Jewells of Thought

When Aunt Carol was having her health issues I felt compelled to ask for prayers. More than once, it seemed like she was closer to heaven’s door than we thought. I found myself huddled over my laptop barely getting through the blog before flooding with tears by the time I posted.

Now, like I said last week several family members are in the hospital for various reasons. A cousin just had a major brain surgery, my Aunt is having daily infusions due to an infection that was possibly septic and an Uncle has gotten a bad diagnosis. My parents and I were there as a Hospitalist mentioned the diagnosis; 4th stage Pancreatic Cancer. On top of another one of my cousin’s husband having to go through a second wave of cancer himself that will take 9 months of treatments. I could go on this is just one side of my family.

Fortunately on the other side my first cousin and her husband have been doing well. That has not been the case for the last year and for a good part of January and February. The Lord doesn’t say He will not give us more than we can handle, but that He will be with us through each trial. If it weren’t for our Church family and our multi-church community, I don’t know what we would do!

My Aunt this morning, when we visited her and her husband had a sweet thought. Their grandson is a character, but he has specific traits from his father who is from Kenya. The Hospitalist looked like my little cousin only maybe about 15 years older. Take away the curls and add in some maturity and that is what he could like as a young man. The Grandma in my aunt just had that sparkle in her eye thinking about that very sweet thought about her grandson. I think it did her some good amidst the chaos of the past week and a half. The fun thing is that my parents and I could see the exact image she was seeing in this young doctor from our frame of reference of my 8 year old 2nd cousin I believe he is or something like that I don’t understand the whole 2nd or 3rd cousin labels.

Prayer is something we all need this just reminds us how important it is to use and that we need to use it. In this crazy world we need to be reminded of what tools we have that can be used in powerful ways when done in the way Jesus instructed.

Don’t take praying for granted. Your life and church and community all could be raised up so much more by a simple prayer routine we all need in our lives.