My friend group is at an age range where our aging parents are needing us more. I met a few friends through church whose moms truly dedicated themselves to the Lord’s work in humility, love and service since they were young mothers. It doesn’t matter if they are poor in wealth or health, I witness that these mothers are a tremendous blessing to their children and grandchildren even into their old ages. Even if they have to rely upon their children and grandchildren more than ever, they are not regarded as “burdens” to the family but everyone even non-family members are clamoring to help them! On the flip side, I also see my friends in the church community whose parents attended church but were not truly followers of Jesus Christ. They are very needy and difficult as they get older just like everyone else. I desire to be in the small group of elderly parents who are a great blessing into their 80s, if the Lord wants me to live longer. My musing of the week let me to write this for my prayer group ladies.

Hello! I hope you are doing well. In the month of October, I ask you to pray without ceasing for all your church pastors and Christian leaders that you follow online and in-person. Ever since I became a prayer group leader in 2016, I started to not like October month. I’m not the most astute or sensitive in spiritual matters but I find the month of October leading up to Halloween very unnerving and demonic. I encounter many unusual difficulties in both circumstances and relationships. Now I expect this in October and so, I enter this month with my eyes wide open and I stay even closer to God, the Bible and my church community until this month passes by. When November 1st arrives, I breathe a nice long sigh of relief.

I was led to write the importance of planting oneself in a local church to my prayer group ladies. There are so many single moms in our midst who don’t plant themselves in, and then they expose themselves and their children to satanic baits and become very easy preys to the enemy. I pray that my message urge these single moms to be very deliberate about planning themselves into a good local church family, especially as the times are getting darker and more dangerous. 🙏

I have heard people say “My family/children/friends are my life”, “Soccer/football/hobby is my life”, “Traveling/career/business is my life”, etc. These things are all fine and nice, but they seem so fragile and very brief in light of eternity and pales in comparison to God Almighty. If you are not there yet, where you can say “God is my life” then just be honest and real with God in prayer. Be open and ask God to help you change your mind and heart. He doesn’t want robot-children who are mainly hanging around Him so they don’t go to hell. It is a prayer that He will answer. I know since since He did it for me. I’m not sure when my heart and mind change happened…it took a while. It didn’t happen overnight but all I know is that now I am convinced, without a shadow of doubt. This revelation didn’t occur with my circumstances changing since many of you know that my circumstances haven’t changed much for the past 12 years.

As I was led to write about the “baptism of fire” to share with my prayer group ladies, I didn’t realize that I was also writing it for myself. My dear nephew, Brandon got into a terrible car accident. He is a good and responsible young man but is a prodigal in the faith – having received Jesus Christ as a child at a church retreat but wandered away from his faith in high school. I will share the details below of his car accident if you can please pray for him. Thank you so much.

Here are a few resources for your faith and reflections. May they bless you too. With love and prayers from your librarian, JSW.

I have been thinking about the forbidden fruit tree in the garden of Eden, described in the book of Genesis. Today, what is the forbidden fruit tree in a Christian’s life that is also located nearby and easy to reach out for and take a bite of?

As the world has been reporting about Queen Elizabeth’s passing and funeral services, I came across these messages by Christian groups that you may find enjoyable to read, hear and reflect on. I was also touched by these two pictures that I came across.

We will be resuming back to praying together using the MIP prayer sheet. Our last prayer sheet was on 6/22/22 and according to my notebook log, the prayer theme was “God is Our Joy.” Wow that’s my new word of the year too! My new year follows the academic calendar just like the schools. I’ve prayed and sought the Holy Spirit about my word throughout the summer, and the word is JOY! The bible verse given to me for my word is from the book of Zephaniah.

Zephaniah 3:17 (AMP) – The Lord your God is in your midst, A Warrior who saves.
He will rejoice over you with joy;
He will be quiet in His love [making no mention of your past sins], He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

Depression and anxieties are extremely high in the Gen Z generation. Sometimes I get a little judgmental and wonder why they can’t seem to handle as much as we did as Gen Xers. And I’m sure I’m not the only Gen X parent, Boomer grandparent who have thought the same about the Gen Zers.