Consider It All Joy

Could I ask you to just really keep us and Mark's job search in your prayers this week? I also applied for a job that I'm waiting to hear about (though should've heard by now, so probably didn't get it) And maybe, if the Lord bring us to mind from time to time during your days, you could just stop for a moment and say a little prayer... He might be bringing us to mind for a reason. Plus, I am just feeling a burden to ask our friends pray for us this week! Please ask the Lord to direct us and to open the doors He wants us to walk through. Please pray for peace, endurance and wisdom and for Him to show us some way that we can provide for ourselves, however that might be. It is hard and humbling to keep accepting help from friends and we just really want to be able to care for our family ourselves. It is becoming more and more difficult to not be impatient!

More of God's blessings... our car needed more repairs, and the payment previously arranged before we knew we'd need it (through Mark bartering work). We needed some things at WalMart, but I was putting off purchasing... God provided through a friend's misplaced gift card... she then found but too late for the original purpose so she passed it on to us. Thank You, Lord.

God's been bringing James 1 to mind a lot lately.... I memorized it in the NAS years ago, but today looked it up in The Message (a paraphrase). I enjoyed the way the author chose to word it:

Consider it a sheer gift, friends,
when tests and challenges come at you from all sides.
You know that under pressure,
your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors.
So don't try to get out of anything prematurely.
Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father.
He loves to help.
You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it.
Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought.

~*~