PRAYER WALL: Bring on the Intentions, People

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i alone cannot change the world

It’s Cycle 3, Day 4…. and the storm is a brewing. 

My stomach’s flipping,  food doesn’t want to stay down so much, and staying awake for prayers is getting trickier and trickier.  However,  when I look over at the patients next to me in the chairs that go on and on down the infusion suite, I can stay awake, and I can pray.  Funny how that works?

That’s when it came to me.  I’ve been hemming and hawing over this ever since my diagnosis, so here it goes.

I need your help.

today somebody is suffering

I don’t refer to myself when I post this quote from the Blessed Mother Theresa.  I’m thinking outside the box here.  The world is so big, so vast, and the need for prayer is so far beyond what we see in our little world right here.  I’m touched beyond words by all the prayers people have offered up for us, the selfless acts, the meals, the notes, the hugs, and the love.  It is awe-inspiring.  And for someone like me to go speechless, that’s a once in a life time chance, baby! (Enjoy the silence of me not talking for a moment……. aaaaand… here I go again! Haha!)  So, it got me thinking.  I need a way to focus my prayers, and focus all the little side effects of the chemo and sufferings of the day to day issues that go along with having breast cancer and fighting for my life, really.

People have timidly started emailing me, texting me, sending messages on Facebook, unsure if it was ok to give me their intentions to offer up.  “Is that ok?” , they ask.

“Is that ok? Is that ok?  THAT’S FANTASTIC!!!!!”, I reply enthusiastically!

Giving me your intentions, gives me a way to focus my day, and channel everything toward a greater cause.  I’m a mama.  I want to take care of people, I like to nurture.  If any of you have ever been on bed rest (which I was for nearly 20 weeks with my son), it was far more of an emotional torture than anything!  I felt it was taking away my ability to be a mom.  So, to be able to have a “job” to take care of all of you people and pray for you, and help YOU through the grace of suffering would be AWESOME!!!

Oh, It’s on like DONKEY KONG!

However, I want us to stick with what I’ve been learning and what I’ve been trying mercilessly to teach my children to do.  Let’s focus on the desire for GOD’s WILL in our lives.  It’s a hard one.  We all want to pray to be healed.  Our knee jerk reaction is to tell God just what to do.  But, I’ve regularly been laughed at when I tell the Big Guy my plans. So I suggest we don’t do that so much.  Deal?  You can even just pray for a “special intention”, God knows the details.  We don’t need to go into the nitty gritties for the world to see if you don’t want them to!  God is omnipotent, He knows way more than us.  Thank God, right??

However, I can take some details, too. But let’s have some rules, why don’t we?  Let’s use the ol’ K.I.S.S. Rule here  (Keep It Simple Stupid Sweetie):  In other words let’s not get too lengthy.  If you feel called to elaborate, feel free to email me by clicking on the link on my blog page.  I’ll take a look at it and pray for your in depth intention privately. I figure it would look, overall like this.

 WHEN YOU MAKE A COMMENT ON MY BLOG POST:

1. Your name, the person,  or situation your praying for (only if you feel comfortable doing so

2) The general need for prayer (simple sentence)

3)Try to follow up with a little thanksgiving of something good that God is doing in your life (simple sentence)

GRATITDE CHANGES EVERYTHINGH

In all things, no matter how ugly, how messy, how scary, how unclear, we must have faith that God has got our backs and is also still doing good in our lives, even during all the bad that seems to surround us.  If we can’t have hope, and we can’t find gratitude in something…. ANYTHING… than what’s the point?  I see more smiling faces over there in that Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center every day.  They are thankful for a second chance.  We are thankful for a chance to fight.  So let us fight for you, too, while you do the same with your prayers for us.  You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Deal?

My mother’s dear friend, Jane Vorbeck,  passed away a few years back after struggling with a debilitating textbook case of rheumatoid arthritis.  Her body seemed crippled and in a type of pain that no one could understand.  However, her mind, her wit, and her spirit was like no hero I had ever known.  She is definitely, definitely one of my inspirations as a writer.  She had a deliciously twisted sense of humor that we shared and loved one another for!  A beautiful writer, mother, and a tough-cookie fighter!  She’d call my mom whenever she knew I had a test coming up and say, “Alright, she has a chemistry exam, right?  What does she want? A rib or an ankle bone? Both are crunchin’ on me, but I’m offerin’ ’em up for her. Good for nothing for me!” And then she’d just laugh.  Now, that was a lesson learned on offering up one’s suffering.  Mrs.Jane, I do this in memory of you. Thank you for your gracious example.

don't worry...PRAY

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See ALSO:

2nd prayer wall blog post…

pin prayer requests

PRAYER WALL 2: DON’T BE SHY NOW, SEND EM’

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126 thoughts on “PRAYER WALL: Bring on the Intentions, People”

  1. Elise,
    I started out praying for you and following your blog out of love for Jean and Janice who are dear friends of ours. Your witness to the joy and hope that can be found in Christ, through out all of lifes circumstances is awe inspiring. Thank you. Please pray for our daughter Olivia who is 4 yrs old (3rd of 4 children), who we have just discovered has an abnormal heartbeat. They will be doing more tests in the weeks to come. Pray for the health of her heart and for our trust in Him. We are so grateful for our beautiful, passionate, music loving, Daddy’s little girl with a great big servants heart.

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  2. Hey Elise – this is Tonya – Kim’s sister. Please pray for my hip reconstruction. The doctor had to send my case to MAYO and now we wait. So many concerns but our God is a big God & He has this. I am thankful I am still walking. I am in pain most of the time but what am wonderful thing to offer up for this amazing woman & her family, her name is Elise 😘
    Thank you for the gift of you. Ring that bell Wednesday & celebrate for God continues to work through you and in you. Love & prayers to you & yours sweet Elise!

