The text came in the evening, telling us that our brothers and sisters were running. On the other side of the world, they serve Christ among the hostile and unreached and among mobs that form in the thousands. Mobs that use violence to make their point.
We stopped as a family to pray, our hearts heavy for the little boys they would have to whisk away, the newly acquired home they would have to leave, the disciples hurting and confused.
It bothers me that today I have to make a decision about carpet.
Today it's unlikely that anyone will get hostile over my faith. I probably won't be forced to grab my kids up and run from an angry mob.
I will probably just sit in my comfortable home and pray.
There is hope that persecution will grow the church, but would I ever tell them I prayed with thanksgiving for their persecution? That I sat with my morning cup of coffee in my cozy and unthreatened home and thanked God for the scattering?
I remember this:
And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us - Act 17:26-27 NKJV
I am here and they are there, and we all have to seek, to grope and find Him.
So as I record our family's thanks for the week, I add this - thankfulness that the God Who sees it all and listens close, He knows every need in every place. Mine and theirs, ours.
We are half a world apart but God came down to unite us all, and if nothing else, I can pray.
And I can use this space to ask you to pray, also. Pray for your brothers and sisters, for these precious people pouring their lives out across the globe.
And pray, too, for the ones in comfortable homes.
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So we don't stop giving thanks for small things while we pray for big things.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. - {Jam 1:17 NKJV}
233. good dreams
234. God's word (this one written in a child's hand, and this mama treasuring it in her heart!)
235. Ethan - I am thankful that the Roberts' bought our house
236. Quiet mornings
237. friends that really want to help
238. a wife that is funny and smart and…
239. mercy and grace
240. foggy morning walks with everyone
241. violin
242. mommy's doodles : )
