Pray

I am a little late in updating this week, it has been incredibly busy. We are meeting with a group of teen girls to study the book, "Lies Young Women Believe," trying to find a car for Emelie, celebrating Elias' birthday and working through church search issues. The Lord is really impressing on my heart an urge to pray more, it is really my only recourse in the midst of pressures.

In my last post I talked about a basic principle of not leaving children to themselves. When we do not pray for our children, it is the ultimate in leaving our children to themselves. Prayer should be our first response to a problem and number one on our to-do list.

When we first moved to Mexico, we left a homeschool dream world. Our creek provided plenty of nature study, we had a safe community of homeschool friends and no financial worries to bring stress into our home. Moving to Mexico was an extreme dose of culture shock. The sights of scantily clad girls on the Spring Break billboards, the smells of sewage as you cross the border (San Diego has their sewage treatment facility conveniently located next to the T.J border) and the new friends we made, regenerate ex-cons, made our new community a challenge and joy to settle into. Psalm 46:1 says that God is our refuge, an ever present help in trouble. As we met each new experience and challenge, going to Him in prayer was our refuge and He was faithful to keep us safe and growing as we walked through the trials.

Whatever your situation is, whether dealing with the regular challenges of raising toddlers, or the more intense challenges of financial stress, family struggles, special needs, or cross cultural ministry, while raising toddler, God is there, He knows how many hairs are on your head and He promises to walk with us through the valley. Pray without ceasing.