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  3. Thank you so very much for sharing this with me. I, too, have known well the loss of miscarriage and the desire to for fill on completed task of caring out for pregnancy. We lost a set of twins and another little boy shortly after. My children talk to them and ask for their intercession every day just like any child in our family would be part of our lives. They have named them, they talk about them, they are never forgotten.
    Please let them know of my prayers and that once you were on my list, you never get off of it.

    If she were ever interested, through our ministry, my husband and I have connections and links to some of the most incredible centers helping people with fertility and natural family planning. I would never impose upon her, but if ever you were interested, please never hesitate to contact me. Until then, I will be in fervent prayer for her healing of her body, soul, heart, and repose of sweet Elijah💕

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  4. For my sister, Sr MJ, OP, who is having surgery in Oct to fight endometriosis. It seems so small compared to all you’re going through, but I’m sure grateful for your generosity of spirit to lift others up while you, yourself, are on the cross.
    Peace and all good to you and yours.

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    • Thank you, Elise. My hubby and I are friends of Jean and Janice’s from our Ottawa days. We met you a thousand yrs ago (maybe at Olivia’s baptism?). Anyway, your sacrifice of prayers mean so much. You’re in our prayers as well.

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      • I remember you well. They still talk about you all the time. Y’all are very special couple and their life and because of that you are to me as well. Thank you so much for your prayers and support and please know that I am keeping all of your intentions in my heart as well. Once you get on my prayer list, you never really get off

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  7. Elsie sweet mommy we continue to pray for you and your sweet family! My intentions are for my 11month old son who will have to have an eye procedure done in the near future to unclog a tear duct and for my father who will have a his second hip replacement on 8/20. We are so thankful that we have all of the family in our lives that continue to give live and support daily 🙂

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    • I’ll surely pray for your sweet baby’s procedure and for peace for you through it all. Likewise, I’ll keep your Dad in my prayers. My mom and brother recently had hip replacements. For all that you’re doing just pray for good doctors that you can trust

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  9. Elise,
    I have been praying for you and your family, your faith has inspired me so very much…
    I love how you pray for other’s intentions , and right now would like to add mine to your list: my 5th kiddo has been diagnosed 1.5 yrs ago with a large Pineal cyst , we follow w/ MRI, but on our MRI last week, it seems to have grown… not usual for Pineal cysts, but could be.. seeing a pediatric Neuro surgeon next Wednesday to make sure this is ,in fact, benign, any and all prayers for Emma Grace would be greatly appreciated … I need this to be normal and fine…. I had prayed the Rosery 1.5 yrs ago with our Lady ( her blesseed statue came to visit the DAY Emma had her seizure- imagine that!) and I felt a peace and just *knew* she would be fine… I don’t know why I have any doubt in this now,
    Thank you, and we continue to pray for you and yours,
    Love in Christ

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    • Continue to pray that rosary! I have no doubt in my mind that there is no coincidence that this began on the same day that Our Lady was in your home. She is interceding for you and sweet Emma Grace, no doubt. As a mother who’s grieved for a child, she gets it more than anyone💙😊

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      • Thank you for including Emma in your Prayers, I ask you please continue to pray, they have now scheduled a Lumbar puncture for Monday to see if This is anything other than a cyst… I know our lady has her in her hands… praying for great news… and our patience in the waiting

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  10. Hi Elise, Karen Sheehy here. Please pray for me, Tom and our son, Joseph, who has been at a home school, functional cattle ranch in Wyoming the last three years. He has finished high school a year early, grown so much spiritually, emotionally and physically at the beautiful, catholic environment in God’s country-praise God. He will be back home with us at MQP for the next 4 months before starting Jr College in Wyoming early. Come, Holy Spirit, come and make us a holy family founded on love. Please pray that this family time is blessed, full of healing, joy and bountiful graces! Also, unite our family pain (due to the struggles we experience with his bipolar mental disorder) and our gratitude for his recovery. Thank you for your humble prayers. It means so much. Know that our prayers are with you and your family too!

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    • Karen, I will absolutely keep all of these transitions in prayer. I can only imagine how difficult its been to make each decision for him. However I know how faithful you are and how God will remain faithful to you. Lean on Our Lady. I often go back to the novena, Mary Undoer of Knots, to get me through difficult or trying times. I think I’ve prayed it 100 times the past few years. If anyone understands the plea for grace and peace for their child, she does. I talk to her a lot. She’ll happily befriend you at this time.

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      • Joseph consecrated himself to our Lady in WY on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima this past year. She’s got him but thanks for reminding me of her constant support during my own times of anticipation! Of how her maternal love is such a wellspring of peace, hope, trust and love. Learning to live for in the joyfilled freedom of the moment, this is your gift to me today. Thank you for your heartfelt reflection-they mean so much to me and and to so many others!

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  11. Please offer up prayers for a friend of mine Becky F and her family. She is a mama of 8. One of the first mamas I met when we began our homeschooling journey 10 years ago. She is a lover of Our Lords Most Sacred Heart and a giver of His love and mercy to everyone she meets.

    She is fighting hard but as of lately cancer is taking her body down. Her children are suffering greatly…her husband name is Sean. He is a God Fearing loving husband and father.

    I could go on and on. Just pray please.

    Praying for you and your sweet family.

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    • Wow. Their story touches my heart and I will sincerely pray for their family!
      Could you take a look at the Buna’sHopeProject💙 tab on this blog and see which info is needed to send in for their family to teambuna@gmail.com so that we can get a Buna Box care package out to them👍
      Thanks for sharing this. I’m hoping to get back in the office as soon as this radiation settles and get those Buna Boxes rolling again asap👍
      God bless you, Jill

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