pray every day

My mother is having eye surgery to have the “bad” kind of cataracts removed in about a week and a half. She’s worried, because they say there’s no guarantee it will work, and that there’s a possibility (due to the thickness) that her vision will remain damaged.

Pray that she can feel at peace about the procedure, that she will have skillful, prepared doctors, and that the procedure will go as planned.

Thank you to those of you who do pray daily :)

But also my fellow teachers. Everyone is going through so much.

Lord – you know the situations.

Usually I try to post prayer requests about other people.

Today I’m feeling “off.” I spent the day with my little brother (he’s 8) and my dad kinda ignored me when he got home even though I hadn’t seen him since Christmas.

It’s bothering me.

It’s been bothering me for about five years now.

So = I might continue to do nothing. Why cause a big family problem? Tension? Or, I might say something to him. I may just write a letter. . . I have already written on on my blog = and I just won’t mail that one.

So, my request is that anyone who is willing will ask the Lord to lead me to know what is right in this situation. A letter, a talk, or nothing at all?

Thank you.

I feel led to share with you the story of Dustin.

I only met him once – he was the son of my sister’s best friend. He was young – maybe 21 or 22 years old. Very nice, very polite. In the military.

And he was killed about a month ago in Iraq.

He was driving one of the jeeps, and hit a bomb or a grenade or something. And several young boys were hurt, but he was the only one to die.

And he was coming home right around the end of the year.

Only about six weeks away from coming home to his family and girlfriend.

He had a myspace page, and his last blog was titled “Nearing the end.” Because he was coming home.

So before I start crying again (because I’ve already blogged this on my own myspace account, back when it happened) I’ll get to my prayer request.

Please keep Dustin’s family in your prayers. He has parents and siblings who love him and miss him.

And please keep all of our guys who are placed around the world, for US, in your prayers daily. Because they risk their own lives, every single day.

Thank you.

My poor roommate – a girl I went to college with (we both got sick of paying rent, and bought a house together till one or both of us is married, and then we’ll sell the house to split the equity we’ve built up) – is going through a rough time.

She’s changed jobs, for a better job, but had to take a pay cut for now. LONG term, she’ll be better off. For now, she’s struggling. Plus she’s a student, working on becoming an accountant. Plus, she’s taking tax classes at night so that she can prepare tax returns in the spring to help with the money thing.

Plus, she has to live with me. And lets face it – with my goal about finishing research papers on time, and my previous goal about NaNoWriMo AND the mice infestation, I’ve been cranky, grumpy, distracted, and not so much cleaning up after myself.

The poor girl needs prayer, that she will find ways to make financial ends meet, that she will be able to keep up with all of her obligations, and that she will de-stress so as not to kill her roomie (me!)

I start clinical practice in January. (AKA student teaching, where you “take over” a public school classroom for twelve weeks, and get judged lots, and observed lots, to see if you pass muster and can become a certified teacher.) I’ve done this once before, in 1997, with 8th graders, and didn’t have fun. I didn’t even finish, I had so little fun.

And now its time to do it again, with a younger crowd as I have changed my focus in going back for my Masters degree. And I got my letter today.

I wanted third grade, but I got assigned to Kindergarten. Granted, Kindergarten was on my list, but it was down pretty far. And everything I’ve done in my Masters – all my projects and papers and such – I’ve focused on third graders. That’s what I wanted to teach. So, there, I feel I already have a lil check against me, because it will be slightly foreign. (I say slightly foreign, only because I did, once, in 1999, teach four year olds, and then sometime around 2002, I taught three year olds.)

So, basically, I’d like to ask for prayer support as I prepare for entering the classroom on January 9, as well as for support throughout my twelve weeks of teaching (because I will definitely be an influence on these little lives – it could go either way, good or bad, but either way I will be an influence, and I would prefer good).

Thank you for taking the time to read, and to pray :)

The Thanksgiving holidays are now over, many people are going to be on the roads and in the air today and this weekend as they make their way home.

Please pray for them, for safe journeys across the nation.

And lets give thanks, and praise, for our own loved ones, and our own holidays :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

My doggie Lola.

Her beautiful face is what I use as my picture. She’s had a lump on her hind left upper thigh/haunch since last Thursday. It started out looking like a mosquito bite. But it got bigger, kinda fast, and I took her in yesterday expecting them to remove a tick.

But when they shaved the area it was a raised area, kind of bloody. Looks like what my childhood pet used to get, and hers were always skin cancer. So the vet had me bring her in again today, for a biopsy.

They called what she was originally scheduled for a needle biopsy. Today I asked about having it removed completely (cause I’ll worry anyway), and the second vet came from out back and looked and said that it wasn’t the right size for a needle biopsy anyway. That they just need to cut it off. So that’s the new plan.

But that means I’ll worry a little extra, cause now she will have to go completely under, and they’ve told me before that with her heart problems (ever since I got her when she was 1) its a slightly higher risk.

And she didn’t make things easier the way she reacted when I handed over her leash. She has always disliked going there, because of all the smells, and the cats that go there too, and because when they were looking at her heart to find out what was wrong when I first got her she got left there several times for a few hours. So it always makes her nervous, and when anyone tries to pet her she ducks her head and hides behind me.

When the lady took her leash, she freaked out and dragged her across the room back towards me. (I guess she didn’t want to tug on her leash in front of me). I tried to walk beside her most of the way, but when I tried to stop around the corner hoping she wouldn’t notice, she did and dragged her back again. She makes me feel guilty.

So I add this to my own prayer list, and ask that you kindly add it to yours, as well. Just for today :) She was supposed to be ready at 11am, but now that its the full surgery I won’t have her until 3pm.

Please pray that Lola will calm down for the vets. (She does have a heart condition.) That she will react well with the sedation. That they will get all of whatever it is the first time. And that it will not come back. I’ll be okay with it coming back as cancer, if they just get it all out now. (She’s only 2 and a half.)

Those of you who do add Lola to your prayers today, I thank you.

It’s just so unmeasurable.

I always told myself I wouldn’t allow any unmeasurable goals on my list, because then I’d never be able to check any as “done” and move on to new goals.

I have tried keeping a prayer journal. Maybe if I go something like three months without missing an entry, I’ll count it as accomplished.

Or if I go a month praying without thinking about it. As a habit.

I need to set some sort of guidelines to judge this goal by, so that I can attain it.