Pray for Me Monday

JAMES 5:16
"Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so
that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and
effective." (NIV) 

PSALMS 116:2
"Because He has inclined His ear to me, Therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live" (NKJV)

Welcome back to Pray For Me Mondays with Home Grown Families and Pamela from Troop Petrie.  We are so excited to start this journey together!

Basically, PFMM will work like this:

• Pamela and I will write a post about relevant topics


• we'll post it on our blogs


• we'll pray for you and, hopefully, others will too

Tiffany says:



Pamela really hit it on the head this week!  She has been so awesome with writing the posts before I do, and this one SOOOO applies to me! {not the Grandmother stuff, the guilt stuff.}



I live consumed by guilt.  Every time I look at my girls, I feel guilty that they don't have a father and then I start to replay it in my head "I shouldn't have divorced their {the twins} father." "What did I do to make her {the babys} father leave?  Was I that bad???"

Life goes on. And my sins are forgiven.  So, why am I still holding on?  Pray for me.

Pamela Says:



Do you struggle with guilt? Did you put the guilt on yourself or do other people put the guilt on you? I struggle with guilt in many places in my life. Guilt I put on myself and guilt other people put on me.



Eighteen years ago I moved out of my parent’s home. Well really I moved out twenty years ago. When I told my grandmother I was moving out she told me point blank if I moved out she would die. I told her that was not okay.



I moved out (as in 9 hours from home) and 2 months later she had a heart attack. I moved home. A year and a half later I moved out again. Again before leaving my grandmother told me "If you leave I will die." I was determined that she was just talking.



Well on Friday morning I moved out and on Sunday morning my grandmother passed away. For a long time I suffered with guilt over my grandmothers death.



I no longer let guilt consume my days. Not that I do not struggle with it because I do. But it cannot control my life any longer.



In 1John 3:19-20 it says, "This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."



God knows my heart, he knows that I did not mean for my grandmother to die. He knows my dreams and hopes and goals and only he can help me with them.



Have you shared your heart with God recently? Have you asked him to help explain your guilt so you understand the reason behind it?



Today I have two special prayer requests. The final court hearing for the boys is on Thursday. Once this is done we will be able to get insurance on Tom. I do not see any problems with the court date. We already have the final paperwork on the baby and have him enrolled in DEERS.

Please also pray for a high school friend who was injured in Afghanistan. He had a rough few days. Please pray for healing and for strength for his wife who is by his side every minute she is able.

How can we pray for you this week? Please feel free to leave it in the comment section, link up, or send us an e-mail

There is a blogger that is having a c-sec this Wed.  Pray for her and her baby boy.

Come back next week and tell me how your prayer was answered. If you have a private prayer request please feel free to send it to PrayForMeMondays {at} yahoo {dot} com.



{We will not share your prayer request with anyone.  We will not mention you by name.  We will not reveal specific details.  We may mention your issue like "pray for a husband to be saved~ request via e-mail" unless otherwise requested.}

5 Question Friday

1. What is your go to comfort food or sweet? Little debbie cakes or those type of pastries. Oh, the joy of running into a gas station and buying a chocolate cupcake and a bottle of mountain dew. I do not know why I do this because I know 20 minutes later I am going to feel really sick. But it feels good going down.

2. What is the most romantic place you've ever been to? HMM, I would love to say some castle we visited when we lived in Germany or our honeymoon. But really it was a few years ago when we went to Holiday World alone. We had toy swords and played on the side walk.

3. What is your favorite thing about fall/Halloween? Which Halloween was not around or at least the Halloween of today. Okay fall, baking, baking, and more baking, and the pretty colors and the weather and getting back into our routine after summer. We also have five birthdays in fall.

4. How would you spend 24 hours alone? In a hotel with room service and a CD player and a nice shower/bathtub. I would work on some fun sewing, I would work on a lot of blog things I never want to do. I would take girly movies and popcorn and lay in bed and throw the popcorn up in the air and see if I can catch it with my mouth wide open. I would make out cards to friends I keep forgetting. I would sleep, AHHHHHHHHHHHH sleep with no one interrupting.

