Prayers for 2018

I meant to write this a couple of weeks back. We "saw" the new year in with some special friends. Well, we hugged at about 11.30 and all fell into bed so "saw" is a bit figurative. How-sum-ev-r!

On the first we all sat around their table sharing breakfast and everyone had to give examples of things that had happened in 2017:
- something funny
- anything difficult
- something you started doing
- best book you had read
- one thing God taught you
- the most fun thing you and your family did together

and lastly,

- one prayer for 2018.

Lots of laughs and chuckles. I want to share the prayers though.

C: a dearly loved but very ill child would go home to heaven
C: business would multiply
S & J: school would go well this year
L: to excel at tennis
A: the drought would end
J: dad would be able to come home and work from home
K: community

And just twelve days after praying these prayers, the first was answered. The dearly loved child breathed out peacefully HERE and stood up there and can run and talk and laugh and sing and play and jump and worship THERE!

I am still in awe of this first answer. 17 years here and an eternity whole and healed there. Those years were not wasted, I learnt. That child brought love and healing to many people. Our minds are offended at the level of trauma and disability... and then our hearts are operated on to expose and remove anger, frustration, hurt, bitterness, disassociation, impatience and more. Ouch. Freedom always comes with a price, Jesus shows us. How vast.

How inspiring.

How hard.

Thank you God for this answered prayer. For eternal life. For the light of Your presence in days that were dark. For moments of warmth in a seventeen year journey that ended/began in freedom. 

2017 to 2018. You, God, are the lifter of my head.