Please

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank you for my birthday supper with my family — Yay! — including my sister, Beki, and my niece, Sofya. What a special treat for me! This week, LORD, I am 47 years old. Help me to be mindful of you today and every day this new year and then every year throughout my life.

Please be with us, LORD, as we place our trust in You. Please be with Howland, Beki, Peter, and Sofya as they face this hard time. Please help Peter to be a person he can be: sweet, gentle, kind, smart, and help him to let go of his hurts and help him not to hurt others. Please be with my parents, now divorced after 30 years of separation. Please heal their hearts. Please love them, LORD, and keep them in Your care, as they kept me in theirs.

Please be with me, LORD, Please be with me at work and help me to be productive and helpful there. Please be with me at home, LORD, to be a good husband and father, a solid rock of strength and stability upon which my wife and daughters may rest assured and safe.

Please, LORD, help us to know, to love, and to serve You.

I ask all these things in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

Your Love (the only thing that matters)

Dear LORD,

Thank you for today.

Brrrr!

It was a cold day today! Especially coming off such a warm day the day before. So! Thank you, LORD, for keeping me safe and warm today throughout the day. Thank You, LORD, for the simple things You gave me today, little miracles for which I'm grateful: a simple lunch with my coworkers where we got to talk about things other than work, like getting married and video games (at work? not likely!).

Thank You for letting me complete my one task today. Please help me to be effective and efficient at work getting things done, showing results so the customer can be pleased to give the users what they need.

LORD, we lost in our family. My sister has tried and fought for a long, long time to help Peter be a person free from his past and a good, kind, loving boy, not lashing out at his parents and other children. But after years of trying, she's had to ask for State help to take over his care and to keep him in a controlled and safe environment. Please, LORD, be with Beki, Howland, Peter, and Sofia. Give them Your Love and strength. Help them.

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Got a job, paying the bills, next up: slaying dragons.

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today.

Thank You for allowing me to restart paid work March 17th, 2014. Our funs have run out, and we have no credit to pay the mortgage or insurance or gas, so this work now is a God-send, a much-needed relief of money to pay for the things we need as a family for warmth and sustenance. Please, o LORD, grant me the strength and will to keep me at this contract so we can pay our arrears and then start to regain sound financial footing.

Thank You for this in-between time with my family where I can help with the cooking and praying.

Thank You for my renewed interest in the technical indicators portfolio. Please bless this work, make it fruitful and a way for our family to have sound financial security so we can live our lives happily and healthily and so we can assist others in need financially so they can do great things in Your Name, Jesus.

Amen

'I' is for Interviews

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You, finally! for the fourth interview at FINRA... two months interviewing for this contract. Thank You for letting the interview flow well. Thank You for a nice meeting with Clayton and with Matt. Thank You for the friendly, easy-going conversations, for their not belaboring check-marks but for them getting down to what was important for them and why.

LORD, please let me start working on this job this week so that I may start getting paid agains so that our family can weather this financial crisis and so that we can return to some stability.

Thank You for the forbearance of my wife during this difficult time. Please reward her with many spiritual and temporal blessings for her keeping the family safe and secure during this crisis.

LORD, please help us to dig our way out of this debt and return to solvency. Please bless me with strength and determination so that I may see through what needs to be done so we can succeed, again, and prosper!

LORD, thank You for the generosity of my Dad with money so that he could keep us afloat over Christmas.  Thank You LORD, for my dad and his good financial sense and hard work.

LORD, thank You for letting me apply myself to getting the taxes done, Fed-wise, please help me to get those forms sent off (done) and also help me to complete my Commonwealth taxes today (done).

LORD, thank You for the kindness and generosity of acquaintances.

Please, LORD, help us. Heal this broken world. We are all trying so hard, yet we in such dire straights. The World is not working without You in it. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done.

I ask all these things in the name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

'P' is for Prayer

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You for the time You've given me, so that I can write, and touch hearts. Thank You for giving me a phone-screen interview today. Please help it lead to paying workso that I can pay the bills this month and through the rest of my family's life.  Thank You for the love of my wife and children. Please guide and protect those in need of Your Love and strength.

I ask all these in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

Meditation: Cast your worry on Him because He loves you, 1 Peter 5:7

So, Mr. Sh. and I were walking along during lunch break, and he asked me if I were worried about losing my job.

"No," I said, "not really. This is God's problem, so I told Him to fix it, or else I'll just have to go up to heaven and kick His ..." Yeah. That.

Mr. Sh. burst out laughing at my effrontery to God, but I see it differently. I see it like this.

God is bigger than the Boogie man. God is bigger than my problems. God is bigger than me.

Jesus told me (personally) not to worry about what the morrow will bring, what I shall eat, what clothes I shall wear. God cares about every bird that falls from the sky, and so, would He not care for me so much more, His child?