5. Does you husband bring you flowers? Are you the bring-me-flowers type of girl? This is funny; early in our marriage I said I do NOT like fresh flowers. Now I love them and never get them. Have amazing vases to put them in and never get them. Early in our marriage when we had NO money he bought me a tennis bracelet and I returned it for a steam cleaner. The next holiday he bought me diamond earrings. I exchanged them for a vacuum. Boy was I stupid because now I would love to have something nice and it is not in the budget.
Pamela

Talking about the D word

Today was hard, just plain hard. I feel guilty saying today was hard because it was not me going through it.
It started last night when I went to a friend’s house to babysit so she could go out to dinner with her husband one more time before he left. I saw his luggage setting there. I hate that site, I hate seeing those bags. It might as well be a sign saying dad is leaving, be prepared to have your heart ache.
Today my friends called me to come and pick up her daughter. You see she was at a hanger dropping off her husband. I have seen my husband off seven times before and you would think it would not bother me. But this time I was not numb. I drove up close to the hanger and I could see all the wives and children waiting with their hero have to leave. All I could think was I wish I had my camera. I wish somehow I could capture the look in their faces. It is a face that not many people can understand. It is a combination of someone trying to be strong, with a lost look in their eyes. A look of confusion and fear of the unknown and what is going to happen next. The whole time you want one more hug. You are trying to make sure you said everything that needs said. You are trying to make sure you say I love you enough times to hold him over the next year (now I am in tears again).
Their daughter was not handling all the stimulation well so I brought her home with me and thought about all the drives home I have done. Wondering if I will hear from him soon. Wondering if his plane has left yet or if he is still standing there.
So I came home and we played. A little later my friend came to pick up her daughter. I wanted to break down for her. Because I knew she had not broke down yet. So we turned on a Chonda Pierce DVD for some giggles.
A little while later I looked at my phone and there was a text message from her husband. It said “please help watch over my wife and kids”. UGG, how am I suppose to read that when his wife is 3 feet away and stay strong for her. So I responded with one word “Promise”. And then added that my husband would be there too. Then I let her read what he had written.
By the time I publish this he will be somewhere other than here. And she will have spent her first night without her husband. Her children will go to bed without Dad saying prayers. She will roll over in the morning and his sad of the bed will not have been slept in.
I know that one day we will receive orders for another deployment. I could probably even give a date if I thought too closely about it. And the thought of those good-byes can bring me to tears. The thought of telling my children that dad will miss another birthday or another CHRISTmas will kill me. I guess that is not totally truthful it will not kill me. I will hold my head high, I will stay strong and be there for my children and make it through each day knowing that we are one day closer to him coming home.
So when you see that military spouse or read her blog. Take a moment and pray for her, for her children and for that soldier. Not just for his safety but that he will have a strong support of Christian friends while he is there.
Okay, I am closing for now. This is something I want to get back too one day.
Pamela

Not me Monday

This week it was not me who got to PWOC (protestant women of the chapel) and left because I was having issues and was irritable. Not me because I would never waste the time loading the kids up, driving 30 minutes unload them and then change my mind.
It was not my mom who called me and said she heard my uncle was arrested for being the wolverine robber in our home town. It was a mistake and it was not him. I would never have believed her because it would not be my family to be involved in something so ridiculous.
I also did not find an old boyfriends mug shot and a cousins mug shot picture when looking for my uncles on line. Surely everyone I know is walking the straight and narrow.
My son does not have a room that reeks (is that a word) how about a room that stinks so badly you can spell it a mile away. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that he left wet shorts from the beach in his dresser drawer for weeks.
It is not me who is typing this while looking at FOUR (maybe TEN) loads of laundry that needs folded and put away.
It is not my family that is so big with so many runny noses and coughs that my husband insists we buy double the normal amount of allergy medicine so we were not going back this week.
I am an amazing mother and teach my children to share with their whole heart. So it is not me who has a jumbo box of pumpkin poptarts hidden in a basket in my kitchen just for me.
Pamela

Miscellany Monday

I had a great weekend. We had a church meeting to discuss what we want out of our church. We really do go to a rockin church.
This week I was out of the house for three nights. It did not seem like a big deal until the second night when a precious three year old woke up crying for me. My hero assured him I was in bed and then brought him to me. He just hugged and snuggled me. As soon as I promised him I would be here in the morning he calmed right down and went back to sleep. I feel so bad for leaving him.
My good friend’s husband leaves this week for a deployment. It is breaking my heart for them. Sometimes it is hard to support the Army. I want him home with his family.
We are taking Dave Ramsey’s financial peace. I love it; it is harder than I thought. I need to get real with it.
We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago. I will share them with you soon. But this picture cracks me up because during one of the pictures Hope found a bug and all was lost. The rest of the session was spent finding bugs and if you look closely you will see she was holding a bug.
My girls are having a hard time keeping there room cleaned. Part of it is three girls one room. I need HELP! It is taking alot of guts to share these pictures of a not perfectly clean room. I need some help. How would you arrange the room. It is a huge (well big) room. It was a bonus room. So how would you decorate. I have a 5, 8 and 11 year old girl in there.


Miscellany Monday is sponsored by Lowercase Letters.
Pamela