Afternoon Prayer

If you would like to pray with us, please do so right now, where you are. Together we can hold their arms up through this battle.

Dear Darlene,

We are self-employed and need some prayers our way. I have handed over a situation that blindsided us yesterday to God knowing that whatever happens is His plan for us. I pray for God to help me continue to let go of control in releasing it to Him. My husband is very successful and there may also be people that want to bring him down. I have also prayed for those people to do the right thing and place aside any feelings of jealousy or vengeance to look to God in a decision they need to make which affects our livelihood.

I am asking for your prayer today because you are a woman that I now look up to. I've never reached out like this before. As long as my husband and I have each other, we have all we need. But he has worked so hard for so long to get to where he is (and done it in a loyal, virtuous, ethical way) to think that someone can basically take it all away in a matter of 24 hours is breaking my heart.

Thank you so much!

DM



Dear Father,

I pray for D and her husband today. Asking first that you will bring joy and peace to their lives. Even this minute in the midst of the storm calm the waves. Like the disciples in the boat with Jesus, I pray that they will hold onto the comfort that You are not asleep in this storm. That You can calm the waves with a single word. You can change hearts, open doors and pave roads. Lord I trust that those roads are paved, whether they can see them at this minute or not--doors are waiting to be opened leading to better paths for those who are in Christ Jesus.

While I ask that you remove this burden from their lives, we offer our hearts in submission to you.

You've never promised us that life would be easy, but you have promised us joy. Praise you Father God in the name of your precious Son Jesus. That joy is here, and now. Not tomorrow, not a year down the road, but this minute it's theirs for the taking.

People can threaten their finances, threaten their health, threaten their livelihood, but no one on earth or below can take away the peace that passes all understanding.

Oh Lord, I pray for them, and for my own husband as he labors at work that they would hold onto that peace, and see it for the great treasure it is.

Paul was a man who saw the beauty that trials bring, and we as your servants and students of that message seem to grasp it in part. My heart longs for the day when I'll treasure each trial that comes knowing that you are ever present and beside me.

"Never Alone." That has been your message to me, Lord. And I pray that it will be a comfort to them.

In the almighty name of your son Jesus, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. We lay our hearts and our fears in your hands. May we leave this place of prayer strengthened and refreshed by Your Spirit.

Darlene

For comments or questions, contact me at:
darlene[at]darleneschacht.net

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The Winds of Why

(This post was written for my friend, Amy Bayliss. Her three young boys recently lost their father to a sudden heart attack. Please pray for them. Also please pray for the family of young Rebekah. She is battling cancer while her mother is dying from ALS)

I see a young child so damaged by the effects of radiation that she’s barely recognizable, while the words “inoperable cancer” pierce our ears. I see children starving in a world where we eat and drink without thought. I see young girls working on the streets, sold for the price of drugs, while adults abuse them in ways that one can only imagine. And I see three young boys crying out from the depths of a broken heart because their father has passed on too soon.

In this world where sin, death, poverty, perversion and pain are a vivid reality, we are tossed to and fro by the winds of “Why?”

Why did I have to lose five babies to miscarriage? Why is my dad living with fifteen inoperable brain tumors? And why are children hurting in this world? I grieve without understanding, and so how, as a mother, can I possibly teach my children to understand?

The winds of “why” are strong. They have the potential to pull one into the deepest pit of depression and another into the abyss of despair. What we believe about God and what we teach during these moments of pain and confusion determine how we set our sail in the storm.

High winds will definitely change our course in life, but the choices we make during these times of darkness are the pivotal points that determine where we will finally dock.

As parents we have a responsibility to guide children through times of trouble and to catch them when they fall. They don’t understand how to grieve anymore than we do, and so they look to us for those cues that will lead them through pain toward peace.

How can we explain pain to our children when we don’t have the answers ourselves? We start by honestly saying, “I really don’t know.” Man doesn’t have to understand the ways and the “whys” of God. His wisdom exceeds ours, and while we wish we had the answer to the question "why?" We don’t.

What we do know and what we can offer our children is hope. Time does heal our pain, yes, but God holds the power to start that healing today. Doubt has the ability to drag us into a pit, but faith has the power to lift us out of that pit and keep us from falling back in.

We don’t weather these storms alone, anymore than the disciples did when Jesus was sleeping on the boat through the storm. Upon waking him, they quickly learned that our God is ever present and always in control.

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. ~ Psalm 46:1-3, NIV

You are loved by an almighty God,

Darlene

For comments or questions, contact me at:
darlene[at]darleneschacht.net

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Busy With Dad

I just wanted to pop in and say that the past few days I've been busy with my dad. He was recently diagnosed with lung cancer and brain tumors. Today they found 15 brain tumors in total. This week has been filled with doctors appointments and laser surgery, but he is in the best of spirits that one could possibly be.

Please keep both he and my mom (Andrew and Lenore Gauthier) in your prayers as hand in hand they walk this difficult journey.

You are loved by an almighty God,

Darlene

For comments or questions, contact me at:
darlene[at]darleneschacht.net