Grateful in lean and in plenty

Dear Lord,

Thank you for today. Thank you for another week of paid work; may our paycheck help us to begin to make arrears with our past bills. Thank you for the Rosary Walk after lunch. It helped me to think on you. Thank you for the new work at work. Help me to help the project and my coworkers to get done what they need to do. Thank you for the letter from the IRS saying that we would receive a larger refund. We went through a period of lean and hardship, and now we are receiving bounty. Help us to use it wisely and to be grateful in lean and in plenty. 

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

Amen

You lead; I'll follow

Dear LORD,

You lead, I'll follow. Jamie Grace sings so lightly, so happily, and her words have such depth to them: You lead, I'll follow.

LORD, let it be so every day.

Thank you, LORD, for this past week of employment: I'm so pleased my employer is pleased with me.  Please turn my good sart to an even better relationship, fostering mutual respect and help. Let me help my employer meet their targets and be pleased with their successes. Let my employs help me to be fulfilled in the work I am doing, let them help me to be productive and helpful. Thank you for the time I have commuting so that I may write and plan and build systems that can help my family achieve financial independence and freedom from debt.

Thank you for the work my wife is doing to manage our money so that we spend frugally and prudently. Thank you for the joy in the hearts off our children: their joy gives me great joy to see it in their eyes. May I be a good, kind, funny, caring Papa to them, that they feel safe with me and happy to have me as their Daddy.

LORD, You lead, I'll follow.

I ask all this in the name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

Work

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today, my first day back at work after a three-month hiatus. Thank You for the financial hardship, for the lesson that this is not the answer, being a consultant in the financial industry, that this only provides for today but does not help my family in stability and security.  Help me to see that working long hours for someone else does not help my family. Help me to work, to work hard, to enjoy my work before me, but then to set that all aside and then actually to do good, lasting labor.

Please bless the work of my hands, please bless that I do on the job and let it be a blessing to my employers and coworkers. Please bless the time with my family, please continue to make me, and to remake me, a blessing to my wife and my daughters, to my sisters, and to my parents, to my cousins and my aunts and uncles. Then please strengthen me and let me labor with a will and then with solid results. Help me to build a strong, steady foundation that will secure my family's financial future.

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

Thanksgiving during job hunt

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Exciting day, what? with the interview with the test manager at FINRA and then the email from the manager at ICF. When Your blessings come, they come like rain, don't they? LORD, please keep raining Your blessings down on us like rain in the desert: a torrent of blessings for us, your beloved children.  Thank You, too, that while answering the prayers for the things I want and need, You also answer the things I want and need and don't ask for, things like heat in the house and food on the table and the love given and received in my family, Christmas gifts for the children from their Mama and from friends, neighbors and relatives, Atrium, swim team for the girls and dietbet [two words unreadable]. Thank You for this special quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of work that I can reflect and grow, and thank You for the hustle and bust of work, where I can be an example of Your charity and be amazed when I see You in others, in the littlest things people do for each other. When I gave Shantanu my Rosary bead from my broken Rosary, he received it with delight and wonder.  It was the simplest, silliest thing I did, but he reverenced it: he knew You are important to me, and he accepted my token with reverence. Please, let this be the seed where he finds true happiness in You.

LORD, I thank You that so many of my coworkers have found work again, and right away after being let go over Christmas. Please be with them and bless them in their work so that they may meet their obligations and be happy and fulfilled in their daily labors.

I ask you this through Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

Happy New Year!

Dear LORD,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

So many people still awake, celebrating the New Year. Except me, who woke up late to come here. Whoopsie! Sorry, LORD, and Jack!

May You bless Your people with many blessings this year as we await the return of Your Son, particularly those in need. May those hungry find food at the table. May those tired find rest and repose in You. May those who need shelter and clothing find a home with fresh, clean clothes to keep them safe and warm. May those without an occupation find work. May those in need of Love find You.

LORD, thank You for the blessings of this past year. Thank You for my fourth straight year of work (wow!), thank You for the creative spark to write and the drive to keep at it. Thank You for the blessing of my family: my dear, devoted wife, and my cute and cuddly kids.

Please help me get back to paying work and help our family return to sound financial standing, and from that secure position, help us to prosper financially and in Your Grace.

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

Amen.

Thanksgiving prayer

"Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God hath already accepted thy works."

