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Prayer Requests 11-13-17

Anyone have something to share?

Psalm 97

1 The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad;
    let the distant shores rejoice.
2 Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
    righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
3 Fire goes before him
    and consumes his foes on every side.
4 His lightning lights up the world;
    the earth sees and trembles.
5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
    before the Lord of all the earth.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness,
    and all peoples see his glory.

7 All who worship images are put to shame,
    those who boast in idols—
    worship him, all you gods!

8 Zion hears and rejoices
    and the villages of Judah are glad
    because of your judgments, Lord.
9 For you, Lord, are the Most High over all the earth;
    you are exalted far above all gods.
10 Let those who love the Lord hate evil,
    for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
    and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
11 Light shines on the righteous
    and joy on the upright in heart.
12 Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous,
    and praise his holy name.

21 thoughts on “Prayer Requests 11-13-17”

  1. My daughter KJ was discouraged and tearful last night about her persistent bronchitis, which has kept her out of school and work for three weeks now. When I asked her what had changed from her upbeat attitude earlier in the day she said “I was faking it then.” She didn’t feel like she was getting better and she was quite discouraged. She’ll talk to the doctor again today.

    She was less discouraged after a long talk and prayer time with me and Mrs. B. She’s probably going to drop her most challenging class, which disappoints her because she likes the class a lot, but it makes life more manageable.

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  4. Kevin, praying for KJ. My high school piano student is experiencing something similar, and has been sick most of the time with one thing or another since starting her senior year this past August. Lots of difficult courses, trying to fit in work on the weekends, college tours, studying three musical instruments. It’s so difficult when ambitious youth with lots on their plate get knocked down with lingering illness. What a blessing for your daughter that she has a praying mom and dad.

    Kim, praying for you and yours. You’ve been in my thoughts a lot lately.

    I am struggling with SAD (seasonal affective disorder), a mostly yearly reality now. Some years are worse than others, and this seems to be one of those years. I have been crying almost every day this month so far (well, mostly at night, not as much during the day). Many things — things that have already happened, and others I anticipate happening — are weighing heavily on my mind. I’m having a hard time shaking the gloom, and am borrowing future trouble, which never helps anything. It’s really bad when I don’t even feel like playing the piano, which happened for a 2- or 3-day stretch last week.

    Maybe I should just take a day off and get Mrs. OC finished today. I’ve been reading it only during time spent in waiting rooms — dentist and doctor appointments, and my daughter’s wisdom teeth extraction appointment — and have already gotten to chapter 6, with all the appointments we’ve had lately. I’m tired and need encouragement.

    Thank you for praying.

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  5. 6 Arrows, do you have one of the lights that is made for SAD? I’ve heard very good reports on those. I don’t know that I officially have SAD, but I don’t like winter and in Chicago I often felt gloomy in winter. I could state “then” and “now” even more strongly, to be honest–winter is something I dread, something I endure, something I leave behind with relief. During winter I am often sleepy (and give myself permission to sleep more, since I think it is an actual physical need to sleep in a little bit longer and/or take a nap) and I avoid going outside because I simply detest being cold. It’s one of the reasons I really want to move in our attempt to move a bit further south–it won’t be a huge difference like moving to Nashville would be, but I think it will still be healthier for me to have just those few more weeks of warm weather and half as much snow.

    In other words, I empathize.

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  7. I finally caught the cold virus that has been making its way through our little family. I actually thought it had passed me by, but nope.

    My head aches, along with general body aches, & I’m coughing a lot. Although I know it’s only a garden variety cold, not worth mentioning, please pray it doesn’t develop into a secondary infection. As Michelle says in Mrs. Oswald Chambers, the stresses that come with grief & dealing with all the things that need to be dealt with, can affect one’s health.

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  8. The world seems to have no room for the permanent invalid. I know a woman, a few years older than myself, who spends the majority of her days lying on a bed in a darkened room. Even holding a short conversation with her can weary her to the point she must spend several days recovering. She was left a small amount of money by a relative, but in order to get disability, she had to get rid of all her assets. It is very difficult for the single woman who is facing a lifetime of ill health to be reassured. One knows one’s parents will not live forever, and one must find some means of support. What single women are to do isn’t mentioned in Scripture – widows are given provision in I Timothy 5, but there is no mention of the spinster. So, one must depend on one’s own resources, and when health gives way, what other support is there?

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  12. Roscuro, my hunch is that the older woman eligible for care of the church was more commonly a widow, but that the same principles might apply. That is, she might have never been married, but she would have been absorbed into the family of a brother or an uncle after her father died, and she too would have brought up children, served the poor, etc. as the godly widow was to have done. If she had no further family means of support, I would think the church would have cared for her. Really, in the cluster of seventy-something and older women who gather in most churches, it’s pretty hard to tell who’s a widow and who never married (or who divorced, for that matter).

