**Prayer Updates!** 
Pray for those seeking new jobs and better working conditions.
Let's also pray for those experiencing doubt, frustration, and stress.
In Jesus' name.
Let's lift up these requests, everyone! 
MelissaRae
Prayer Warrior
Father God,
Thank you for your faithfulness in giving me psalms to meditate on. Last night, Psalm 88 is what I was led to pray as my heart has been exhibiting joy in evening psalms as songs of worship alone with you, but I also have deep groanings that only you can counsel and heal. Your word says narrow is the way and few find it. As I've looked into my past and of family, and former friends who may still be alive, my heart has grieved the bad doctrine that has led many away from you. Your word says that even the elect may be deceived.
A study of Psalm 51 earlier this week revealed to me more of the condition of David's heart and the agony he faced when the Prophet Nathan called him to admit his sins.
"This has been his implied attitude throughout: against God he had sinned, and to God alone he supplicates. But now this truth becomes explicit. In vv. 5, 6, linked by the repeated Behold, he confessed the true depth of his sinfulness as being the natural state of man from birth and acknowledged the immensity of God’s standards and requirements, an inward being and secret heart conformed to His truth. Only God can supply the necessary purging (v. 7), and only God can accomplish the total restoration of soul and body from the damage of sin (v. 8)."-(Guthrie, Motyer, Stibbs, Wiseman, The New Bible Commentary Revised (WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), 483-484.
Jesus, I believe you are more than worthy of all praise, and you are forever faithful. I come to you with this prayer of affliction because some days lonely feelings go by. After all, I have nobody to share daylight with as close friends, haven't had a remnant of believers to meet with in person for many years, and my childhood family is estranged. I'm alive, feel well, and have so much to offer, but I don't always know where to share my time. I pray, study the bible, put together studies, and spend as much time outdoors as possible with my dog. As a divorced woman in her forties, I still encounter many interests from men, and over the recent years I've had to side-line, talk my way out of, hide, run, walk away from, and hope he doesn't follow, show kindness toward hoping he doesn't take it the wrong way, to a stranger seeing me in my yard and later leaving a token of his affection on my car kinds of approaches. How am I supposed to deal with these kinds of encounters and concerns for the remainder of my days since you cannot physically be here to answer them for me? How can healthy relationships with women in my disposition be built in such a small city with few activities for women like me or who have experienced the grief of being torn apart from a former spouse and believe that only upon reconciliation or death could I ever marry again? When I need help, it can be hard to find.
This is such a foreign aspect to me not to have more to do. We truly are in perilous times, and part of the grief in my heart is having lost the potential for friendships because of the way many have chosen to be towards me. Then add the covid years of treachery making relationships worse, not better. The years the locusts have eaten are like the bad doctrine and bad behavior that is pouring into our country. God, sometimes I just don't know what to do.
Thank you for your faithfulness in giving me psalms to meditate on. Last night, Psalm 88 is what I was led to pray as my heart has been exhibiting joy in evening psalms as songs of worship alone with you, but I also have deep groanings that only you can counsel and heal. Your word says narrow is the way and few find it. As I've looked into my past and of family, and former friends who may still be alive, my heart has grieved the bad doctrine that has led many away from you. Your word says that even the elect may be deceived.
A study of Psalm 51 earlier this week revealed to me more of the condition of David's heart and the agony he faced when the Prophet Nathan called him to admit his sins.
"This has been his implied attitude throughout: against God he had sinned, and to God alone he supplicates. But now this truth becomes explicit. In vv. 5, 6, linked by the repeated Behold, he confessed the true depth of his sinfulness as being the natural state of man from birth and acknowledged the immensity of God’s standards and requirements, an inward being and secret heart conformed to His truth. Only God can supply the necessary purging (v. 7), and only God can accomplish the total restoration of soul and body from the damage of sin (v. 8)."-(Guthrie, Motyer, Stibbs, Wiseman, The New Bible Commentary Revised (WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), 483-484.
Jesus, I believe you are more than worthy of all praise, and you are forever faithful. I come to you with this prayer of affliction because some days lonely feelings go by. After all, I have nobody to share daylight with as close friends, haven't had a remnant of believers to meet with in person for many years, and my childhood family is estranged. I'm alive, feel well, and have so much to offer, but I don't always know where to share my time. I pray, study the bible, put together studies, and spend as much time outdoors as possible with my dog. As a divorced woman in her forties, I still encounter many interests from men, and over the recent years I've had to side-line, talk my way out of, hide, run, walk away from, and hope he doesn't follow, show kindness toward hoping he doesn't take it the wrong way, to a stranger seeing me in my yard and later leaving a token of his affection on my car kinds of approaches. How am I supposed to deal with these kinds of encounters and concerns for the remainder of my days since you cannot physically be here to answer them for me? How can healthy relationships with women in my disposition be built in such a small city with few activities for women like me or who have experienced the grief of being torn apart from a former spouse and believe that only upon reconciliation or death could I ever marry again? When I need help, it can be hard to find.
This is such a foreign aspect to me not to have more to do. We truly are in perilous times, and part of the grief in my heart is having lost the potential for friendships because of the way many have chosen to be towards me. Then add the covid years of treachery making relationships worse, not better. The years the locusts have eaten are like the bad doctrine and bad behavior that is pouring into our country. God, sometimes I just don't know what to do.