לֵךְ אֱכֹל בְּשִׂמְחָה לַחְמֶךָ, וּשְׁתֵה בְלֶב-טוֹב יֵינֶךָ:  כִּי כְבָר, רָצָה הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת-מַעֲשֶׂיךָ.

— Ecclesiastes 9:7

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. It's the Thanksgiving eve! Way back when, the Pilgrims had a hard, hard life with so much lost, but they paused and gave thanks to You for all the blessings You rained down on them. Back in Jamestown, so long ago, they started every day with prayer and worship with the Ten Commandments posted prominently in front of them to guide their way in the New World. Today, the people turn to You, again and again, in prayer and supplication.

Dear LORD, hear our prayers, grant us Your Grace. Give us wisdom and understanding. Give us peace and unity. Give us Your Love and protection. Comfort those who need it and strenghthen those who need to be strong today.

Thanksgiving eve: I have much to be thankful for. I give You thanks, o Lord, for my family: my kind, understanding, wise, compassionate, beautiful and holy wife, my two daughters, two diamonds, polished and smooth, sweet and sprightly, obedient and joyful. I give thanks for my job: my managers who are tolerant and patient and driven, my coworkers who are hard-working and accepting, my customers who enjoy working alongside us and are pleased with our efforts. I give thanks for my things: my cars that work, day after day, to get me to my job and my family to their activities, my house that provides shelter, heat, water, protection.

So, so much I am thankful for, LORD, and I thank You in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

A NATIONAL THANKSGIVING

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and

Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness”:

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the Beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplication to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our national government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best. Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, AD 1789 George Washington

— quoted verbatim from a Pilgrim's mind blog

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

Reunited

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You for the conversations at work. Please bless them and make them fruitful for our team and our customer, so that they may do what needs be done efficiently and effectively.  Thank You for helping me to solve the thorny problem of sunset dates at work and for getting the issues around it done today to the customer's satisfaction. Please help me to resolve the issues for retrying work and handling that work gracefully.

Thank You for helping me to win today's dietbet, weighing in below goal weight of 170.9#. Please help me to win with the new target weight today at 166.5#.

Thank You for giving me this special time with You in the Adoration Chapel this morning.

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

Amen

Happy 10th Birthday, L'il Iz!

Lizzy: "This is the first day of the rest of your life!" Happy 10th Birthday!

Dear LORD,

I offer this visit to the Adoration Chapel an a Rosary of the Luminous Mysteries in thanksgiving for my daughter, Li'l Iz, on the occasion of her tenth birthday. Please watch over her and be with her as she grows in Your Love.

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

Amen

Prosperity

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You for the small miracles of today that helped me, not only to make it through today, but also to enjoy parts of it, even at work. Thank you for giving me a tasking that has in it new skills for me to acquire so that work is not something I simply have ot get through, but something where I can feel like I am participating in for the accomplishment of the goals of the group.

Thank You, LORD, for this past week, and the extra long weekend on the 4th, U.S.A. Independence Day, gave me special time with my family where we could scamper over rocks on the Billy Goat Trail and watch the fireworks at the Fairfax County High School, a new and enjoyable experience: crowded, but a respite from the pressing mob at the Mall n D.C.

Thank You, LORD, for the special gift of Susannah's recovery to her family, for the very special gift of her recognizing me, smiling and waving. Such a simple gesture from her, but such a welcoming one to see, that even if everything isn't okay, and may not be, she still has that joy in her to be happy to say 'hi!'

Today, Tuesday, I am supposed to answer the question of supporting local farming. I haven't so far. Please keep me on track and honest, so that I do what I say. Please, LORD, increase my productivity one-hundred fold, so that when I awaken, I hit the ground running hard and fast and inspired. I've written and journaled every day for the past over one-hundred days, please focus and turn my attention to my business so that it may benefit as well and so that when it prospers, it rains blessings down on me, my family, and my friends.

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

Amen.

Home again prayer

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Thank You for the baptism of my nephew, Peter, and my niece, Sofiya. What a miracle! Thank You for Your care and protection in getting us home safely from this 500+ mile road trip.  Thank You for the girls being so pleasant and accommodating during the trip.

So, LORD, it's back to work for me. Thank You that I have a paying job to return to. Help me to be useful and productive at work. Help my wife and daughters rest and recuperate.

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

Amen.