    When I was marrying at 44 and a couple of my siblings believed that in the absence of our late father’s ability to accept or decline my fiance, I was to wait for the decision of my oldest brother (my second brother had met my now-husband and liked him, but he was deemed not to count since he was not the family-patriarch firstborn), I quoted the text that the widow is free to marry whomever she chooses, “only in the Lord.” I said that while I was not technically a widow, I was on older single woman living without family support and thus not under anyone’s authority. (Had I been living with a brother, it might be wise to ask for his opinion. The opinion of a brother who lived several states away, and contributed not a dime to my household income, was completely irrelevant. He met my husband on our first anniversary, since he wasn’t able for business reasons to attend our wedding. But had he managed to carve out two or three hours earlier to meet my beloved, he could not have learned anything helpful or anything I didn’t already know that might help me in making my decision.)

    Among other things, the “widow” receiving church care is assumed not to have family who can help her. So I think that widow would include a single woman who had outlived family, but would not include a widow who had four sons of working age and a handful of teenage grandsons.

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  13. Cheryl, I once asked Pastor A about single women being included in the number of widows, and he looked startled, as if the question had never occurred to him before, but said that yes, single women could certainly be included. That he said yes was comforting, that he looked startled at the idea that single women may need provision in their declining years was not. It isn’t so much what the Bible does or does not say, but rather the oblivion of the Church to a group that is very vulnerable and desperately in need. The expectation among the Christian circles in which I move is either a) the single woman stays with her parents (I still have enough acquaintances among the ultra-Conservatives to see that view), or b) the single woman takes care of herself and is left alone to deal with her problems. I have a number of acquaintances who are single women who are either in poor health or declining years, and I often wonder what will become of them.

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  14. Roscuro, I had plenty of time to think through such things myself. I even once had a married relative tell me I wouldn’t make a good wife because I was “independent,” and I wondered if she really thought I was supposed to go begging among my relatives rather than getting a job to support myself. In the Christian world, sometimes you’re “hanged if you do, hanged if you don’t” as a single person. Don’t pursue men (but don’t act as though you don’t need them); don’t be career minded (but don’t expect help from married people who have their own families to think about); don’t make major decisions without a man (but don’t talk to a married man because it will be clear you’re really trying to steal him from his wife).

    Yeah, I know. The truth is that most married women will end up as widows, too (some of them as divorced women) and adult children may or may not offer much help, so some of those questions are actually true of all of us. But single women tend to be somewhat uniquely invisible in the church. I think single men may actually have it worse in some regards, because they’re less likely to have a network of support and people are suspicious of single men, but overall singles often do fall between the cracks, and I don’t like that.

    I think that living with parents can in many cases be a very good option for single women, for mutual support and care–I know several women who have done it, and their presence is a great blessing to widowed mothers (ask Kizzie). But to say that should be a woman’s sole option, or that she must live with brothers or other relatives if her parents aren’t still alive, is absurd. It’s also adding to Scripture. I once had a patriarchal woman tell me that if a woman’s father is going to die and she has no brothers or uncles, then ideally her father should have chosen a man from church to be her guardian. And I thought really, you see no problem with a single woman being required to live with an unrelated (married) man the rest of her life? Problems like potential sexual abuse–or mutual sexual sin–problems like that man demanding that she “obey” him even in such issues as whether she is allowed to marry, his own children being jealous of her, the probability that she will not be remembered in his will, the reality that if he moves or he changes religions or any number of choices, or even if his wife dies or he divorces her, this woman is still seeing this unrelated man as “the man her father chose” and she is being a good daughter to a long-dead man by living with him? (I suspect she wouldn’t say that particular foolish thing today, but it just shows the kinds of nonsense patriarchal teaching can spout.) Does she do work around the household and get paid an allowance like a child, do they buy her everything they think she needs but with no money changing hands (again, like a child), or how is she to be supported? And on what biblical basis do we say such things when it is quite clear in Scripture that widows without household males were often self-supporting, and when our culture offers ways for women to be self-supporting? (I know, that is a long way from the question of the woman who can no longer be self-supporting, but the same general concept.) I know a woman who lives with her widowed mother, but who knows her mother won’t live forever, and she would like to marry. But marriage prospects aren’t there for the asking for every 40-something woman, either, especially when a lot of men who do date end up going for women 15 or 20 or more years younger than they are, and when many others really aren’t very good catches . . .

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  15. So many needs here and everywhere I turn. God is big enough to hear our prayers over each one and answer in one way or another according to His good plans.

    I use to get really bad colds and bronchitis. That seemed to stop when I started using a little Aloe Vera juice as a supplement. I have not used it lately, but if I feel a cold incubating, I will start using it again. And I have tried turmeric according to Mumsee for extra help. The oil of oregano suggested by NJ Lawyer some years back did not help as much.

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  16. I also drink Rooibos tea and Camomile which seems to help some in various ways. Some colds seem oblivious to whatever we do against them. I know some years are worse than others, too. Maybe this is one of those years. Prayers for quick recovery for all who are suffering in that manner.

