Anyone have something to share?
Psalm 120
A song of ascents.
1 I call on the Lord in my distress,
and he answers me.
2 Save me, Lord,
from lying lips
and from deceitful tongues.
3 What will he do to you,
and what more besides,
you deceitful tongue?
4 He will punish you with a warrior’s sharp arrows,
with burning coals of the broom bush.
5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshek,
that I live among the tents of Kedar!
6 Too long have I lived
among those who hate peace.
7 I am for peace;
but when I speak, they are for war.
Wandering Views 
Continuing prayer for C and Debra. He won’t be sent home just yet due to a minor setback, which was caught in time by the docs. Wisdom on going home and cooperation on the part of insurance so he can go straight home and not to the rehab place. He is off the vent completely!
Prayer for the exhaustion in Debra that has got to be taking place as she has had to adjust to the new normal for them though hopefully, long term not the normal.
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I have asked for prayer for Noah who was in the foster care system and hoping for a permanent family. My daughter would have fostered, but her husband was not onboard. Noah is a friend of my grandsons. My daughter and her family assumed the role of helping out the foster mother and just enjoyed having Noah at various events or staying over. They would take him to Awana for one thing. This past weekend the foster mother officially adopted Noah and told everyone what a blessing my daughter and family were. She was surprised because she didn’t feel they did much. That is the way of things, though, isn’t it? Sometimes all of us doing ‘small things’ adds up to a big thing. This was an answer to prayer and I am sure some of you were part of that. Thank you to the Lord and may he keep Noah on the right path and bring glory to himself through Noah.
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Wonderful news, Kathaleena!
When I was a foster mom, my best friend knew how much I’d looked forward each week to our small prayer group Wednesday night at church. She volunteered that I could still come to it, and leave the girls outside on the playground and she would watch them. So each week I got an hour or so of adult-people time, the girls had someone else watching them and correcting them and loving them, and it was a good break for everyone.
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I’m glad C’s setback was discovered in time. What a rollercoaster the journey must be for both C and Debra. Continuing to pray as they put their trust in the Lord.
Kathaleena, thanks so much for the update on Noah. Amen.
Kevin and Cheryl, thank you for your added comments at the end of the weekend prayer thread. I struggle sometimes with moving forward with my thinking after an already-made decision — letting the past be the past.
Cheryl, your comment above gets to the heart of the feelings I’m struggling with after recommending to the mom that the boy take a break from lessons, so that he could mature, after which time I’d be happy to work with him again. I learned not too long before the previous lesson that the boy has a sibling with a challenging genetic disease. My heart goes out to the family, living with the realities of both of those boys and their particular challenges. Mom was so patient and hardworking last week during the piano lesson, trying to get my student to focus on what I was trying to do to keep him occupied musically. She’s trying her hardest; but my sometimes-guilty conscience (false guilt) likes to whisper, “Surely you could keep working with the boy and, in so doing, give that mom a half-hour respite each week.”
But the fact remains that, deep down, I believe letting this student go for now is the right choice. I’m not a miracle worker; he needs something I don’t think I’m capable of giving at this time.
Would you please pray for this boy, K, and for his family? I would appreciate it. And for me, that I rest in confidence that I’m acting according to what I believe is God’s will in this situation? Thank you.
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Kathaleena, people like that are huge and rare for foster families and adoptive families. We had one couple who would take all of the older ones and put them to work and guide them in a good way. He has died and she has moved. Since then, we have had employees that have been mostly way less than dependable. Just today, one who had assured husband last night that she was on tap for this week called to cancel. So he has to change his plans back to taking her here and there. He is so worn out with this. He sometimes says (often, ok) that he regrets becoming her adult guardian when she turned eighteen. She would be off in the system somewhere or living on the streets. Not what we want for her. But she is so time consuming, so draining.
Our one sort of dependable worker who is always available to talk daughter down over the phone, had her for the few days husband went to the wedding. Daughter treated her (and her husband) to some of the same behavior she has given me for years. Helper still says she is available to take her when we go camping for a week. But it will be hard. And she is a trained special needs teacher and social worker.
All that to say, Kathaleena, your daughter and family reaching out to that family has me in tears. It is so wonderful.
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Got a nice parting email from the mom. They are forgoing today’s lesson, and thanked me for my introducing him to piano. She wrote that he proudly played Twinkle Twinkle from memory for his grandparents this weekend.
All’s well that ends well, I guess, but I’m still sitting here crying, nevertheless. 😦
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Anon, that sounds like they took your ending in the spirit in which it was intended, which is wonderful. Maybe in a year or two he’ll come back and be so happy to see you again, and be ready to learn.
And I do understand wanting to be able to give them a respite . . . but that isn’t the purpose of piano lessons. (A secondary purpose, sure.)
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Kathaleena thanks for updating us on Noah…what a sweet “beginning” for him and all who love him…. ♥️
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I’m finishing up working with the text of this crazy big book I’m compiling, and later today I’ll move into the final stage, pulling the book together. That is going to be a huge job, because I have about a dozen essays, most of them with sources, dozens of photos, more than a hundred screenshots of tidbits from our denominational magazine, sidebars of various sizes with other quotes, three maps, some timelines, etc. And I have to cram it all into a book that ideally should be under 200 pages, and do it all by the end of the week. Oh, and write captions for a whole lot of it, too, and using a software program that can be a bit glitchy.
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Praying for you, Cheryl, as you finish up putting the book together. May the work go efficiently and well.
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We finished our homeschool year today. That might have been a factor in my sort of emotional crash-and-burn at midday, all this big stuff finishing up with school and with the piano student.
I would like to request prayers for safe travels for East Coast sister and family as they drive to the Midwest this weekend. Also prayers for my siblings and me as we all gather for a couple of family meetings next week, one with our parents, one without, to discuss family matters. We siblings are mostly in agreement on things — for sure on the big matters — with a bit of healthy divergence of opinion on lesser matters. There are, of course, some things that are better discussed face to face than over email.
Prayers for my parents, too, please. Thank you, and I’ll report back in a couple of weeks after, Lord willing, sis and family are safely back to their home.
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