A Pair of Bartletts

A Serious Call To Prayer--All Prayer Warriors Needed

 

A Pair of Bartletts readers and prayer warriors:

Please be in prayer over a precious little boy named Caleb Luke Lowery.  His Daddy (Cary) and I went to school together many years ago.  Caleb, who was born in September, came into the world with some very serious heart defects.  Within days of his birth, he was flown from our city to a hospital north of here (UAB).  Caleb is fighting for his life and NEEDS the prayers of the children of God.  As his Mommy and Daddy have said countless times over the last few days...."Prayer Warriors--UNITE"! 

Dear friends....please make this sweet little one a serious matter of prayer in your personal prayers, in the prayers of Sunday School classes and in the prayers of the house of God where you worship.  We serve a risen Savior who is still in the miracle business!  I thank you in advance and on behalf of his precious parents and sweet big brother (Kyler) for every prayer lifted!

The notes below are the most recent and the MOST specific requests from Caleb's Mommy, Alisa.

1. the weaning process for removing Caleb from the heart/lung machine...the specific prayer is that his heart and lungs would be fully restored and function at 100% as they transition and would happen sooner than later!

2. there has been infection evidenced in his body-we are believing the infection is gone in Jesus Name and will not return nor will it be in any of the tubing in the machine, etc.

3. pray for continued control of bleeding and NO bleeding in any area or organ where it should not be. Name it and claim it! And name EACH organ (as God puts in mind) and claim total healing and protection!

4. they have been able to drain quite a bit of fluid off of his body...there is a delicate balance in the fluid department that needs to be maintained -pray for wisdom in that and that Caleb's organs would respond appropriately to that process...

We are asking for more miracles as we are believing Father for completely new heart -fully functioning as it should, fluid draining properly, not infection present, all organs on go and the ability to close Caleb's chest within the 7 day limit. Pray for divine wisdom skilled hands for all who work with Caleb -

This is spiritual warfare so we are standing against the enemy and praying for a holy wind to revolutionize the UAB CICU -for the Father's glory.

Thank you prayer warriors!

 

Memory Monday--Ephesians 3:20-21

 

                       God doesn’t need measuring spoons…

It is always amazing to me how the Lord brings scriptures either to our minds or into our lives always JUST at the right time.  There is a lot going on for Rob and I at the present time….all very good things, some things that require a lot of prayer, but nonetheless…things that the Lord is there…right in the midst.

 

Today, our memory verses in Sunday School class were read from Ephesians 3:20-21.  WOW….are they EVER relevant for us now. 

 

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundant above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. AMEN.”

 

I don’t know about you, but the words “exceedingly abundant above all that we ask”…..that just blows me away.  This “thing” that Rob and I are experiencing right at this moment is going to be worked out by the Lord of hosts to a point that we would have never imagined on our very own!  How encouraging is that?

 

I’ll be sharing more with you as the weeks go by, but for now, please pray for us.  We are entering into something that we know that the Lord is blessing.  We have bathed it in prayer and the pieces have fallen into place as only the Lord could do. 

 

What “exceedingly abundant” things have you asked for lately?

 

Thankful Thursday~~Who Is Your Champion?

 
Dear Jesus,

Thank you for my precious husband.  Thank you for the blessing that he is in my life and every day of my life.  I thank you that before the world was formed by Your mighty hand, You had the sweetest treasure on Your mind for me.  In the very core of my being, I could have never in my own strength have thought of, dreamed of or found a soul mate more precious than the one that You created for me!

I humbly pray that you would saturate his every thought with Your precepts.  Conform his thoughts to Your thoughts.  Teach him Your higher ways.  Urge him to make his requests known to You, O Lord.  Guard his heart and his mind through You, Christ Jesus.  Give him daily courage to fend off the ways of this wretched world.  Continue to bless him as the leader of this home.

I ask all of these things in the name of Jesus, my Savior....AMEN

Ruth 1:16-17 (New King James Version)

¹⁶ But Ruth said: 

      “ Entreat me not to leave you, 
      Or to turn back from following after you; 
      For wherever you go, I will go; 
      And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; 
      Your people shall be my people, 
      And your God, my God.

 ¹⁷ Where you die, I will die,
      And there will I be buried. 
      The LORD do so to me, and more also, 
      If anything but death parts you and me.”

 

What Kind of Pumpkin Are You?

I LOVE FALL!  I love EVERYTHING about it!  I love the COLORS, I love the SMELLS and the FLAVORS!   God was so good to us when He created such richly colored and flavored things like pumpkins.  I think pumpkins are beautiful to look at and I love their flavor....in both sweet and savory things.  I also love pumpkins because they remind me of the Glory of the Lord.  Have you ever seen two pumpkins that look just alike?  If you have, then we're ALL going to be rich!  You can't show me two pumpkins that are 100% identical to each other...YOU CAN'T DO IT!  

Pumpkins are beautiful things...they come in  an incredible palette of colors, some have bumps, some have ridges and lines, and sometimes, they are as smooth as silk.   Some have knotty stems and some have really beautiful stereotypically formed pumpkin stems.  Some might even have a worm hole or two!

God's children are a lot like pumpkins.  We have lumps and bumps and we have things that to some, are "not so beautiful", but to others, are just breathtaking.  We have lines and ridges...and we can be rigid when we want to be...and at times, we can be as smooth as silk in the outward showing of our personalities.  But lumps, bumps or otherwise, God created us uniquely and as incredible individuals...each of us being a total masterpiece in the eyes of the Father.  It's hard to remember sometimes that God created the beautiful and the not so beautiful...but to HIM....total perfection.  After all, we are created in HIS image!

         "So God created man in his own image, 
       in the image of God he created him; 
       male and female he created them."