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  17. I don’t understand this business of getting the approval of a father or older brother for a mature woman deciding whom to marry.
    Both Elvera and I told our parents we were getting married.
    My parents were joyful. Elvera’s parents wanted her to marry someone with a job.

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  18. Chas, I think it is a good thing for the man to “ask” the father and take seriously any objections he might have. The younger the woman, the more this is true. (A 19-year-old might presumably have a lot lower discernment skills, particularly about men, than a 35-year-old.) If the father’s objections are weak, ultimately the couple is the one making the decision. But a wise father might easily see things in a man that a young woman blinded by love or lust could miss.

    When I was in college, I saw several women enter ill-advised engagements. Some married and some didn’t, and some of the relationships that started out bad ended up good (eventually), after a lot of pain and suffering. (In two cases, after the death of one of their children.) If I were the parent of a girl whose boyfriend cussed her out or slapped her or kicked the family dog a couple of times, for instance, or would pick her up drunk, or get her home well after curfew . . . I wouldn’t be inclined to say, “Well, it’s her life, her decision.” Likewise, if a “brand new convert” from Islam were to court my daughter, I’d want that to be a pretty long courtship, with plenty of time to get to know the young man. If I were the father and he wasn’t a believer, or he had divorced his previous wife without biblical cause, I would outright say no, she cannot marry him. Now, if she is an adult, she might choose to marry him anyway, but she’d be doing so without our blessing or our financial help.

    Sometimes parents are simply biased against anyone new marrying into the family. But sometimes they have really good cause to say “no, you don’t have our blessing” or “our counsel is that you wait and deal with this issue first, and then marry.” Let’s say that she finds out about something very serious two weeks before the wedding, say that he had been married before, or that he had been involved in a long-term live-in relationship and he had two children, or that he had $50,000 in debt or a drinking problem or had been arrested for battery in two previous relationships–sometimes someone who loves the woman can help her see more clearly that something is a really, really big deal.

    I was 43 when I got to know my husband, 44 when I had married him, and we had talked at length and went into marriage with no surprises. I didn’t need any brothers giving or withholding their approval. But I cared what my elders and my favorite brother thought about him simply because they are men, sometimes a man can see something in another man that a woman cannot, and because there is some risk involved in a long-distance relationship. I knew it to be wisdom to take into account the opinions of others. But I didn’t ask anyone for “permission,” and I didn’t seek the counsel of my oldest brother at all–his opinion was completely irrelevant, since he doesn’t know me well enough to have any opinion on what sort of man would be a good match for me, and since I had already made up my mind about my beloved well before my brother got a chance to meet him.

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  19. Cheryl, 11:20, I don’t like the cold, either, and wish I lived farther south. A few hours south or north can make a difference, as my son learned after moving three hours north of us a year ago. The temps are definitely cooler where he is.

    Since it feels like I’ve used this prayer thread to complain for too long, I will offer a few praise reports, in order of occurrence:

    1. My accompanying job for which I was hired last-minute two weeks ago was fun and a blessing, and helped keep the SAD at bay during my rehearsal hours. I served as accompanist for the Missoula Children’s Theatre group when they were in our area, and I was allowed to “bring my daughter to work” with me (10-year-old 6th Arrow). She was with me when I dropped off my paperwork at the university where the production was to be held, and when I told her I was going to be employed by the university for that week and let her know what I would be doing, her eyes lit up and she said, “Cool! I want to do that!” 🙂 So I thought it would be neat if she could come to rehearsals with me, serving as my page turner, and seeing what an accompanist does. The Fine Arts director approved her presence, and daughter absolutely loved seeing the rehearsals (and the two performances, though she couldn’t see everything that was happening on stage from her position behind the piano, but most of it she could).

    Now she’s bitten by the theatre bug, and wants to be in a musical herself. MCT auditions children from grades K-12 for parts in their productions, and she really wants to try out next time they’re in our area. I guess they have traveled to every state and 17 countries. They do an excellent job, considering auditions are on Mondays and shows are performed only five days later! Then they pack up and do it again somewhere else the next week. Whew.

    2. Praise report that my best friend’s mom does not have uterine cancer. There are some unanswered questions remaining regarding Valrie’s weakness and confusion that Karen is hoping they can get to the bottom of, but they are all very relieved there’s no cancer. They are grateful for your prayers.

    3. My husband sold his motorcycle today. He didn’t get money for it yet, and still has the title, but his coworker, who will be paying for it in installments, hauled it away today, so it’s not in our way anymore. I’m just glad we have one less vehicle, if you could call it that, around here, and one less thing to insure. Every reduction in expenses helps.

    Thank you for all your prayers.

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  21. KJ also tends to have SAD, and the recent string of dark, gray, cold, rainy, and ever-shortening days has not helped her mood. She got a light box last week and started using it today. I’ll let you know what she thinks after she’s been using it for awhile.

    She seemed better this morning and went to classes, but later in the day had a mild fever again and regretted not having called the doctor. That’s first on the agenda for tomorrow.

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