God surprises me :)

 I have been able to have a pretty amazing week and its just nice to be able to worship the Lord for truly everything. A lot of this week has just opened my eyes to prayers, mainly prayers for or from children.

  Last Monday at lunch, Naomi prayed. I was expecting her to pray a simple prayer that I've heard her say many times. Which would be, " Dear God, thank for Luke,Sarah,Mom, and Dad. Thank you for this food and bless it to our bodies. In Jesus's name, Amen!"  But instead, it was this very thoughtful and amazing prayer. It caught me off guard I must say.  I kept thinking through most of the week about how much that impacted my thinking.  I noticed my prayers becoming longer and longer. Which I was grateful for, I could pray forever if I said everyones names that I was thinking of. But since Naomi's prayer I've changed the way I pray in some ways.

  I was asked to teach all this month, and had received the first lesson through email. I printed it out Thursday and started to study it. Well, if you have been reading my blog you know Andrea has Hodgkin's Lymphoma but it hasn't spread or anything else. Which is AWESOME to say the least. Anyways though, the lesson this week was praying for other people and showing them that they are special to us. I couldn't think that God could have choose a better week for me to teach this lesson.

  Yesterday while teaching, I looked at the clock and noticed that the game was taking a little longer than planned. I moved to the craft and didn't have time to do prayer like I was suppose to. The prayer was suppose to go like this. I would start the prayer by praying for someone,the example they gave was praying for a sick friend. Then have each kid say a prayer for some. So since there wasn't enough time for that, I went around and asked each child what they needed prayer for. I was surprised once again by how thoughtful their prayer needs were. I know I probably shouldn't be but I was. One little girl named Kylie asked that I prayed for her mom coming home safely because her uncle died trying to save someone and thats why she was late.  I didn't get to all the kids before their parents started coming to get them but the children I didn't get to came up to me before they left and told me there prayer requests. My heart was over joyed because of these children and what they were asking me to do. It wasn't like they were asking something from Santa they were asking me to also ask God things that I would have anyways.

 God didn't just have a message for the children yesterday when I taught, He also had something very important to teach their teacher.  Most of you know about the teenage drama, but what many of you don't know is that after I posted that one blog, I tried to talk to her and I said sorry and everything else. Well, not much was said on her end. I felt as if I had done something else wrong, well yesterday during bible story God gave me a quick but very strong message. The children were learning about kindness and how to show kindness to people you don't like or agree with. One of the examples that was given to them was to say sorry even if you don't think you had done anything wrong. I completely went to what happened between my friend and myself. God was showing me to be kind and forgiving even though I already was. God was just telling me to be nicer and truly, truly forgive everything.

  So here are the kids prayer requests that I remember ( I wish I had written everyone of them down but didn't):

 Charlie's prayer is that his Grandma isn't to hurt because her dog was ran over and killed. He prays that she will find a new dog and love it just as much.

Kylie's prayer is for her mom to come home safely and for her uncle to be safe with God.

Dane's prayer is for the safety of a preacher. I don't know who, or what is going on but God does.

Ethan's prayer was to do good in school and for everyone else too.

There were some really good prayer request I will write all of them down this next weekend. So if could please pray for them and their families I would be very grateful.

Please also pray for Andrea's recovery from chemo the next few months and for Georgia's healing from the fall last Monday.
 Thank you


Blessing to you and may you see God everywhere you look.

         CarissaGrace