                                 Genesis 1:27

Well, believe it or not, this was what I was pondering today as I made a batch of some really fabulous pumpkin soup.  I hope that you will consider it all "food for thought", no pun(kin) intended!

I'll leave you with the recipe that I used, and yes the pictures above were from today's batch of soup.  I hope that you'll try it!  The recipe is adapted from one that belongs to one of my favorite Food Network chefs, Robin Miller.  You can find her exact recipe for this soup by clicking here.  I will include my recipe below, since I have a couple of things that I add in addition to Robin's INCREDIBLE recipe.  I hope that you enjoy it!  And if you are looking for economical...THIS IS YOUR RECIPE!  For those of you who are fellow American Frugal Housewives...you'll love it!

SMOKY PUMPKIN SOUP WITH CUMIN

1 can (15 oz.) of canned pumpkin**, ~OR~ 15 oz. of fresh cooked pumpkin

1 ½ cups of reduced sodium chicken broth

1 cup milk (I use Horizon Organic 2%)

1 pinch ground sage

1 pinch ground cinnamon 

½ tsp Sun Crystals (or other sugar substitute like Splenda)

15 turns of the peppermill

¼ tsp. sea salt

1 pinch ground bay leaves (or 2 whole bay leaves)

**MAKE SURE that you do NOT buy the pumpkin pie mix!  It should be the PLAIN canned pumpkin!

Whisk all of the ingredients together over medium heat. Serve hot!   If you like a smoother texture, you can process the soup through either a food mill or a food processor for a smoother puree.   If you are not a cumin fan, or if you are not sure if you are, then you may want to start with ¼ tsp. of cumin and then work up from there.  I love it, so I use the 1 tsp. that it calls for.

Enjoy!

 

 

Marriage Monday--A Cord Of Three Strands Is Not Quickly Broken

Ephesians 5:22-33

²²Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

 ²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶to make her holy, cleansing^[b] her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰for we are members of his body. ³¹"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."^[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

I would like to start this post by thanking the Lord for my precious husband, Rob.  God blessed me beyond measure when he brought Rob into my life.  If I have said it once, I've said it a thousand times....aside from my Bible, Rob is my greatest earthly treasure given to me by the Lord.  

As I tossed around which of the topics to choose from for the post, it became quite evident to me which one that I should write about.  For me, it was the obvious choice...."A cord of three strands is not quickly broken".  I love this.  I love the picture of the Trinity, but especially in the biblical picture of marriage.  Most think that the husband and the wife are what completes the picture of marriage, but on the contrary.  The picture of the Christian marriage is not complete without the third strand in the cord...the Holy Spirit.  Without Him, the two of us would be nothing.  We would not make it trying to serve each other if we were not serving Him first.  There is no way that Rob could love me, nor could I be submissive to Rob's leadership in our home if we did not have Jesus in our hearts.  The scripture is very clear in the definition of our roles in this marriage and it's a definition that we fully intend to follow.  

The chosen path of love and submission is certainly not one that doesn't involve hard work.  We BOTH have to work at it.  But more importantly, it should be approached with the greatest of care.  And the greatest way to care for our marriages is to bathe them in prayer.  I'm not saying that you have to hunch in a dark closet for hours on end in order to be prayerful about your marriage (or anything for that matter).  Daily prayer in my quiet times and what I consider a constant prayerful heart (always having prayer on my mind during day to day tasks) are what work the best for me.  

Recently, I learned of a book that my sister Julie was reading.  Just after reading a few pages, I saw what an incredible tool that this book would be in addition to my own prayers.  It was a fantastic guide (and very inexpensive, I might add)  to praying scriptures over our husbands.  The book is called "Prayers of an Excellent Wife", by Andrew Case.  I highly recommend this book...and quite frankly, I have told dozens of people about it since then.  There is also a companion book by the same author for husbands called "Water of the Word: Intercession For Her".  Rob has a copy of it as well.  Case has taken the actual written scriptures and melded them into a specific prayer.  Dear Sisters....the GLUE that binds the three cords together (in my humble opinion) is prayer, prayer and more prayer.  Petitioning the Father over our marriages  could not be any more important.  Every need...every thought....every EVERYTHING that is going on in your marriage, from the smallest, most seemingly insignificant thing, to the BIGGEST of the big things in your marriage....they are all worthy of bringing before the Father.  Scripture is very clear on this in Paul's letter to the Philippians (Philippians 4) when he says:

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.   ⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Dear Sisters, I pray that the third strand in the cord of your marriage is Jesus Christ.  I pray that your marriage will be blessed, that it is complete and that you are the apple of your husband's eye.  I thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ before everyone reading this post for my husband...from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.  May the strands of the cord of all of our marriages be woven together as tightly as the Lord will hold them.  

I thought I would leave you with one of the prayers from the book that I mentioned to you.   I wanted you to see the format so that you might consider getting a copy of it for yourself.  As a matter of fact, the author has even offered a FREE .pdf copy of this book to you by visiting His Magnificence (how much better can you get...it's FREE!).  The author has also granted permission for any part of the text to be shared or reproduced, so long as you don't charge for it or alter it in any way.  So, with that said dear sisters....please share it with your friends!  It has blessed me beyond belief and I know it will bless you as well.

The prayer below is very special to me and I have read it over and over....and it is especially meaningful to me in light of the topic in this post.  I pray it will bless you as well.  

May God richly bless you!

 

*****For more great Marriage Monday articles and otherwise just really good blog content, please visit my DEAREST friend and marriage mentor, E-Mom at Chrysalis Cafe.  You will be blessed!  Much love to you E-Mom....you and E-Dad ROCK!

Guess What Tomorrow Is?

I hope to see you back here tomorrow!  It's going to be a great Marriage Monday!

The topic here at A Pair of Bartletts will be:

Blessings to you!