As we build this community prayer platform, we ask the Lord to listen to our petitions with full confidence they not only are heard but acted upon by God according to His holy will. I know the requests are on my prayer list and I hope you consider putting them on yours as you place your petitions before the Lord Sunday.

This week, prayers for the author take center stage. Yours truly has a bad cold with some fever spikes and assorted  And I still have  to migrate back to Maine. It should be and interesting ride. Thankfully, Anthony is with me so he will probably get some driving time.

So, the first petition today is for safety in travel and the Lord touches me with His healing touch.

Dave and Bonnie are asking for prayers for their great-grandson, Drake.  He is nine months old and has undergone several surgeries in his short life.  He was born with his intestines on the outside of his body.  He has been doing very well with feeding tube and another tube to help and he has been crawling around and pulling himself up.  He is now suffering from an infection in the tube that was in his heart.  The doctors say this is a bad infection and the outcome is unknown at this time.  They have put him in an induced coma to keep him calm.  He is bloating from the medicine they have been giving him.  The future does not look good.  Please send prayers for his health and for his mom and dad.  All three of them really need your help.

Robert is asking for  prayers, not for him — that ship has sailed — but for his son Kelly. He just turned 46 and he is in at home hospice care, fighting stage 4 Melanoma that has spread to his brain, lungs and liver. He added the family lost their son Danny in 1996 to gun violence. He was 20 years old.

We come to You, Lord, because prayer is the least yet the greatest thing we can do for each other. When two or more are gathered in Your name, we confidently know You are with us. What better company can we have? You reign and we trust You! We may be broken and battered but know You heal and quiet the soul. You are the source for all that happens in our lives. We thank You for the many blessings we have received this week — some we unfortunately didn’t notice. Nonetheless, those blessings are ever-present in our lives. We thank You for healing. We thank You for slowing us down. We thank You for providing us our daily needs — no more and no less. We thank You for being with us, listening to us, walking with us on this journey. We thank You for the support of our family and friends … for seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary — sunrises, sunsets, flowers, kids laughing, adventures, good news amid the bad news. We also know we can come to You with our concerns and they will be heard. We lift up those family members and friends who are battling various physical, emotional, financial, career or spiritual issues and ask not for Your guidance and healing (although that would be welcomed) but to keep reminding us we are not alone in our battles. Specifically we lift up Drake and Kelly. We pray for obedience to Your Will so Your “Son” Light shines through us through the power of the Spirit. And we come to You through the confidence of the words taught by Your Son Jesus. Amen.

Keep your joys and concerns coming. They have been and will be included during my prayer time and I trust they will be on the lips of my followers as well as they approach the altar. All it takes is a couple of keystrokes under the “Contact Me” button on the top bar {or to the right if you’re not a follower yet}. I hope it becomes your best friend as you navigate around the site so we can all be viable prayer warriors. You can also comment or reach me at wisdomfromafather@gmail.com.

THOUGHT TO REMEMBER: Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. — Mother Teresa