Answered Prayers!

One of the greatest perks of being a stay-at-home-wife is the increased time I have for prayer. Every morning, I take my Bible and my coffee to the porch, and spend the first moments of my day in the Word and lifting up my spirit and requests. This has been a huge blessing and my soul feels such peace as a result.

Recently I've had many prayers answered, and wanted to share God's faithfulness here.

• Healing for my friend Kelly's husband, who was diagnosed with brain cancer and given a year to live. After surgery and a trip to MD Anderson, they discovered the cancer had NOT spread after all and that he was doing GREAT! In fact, he won't even need chemo- only a few rounds of radiation! It is a truly a miracle, and I can't stop praising God for His mercy and healing power.
• The mother of a former student, who has battled cancer off and on. She returned to Korea for some experimental treatment that helped her before. Her doctors said her cancer had decreased and wasn't at a serious level, so she could come home for the holidays. Praise God! I'm still praying for continued and complete healing.
• My cousins' Grandfather (Aunt's Father) was dying over the last couple of weeks. I prayed for a peaceful spirit that would be filled with joy and sweet anticipation of entering God's glorious kingdom. I also prayed it would be an uplifting experience that would point to God's power for the whole family. From comments on facebook, this seemed to be the case.
• ADOPTION. I've prayed that our background checks would come back quickly. When I went for my interview yesterday, our social worker, Katie, was amazed. SIXTEEN our of NINETEEN were back. In fact- get this- one day she stood at the fax machine, faxing four of the requests. As she started to fax the third request, a fax started coming in. IT WAS THE FIRST FORM SHE HAD FAXED- ONE MINUTE BEFORE!!! She was stunned. Then twenty minutes later, ANOTHER background check was returned. Katie reported this story in disbelief, but I smiled, knowing God had heard our prayers!
• I've been asking God to provide a spiritual mentor for Jaris and I here. I had a wonderful relationship with a mentor in Texas (and miss her DEARLY- Hi Cathy!!!) and wanted to find that sort of guidance and perspective here. I'm part of a MOMs group at Church and they had a celebratory dinner Thursday night. As the speaker began walking up, the Holy Spirit spoke straight to my heart- THAT'S HER. "What?! I don't know anything about her!", I thought, "but all right." As she spoke, it was completely obvious that yes, this woman does know Truth and would make an excellent mentor. I approached her (hesitantly!) afterwards, and she said she's never done anything like that before but would love to meet with me and get to know me better.

So praise God for His faithfulness! If you have prayer requests that you would like me to lift up, let me know. Take advantage of my ability to be home and spend this time in prayer! And if you don't mind, please continue praying for our adoption process- especially that those last three background checks come back quickly.

AMEN!!!!