You may recall that I wrote about a lovely young lady named Julia here and here. Julia has cancer and even though there have been many prayers lifted in her behalf and her parents and doctors have done everything in their power to help her be healed, well, sometimes healing just cannot happen. Sometimes there are no miracles. The doctors have told Julia’s family that they do not think she is going to get better. And so they have had to prepare their daughter and themselves and their other children to say goodbye. And how do you do that? How do you say goodbye to your twelve year old daughter so early…so long before you should have to? How do you understand and help your child to understand that sometimes God doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want Him to? He always answers our prayers, but sometimes the answers aren’t the ones we wish for.

Miracles do happen. Every day. And I believe there have been miracles in this situation. The outpouring of love from so many people – including so many people all over the world who don’t even know this family – the prayers that have been lifted up for this young girl. That is the miracle here – the miracle is the love we can feel for someone we don’t know. The pain and the sadness we can share with one another to make the burden a little easier. Those are the miracles. But the miracle of healing just doesn’t look like it’s going to happen this time. How you prepare yourself for that, I don’t know, but I hope that the feeling that there are so many people sharing their burden and their sadness helps just a little.

So I come to you again, to ask for your prayers, that this family may be strong, that they may somehow come out of this on the other side closer and stronger than they started, that their hearts may somehow heal in time, and that when the time comes, that Julia goes bravely and peacefully into the light, into the healing arms of her heavenly Father, where there is no more pain and no more sorrow, surrounded by love.

I’m sure you’re all aware of the volcano in Iceland and how it’s affecting air travel in Europe. For most of us that live in the states, it’s just kind of an interesting story about a country we rarely hear about and feeling sorry for those that are having travel issues. But for our guitar player, who was in Switzerland on business when the volcano erupted, it’s a little more serious. Since he’s on the company’s dime, it’s not like he has to worry about running out of money or anything like that, but the thing is, his mom passed away this morning. And he is stuck in Europe. I can’t even imagine how helpless he must feel to be stuck there and not be able to be with his family. I heard they are doing test flights in the ash and things seem to be working okay, but could you just say a little prayer or send some good thoughts out for Guitar Man that he might get out of there soon? Thanks.

Yesterday I prayed for my cousin. Today I’m praying for Julia. I wrote about her here and here.

If you have some time and some room in your prayers today, please pray for Julia and her family. She and her parents are on a trip to the East Coast to see if a doctor there can have some success fighting her tumor.

And you might have noticed I changed the theme (if you’re not in your RSS reader). I was sick of the old one, but I don’t have time or patience right now to make a new one on my own. Hopefully I’ll get around to that soon. In the meantime, this will do for awhile.

Having just got word that my oldest cousin suffered a major heart attack last night and is in critical condition, and knowing that I’m not the only one who would like prayers for loved ones, I decided to to start a prayer list. I’m going to link it right at the top of my sidebar and if you would like anyone added to it, please leave a comment and I will add your prayer requests to it. (Read on …)