So, I can take Jesus at His word (for He is The Word), or I can solve all my problems on my own, because I'm bigger than God, and I don't need God in my life to solve my problems, nor to help me solve my problems, or anything. God's up there, and He's not welcome, not allowed down here anymore.

That's effrontery.

That we say: God is fine enough on His own, or He doesn't exist (only God can say that), or He is not allowed in our affairs and in our concerns.

Like we can put boundaries around Him? And we're fine with that?

No, it's my respect for God that has me dare to say: "Hey, look, God! We got a family to feed here and it's frikken Christmas, now get to work, 'cause Thine be the Glory."

You want proof?

Jacob didn't serve the Angel tea and crumpets. He wrestled with him all night long, and only quit after the Angel broke his leg, and because Jacob had the gumption to do this, to wrestle with God's messenger (angel), the, okay, get this: the angel blessed him!

God has blessed me with so much for so long, and I know one thing about myself: I'm really good at writing code, but I suck at just about everything else, and if I don't ask for, no: demand, God's help, then I will royally screw it up, and 'it' is not just me and my life, but so many other people's lives I affect.

AND I'm totally fine with getting on my knees and begging.

God, please, please, please, please, please, please, please! help me. I need to be all the things You need me to be, and I don't have the strength to do this on my own. I need to be a daddy my little girls faces shine when they see me. I need to be a rock of tenderness my wife can have not one question in her mind about, no: that she can lean on, trust, and know that she can rely on me to screw up, but to get up again, and try again, and fail again, and keep fighting, every day, for her, for my little girls, for ... for everything, for our happiness.

And our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

I rest my heart in You, LORD. Take my heart, set it ablaze, enkindling it with the fire of the Holy Spirit, and let's rock this town and this Christmas, huh, LORD?

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

"Good Game!"

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You for showing me something today. Thank You for showing me that, yes, hard work, teamwork, coordination, and skill all pay off, and to the victor goes the spoils. But thank You for showing me also, that never giving up wins, too. That, in defeat, it is possible to hold your head high, not to be cowed, but to fight on, and to lose, but to have that last huzzah.

The Caps lost to the NC Hurricanes 1-4 tonight, but I came away from that game happy, because in my book, the Caps weren't losers. They lost, but they played all out to the end, against a much better team, and scored that third period goal that let them know that they were still in the game. Most people quit on the Caps; left early. I didn't. I stayed on, cheering their good plays to the end.

LORD, let me stay in the game to the end, fighting the good fight, like our Caps, tonight.

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Gimme Jesus

Dear LORD,

Thank You for this day, this inbetween time but between what and what? Somehow today feels significant, absolutely vital, like an empty page that needs to be filled with the stories of our lives. Is this our time and our lives? Do You look at the blank page of history, waiting to see what we write in it, how we fill it?

Today was special. Thank You for it. Thank You for the special dinner commerating all the hard work my wife has done in the Filipino ministry. Thank You for letting us see the faith of Your people that even in the flood where thousands have died, they turn to You, they run to You, filling Your churches to praise You, to thank You, to ask for Yourhelp, and in asking, Your help has come: a miracle. Your Help has come through the action of nations uniting to help those in need. Your help has come from the action of two little girls who give up their allowance, their convenience and comfort, so that their money can go to those who need it now.  From Your Bounty comes Your Aid.

LORD, you are bountiful and You are generous. Show us Your boundless and generous Love always. In the storms that buffet and kill us, be there for us, be our life and our protection, our light and our guide, our hope and our salvation. Life our physical concerns, our mortal hopes and concerns to You. Bless them and make them Holy.

I ask all these things in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

Supplications

Dear LORD,

So many prayers offered to You, LORD, from so many faithful.  It gives me hope and consolation reading through this notebook to see so many put their faith and theirs fears in You. Thank You for this gift, LORD, of the Adoration Chapel, that we may all come to You and get some time aside to think, to fast, and to pray, to hope and to dream, to plan and to retrench.

Thank You, LORD, for today. Thank You for another good day at work and for the good interaction with coworkers. Please help me to be productive and helpful. Please allow the work I am doing to be fruitful. Please continue to nurture a cordial relationship with my coworkers. Please allow me to spend time with my family. Help me to grow closer to them. Help me to be a good husband and father; someone who my children are proud to have as a father and help to be a good friend to my wife: devoted and considerate, caring.

Dear LORD, we need Your help in our fianances. Please help us to be frugal and help us to be prosperous. LORD, please help me with my writing. Please help it to touch lives of the readers. Guide me so that I may write and write rightly. Please grant us success in our business endeavors.

Thank you, LORD, for the Adorers, so steadfast, devoted, and true . I pray for them. Please be with us all as we go through our days.

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen