give him confidence in you as his Lord and Savior and ever present help in time of need. Help him to continue to minister to those around him in the ways only he can.


Mark - My Main Man Mark is still on the hunt for a job. We have a couple of local tips. One in particular that we are very excited to pursue. Please pray with us for God's timing in this and his provision.


Our family - We will be having our nephew come to stay with us for a little over 2 weeks in August. It will be a difficult time for all involved and yet we have no doubt this is of the Lord. We are going to be helping him out in a difficult time of his young life. Pray for God's orchestration on each and every detail of each and every day. Pray for softening of hearts and a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. We are anticipating seeing God work in some really incredible ways with this one. This request partially piggy backs with the job one as I feel it would be a much better thing if Mark were able to be here during the visit. In fact, I feel like that is part of the reason for the timing of the layoff. The mysteries of God's perfect timing never cease to amaze me.



Praise Reports -


Gavin is getting baptized! We have never felt right about pushing our kids in this. We have waited until each one felt ready and this young man is ready.


Tristan continues to have opportunities to be a living sacrifice, something he really learned about in Mexico.


A dear friend has turned a hard heart over to the Lord to be truly molded by his love and grace. The path may be narrow but the mercies are abundant and at the end of the day, God is GOOD!


The youth pastor is starting to feel better. The cough is lingering but decreasing.


Terin and Payton have been "working" doing jobs for people and selling vegetables around the neighborhood to help our family out while Mark is without his job. What a blessing they have been to us.




Something I would like to encourage you to do is be praying for your friends and their marriages. The enemy seems to be working overtime on the destruction of this sacred union. Stand up with me and say "NO MORE!" I am tired and angry at seeing friends fall victim to the sleazy plans of the enemy. Pick 2 couples for each day of the week and whether they are experiencing troubles right now or not, pray for them faithfully on the particular weekday. If God gives you a specific verse for them, shoot em a text or an email to let them know you have been holding them up. I guarantee if we all did this, we would begin to see changes. I know I would love that kind of prayer.

We serve a big God who sees everything and wants to hear it all from you, so take some time out of your busy summer days and talk to Him.