Sweet Home Santa Barbara

Saturday, March 2, 2013

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
Sweet Home Santa Barbara

12 comments:

Rainey said...

Amy, I will definitely be praying for your aunt. It's so hard when someone you love is sick, but God is Healer!

Julie said...

Amy this idea is beyond AMAZING! I love it. Definitely linking up!

As for your story of God's faithfulness, wow! I was amazed and so touched by it. I'm really glad you get to go to Influence now– you'll have a blast :)

I prayed right away for your Aunt. She sounds like an amazing woman. If there's anything we know, it's that God works in the greatest ways!

Thanks for creating such a great link-up! Happy Sunday friend :)

Melissa Jo said...

That is an AMAZING praise! Wow - I'm always amazed how the LORD works in ways that our worldly imaginations could never fathom. Truly just WOW. I will keep Aunt Vicki in my prayers. I will pray for complete restorative healing as well as the acceptance of the Lord's will. I have watched people go through health scares that have been use to win people for the kingdom. And I truly hope that her story will be a story that will influence people to seek Christ most of all I will pray that story is a story full of hope, faith, and healing.

Melissa said...

I hate cancer. :( I will definitely be praying for your aunt!

Still so in love w/ this blog prayer chain idea. I will be linking up! :)

Leslie @ Body Won't Break said...

What an amazing story! God definitely meets us when we need Him. We have seen that a LOT while I have been off from work due to my knee surgery. In fact, today we got an unexpected refund check from our home insurance company.

So glad you started this link up!

Kiki said...

You're going to Influence?! That's awesome and so exciting! I can't wait to hear all about it. God is truly amazing and His timing and plans for us are so awesome, too.

And definitely praying for your Aunt! She's truly an inspiration and I can tell joy exudes from her, too.

Thanks again for this link-up! I can't wait to read everyone's posts. :)

Mosby Hardin said...

I always love hearing me some good praises about God! That is so awesome that you will be able to attend those conferences! I am trying to go to the Influence conference as well!

I will be praying for your aunt and your whole family that God will take over and heal her!

Amy said...

dang i forgot to link up, next week it is ON!
WOW...how amazing it is that God is so faithful and so personal, that friend paying for your ticket....amazing.
Praying for Vicki!

Suzanne said...

Amy, I'm so glad I found you through the Prayer Chain linkup! I will absolutely be joining you in praying for your Aunt Vicki. Cancer is such a scary word, but our God is so, so much bigger than her disease. I love the way you described her. She sounds like an amazing person! Please keep us updated about her progress.

-Suzanne

Chrissy @ the Pearl Blog said...

What a blessing You are. God also provided thru a blog friend for me to attend influence conference last year. It was something that blessed me beyond belief. I hope to meet you there this ear!

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Will you please add this to your prayer chain and pray for it until the middle of May? Thank you!

Please pray for my wives surgeries in the next couple of weeks that they will go well and she will have a safe recovery. Please also pray that we will be able to get pregnant during this time. We desperately want to have a child and raise him or her up in the church so please ask that God will bless us with this miracle! Thank you so much and God bless!

Kyle and Ashley Taylor