"If you keep my laws and are careful to obey my commands, I will send the seasonal rains. The land will then yield it's crops, and the tress will produce their fruit. Your threshing season will extend until the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will extend it's time to plant again. You will eat your fill and live securely in your land.

I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep without fear.
I will remove the wild animals from your land and protect you from your enemies. In fact, you will chase down all your enemies and slaughter them with your swords. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand!
All your enemies will fall beneath the blows of your weapons.

I will look favorably upon you and and multiply your people and fulfill my covenant with you. You will have such a valuable surplus of crops that you will need to get rid of the leftovers from the previous year to make room for each new harvest. I will live among you, and I will not despise you. I will walk among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people. I, the Lord, and your God, who brought you from the land of Egypt so you would no longer be slaves. I have lifted the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk free with your heads heads high."
Leviticus 3-13

Thank you my God, for all your provisions to us and for giving me peace so that I can sleep without fear. Thank you for multiplying my people and surplussing my crops. For living amongst us, and being our God. For lifting the yoke of slavery and so that we can walk free, with our heads held high. Thank you for removing the wild animals from our land and keeping us safe from the enemies. Lord God, you have provided and you continue to provide! Your love and mercy are truly Everlasting. Thank you for giving us the water of life so that we will never go thirsty again.

Lord God,I thank you for this recent trip to Virginia to visit with my sisters and to be a part of my 'oldest younger sister's' wedding. She was a beutiful bride, but best of all was that your name was glorified throughout the ceremony. And your plan for marriage and creation was put forth and honored. Thank you God, for that. I could tell that my sister felt loved. Thank you so much for that,God. I believe she really felt the arms of her family all around her, and hopefully your love too. I know that you will be faithful to continue to draw her unto yourslef because your word says that you will, and Lord God you know that we are praying. Thank you for her husband, Tad, who has been her best friend and her support system for the past two years~ turbulent years, Lord, a lifetime of life lessons and turmoil packed into two years worth of time. Thank you for your hand over their lives~ even when it seemed your hand wasn't there, it was. You know of your plans, Lord, and we trust in You.

Thank you for placing Stephanie where you have, Lord, and for soon placing Shannon with us! That's right, the Lord has worked things out so that my sister Shannon(18 in a month, Aug.22)will be allowed by law to sign herself out of the foster care sytem and come home into the waiting arms of her family shortly after her 18th birthday, thank you God!She will be moving in with Alan and I, and attending RACC where she will earn a two-year degree and then she will transfer with that into a 4 year college either nearby to here or in Rhode Island to finish up her undergraduate education. That's right, Shannon is 18 and may be getting her own apartment after RACC with our cousin Rachel(who is 22 and ready to also branch out on her own,but not quite feeling ready to live completely alone.) Thank you for this Lord; the social worker said that she "couldn't stop her from doing what she wanted to do once she turned 18" and this was a kindness from her lips!, though it seems not to be so, this same SW was saying as recently as 3 months ago that she was very firm in her plans for Shannon to stay in the foster care system until she was 21 and then release her into theraputic care, because they have her on depression medication that my sister doesn't need. ( I know that some of these kids really do have depression, or other temptations they are battling; My sister is not depressed, she is angry. And she is angry about being stuck in a system that has resulted in her being tossed from home to home her entire life, from the age of 8 until now and she has been in over 6 homes. Anyone would be angry. I can help her forgive our mom and those foster families,and God,with the help of God. I am confident in this because His word says that He hears my pleas, that He is faithful to break yokes and destroy bondages and that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, so I have faith that if I obey His ways and His timing for her I can help her.)

Thank You Lord for your general revelation and your special revelation, as we have been learning about at church. This has been a good time for me to learn this; I have taken time to smell the roses!,and I have seen His provision to all mankind and to those like my Grandfather and my youngest sister who choose to align themselves with Atheism and reject the Living God. Even for them, maybe especially for them?, He reveals Himself in his common grace and with special effects to amaze them(my sister is amazed with the Universe, my grandfather is amazed with the human mind.) Both His creations, both exhibiting the blueprints of His plans for us and the handiwork of His craft in creation. This has been a season of my amazement with God and His grace and mercy for us, His fallen people, as He adopts us as His own sons and daughters and makes us righteous and as He never ceases to pour out common grace and even amazing love notes for those who reject Him and go their own way. He gives us all the way until death, many times, to change our minds and to choose Him,though we cannot presume upon this length of time because life is fleeting and also we cannot know if there will be an accident or sudden disease; for this reason human beings reconciling themselves to God must be chief in our concerns as Christian's on this Earth and I thank God that we can start with teaching and praying over our own families, and then branch out into teaching and praying for those God has surrounding us. God has been so good to us and our family; He has His hands also around the rest of all His children in this world and it is amazing to revel in how Big and Capable those hands are!

The close of this trip signifies a new chapter to come in our lives as a family, and in the lives of my sister's, and even more lives as my sister's will get to now be able to see and get to know their family members on our mother's side. They will see, tough, hear, know their family. See themslves as a part of a bigger thing, belonging to someone and something, not alone, not single~ and my prayer is that they will both see themselves as much loved in God's eyes, as His creation, and that they will see the guiding lines of His hands all over their lives from conception to now and if He gives them a heart to see it, what is to come in the future years between Him and them.

So exciting!! God bless and have a great day :)