Dear Ones,
Hope you are enjoying a post-Christmas weekend with hearts of gratitude. We are home now and enjoyed our time with nearly 40 relatives. Lots of food and time sharing together, shopping, games, puzzles, etc. Today I plan to make Enchilada casserole, clean the apartment and catch up.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
Do you believe in miracles today? Sometimes they happen before our eyes and yet we fail to make the connection that it was God’s intervention, and a miracle has happened. I am reading Food from Ravens, a book put out by two missionaries of the World Mission Prayer League that recorded the many miracles of answers to specific prayers of missionaries. I would like to share one of the many but at the same time encourage us to pray in faith for specific needs with the expectancy that God sees, He hears, and He answers in miraculous ways that bring glory to Him. When we are in situations and things look grim, we have a prayer answering God that is able to answer in miraculous ways.
One simple example that will perhaps encourage us to pray about everyday things, as well as dire things, for the Lord cares for the small things and the big in our lives. Missionary to Ecuador, Kristin McWeeny was concerned for a young Christian girl that attended church Sunday mornings while her stepfather was still asleep. One Sunday there was a youth event planned for that afternoon and if she went home her stepfather would be awake and she would not be allowed to come back. So Kristin invited her to lunch at her home and on the way there another youth and his four siblings asked to go to her house for lunch too, so they wouldn’t have to spend bus fare to go home and come back. Meanwhile Kristin wonders how she will feed everyone with a small one-quart crock-pot with ½ pound of beef placed in it, a little sour cream, and a few other ingredients for 6 hungry teenagers. She prayed as she walked home. The kids all helped set the table and meanwhile in her meager kitchen Kristin found several packages of noodles and dumped them all in a pot of boiling water. When done, everyone came around the table to eat and she set the tiny crockpot of stroganoff in the middle of the table. They thanked the Lord for the food and then she dipped a large soup ladle (her only scoop) into the tiny crock-pot and filled it with stroganoff and poured in on the first plate of noodles. She continued to do that until all 7 plates were filled. Only then did she look back into the little crock pot and noticed it was empty. The youth never realized the miracle God had done through prayer but simply enjoyed the meal and said how good it was. But Kristin was praising the Lord and asked that she never doubt the Lord’s provision again.
A similar thing happened to our family in Des Moines when we got surprised company from MPLS, and I served leftover spaghetti. There was no way it should have gone around for all 7 of us and yet there was plenty with a little left over. Only the Lord!

Challenge for today: When you have a need respond first by praying and ask the Lord to provide in His way and thank Him.

Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy