Prayer Chain (Link Up!)

It's here! It's here!

I could not be more excited for today's launch of The Prayer Chain! To read more about the idea behind this link up, check out this post. Basically, Melissa and I want to know what's on your heart. 

How can we be praying for you? 

How can we be praising God for what He's doing in your life? 

Let us know by linking up! We can't wait to hear from you :)

As for me, I've got two things for you today. One giant praise, and one giant prayer request. 

Ready?

Praise Report:

God has put it on my heart to share with you guys something that happened to me this past week. He really went out of His way to prove His word true, and I'm still blown away by His faithfulness. 

Over the past few weeks, I've started feeling as though it's time for me to start tithing my money. For any of you who may not be familiar with this, in the Bible it calls us to give 10% of the money that we earn back to God. God calls us to do this to help keep us from developing a love of money, and to help us remember that all things in our life are ultimately gifts from Him. 

But, being the wonderful, kind, loving God that He is, He doesn't just simply ask for our money. He goes on to promise us many blessings if we obey:

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple.

If you do," says the Lord Almighty, "I will open the windows of heaven for you.

I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in

Try it! Let me prove it to you!"

Malachi 3:10

God literally asks us to test Him on this. So I finally did. 

I tithed for the first time on Thursday, February 21st. 

On Tuesday, February 26th, I received an e-mail from a blog friend informing me that God has placed it on her heart to buy me a ticket to The Influence Conference. 

...

Are you speechless right now? Because I was for a solid 10 minutes. 

I had been saving up to go to two different Christian blogger conferences, and wasn't sure how I was going to afford to go to both. I knew if I was supposed to go to these conferences, God would make it possible. I had no idea that He would go to this extreme, and am still blown away by Him, and by this blogger's heart for Christ. 

She said that God had laid this on her heart a while ago. Had she told me this at any other time, it would have been an absolute blessing. But God used His perfect timing to not only pour out an incredible blessing, but use this blessing to prove His word true. 

I hope this encourages you today. To cling to His word and His promises with all your might. They are true, my friends. 

All of them. 

Prayer Request:

Meet my beautiful Aunt, Vicki:

Vicki is an inspiration to me on so many levels. She has the most wonderful heart, full to the brim of God's grace. 

When my grandma got to an age where hosting family functions became too big of burden, our family gatherings switched to our Uncle's house. Vicki married into our family, and if you spend any time with our large, rambunctious family, you will see that it is full of love. But along with a lot of love, comes a lot of chaos. 

Vicki hosts these family functions so beautifully. Never showing any signs of stress, always rolling with the punches as they come. 

And she hosts in such a way that she spreads love to all who enter her house. 

I aspire to be like her one day. 

Vicki was recently diagnosed with cancer. She needed to have intense surgery, with the goal of removing all cancer from her body, leaving her cancer-free. 

In the next few weeks, Vicki will be getting all of the results from her surgery. Would you please join my family in praying that God completely rid her body of this disease? 

I am praying that God take away all of Vicki's pain, both emotional and physical. I'm asking that He provide his comfort that surpasses understanding, and that He show my family the power of our Savior's healing hand. 

Thank you, sweet friends, for walking this walk with me. 

I hope you will join Melissa and I in today's link up!

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.

Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises. 

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them 

pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 

James 5: 13-14

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