A Heart of Praise

Psalm 100:4 says, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name."

I could not think of a better scripture to express the praise and gratitude I have for our Lord. This past week and especially this evening my heart has been filled with thanksgiving for the blessings and answered prayers God has poured out on us. I wanted to share my thankful heart with you tonight.

Fall has arrived in Fort Worth! Yay! I have never appreciated the coolness of the Fall weather until we moved here. The past couple of weeks it has rained and rained and rained, and oh how wonderful it is! I am praising God for the rain he has provided. Over the past two days we have even been able to turn our air conditioner off, open up all the windows, and enjoy the cool air. I thought we'd never be able to do that here. Ha. But I praise God and thank Him for the cool refreshing weather. It has been wonderful!

About a month ago, just after we celebrated Noah's birthday in Amarillo, Noah starting having issues with constipation. To make matters worse, the constipation led to Noah having a sore little bottom. Well, sore would not be the correct term to explain how much pain he was in. He was completely miserable. We decided to add more fiber, fruits, and vegetables to his diet hoping it would resolve the problem. It definitely helped; we noticed a big difference. But the constipation would get better over a couple days, and then would come back. It seems like it got worse and worse every time. We decreased his milk intake, but that didn't help. So we decided to switch to soy milk, hoping it would be easier for him to digest. Nothing worked; Noah was still constipated and miserable. The skin on his bottom began to break down even to the point of bleeding. How frustrated and heart broken we were for Noah. Honestly, I started to worry thinking there might be a underlying problem. I started looking on the Internet to see what else we could do to help Noah. We were getting to the point where we felt Noah should go see a doctor. It was that serious. But during all of this, God our Healer was right there.

One evening while I was cooking dinner Josh came in the kitchen and said he felt like we should lay hands on Noah and pray over him for healing. He said that we had done everything but spend serious time in prayer asking God for healing, and that was the first thing we should have done.

So later in the evening while Noah was sleeping, we quietly went into his room and laid our hands on him pouring our hearts out to God asking Him for healing for our child.

Psalm 30:2 says, "O Lord my God, I cried to You and You have healed me."

That is exactly what God did for Noah. He healed him completely. I cannot even tell you the relief and joy it brings to see my child free of pain. And I cannot thank and praise God enough for hearing our prayers and answering them. Since the night we laid our hands on Noah and prayed for him, Noah has not had one day of constipation, and his sweet little bottom is completely back to normal! I know some of you were praying for Noah as well, and I thank you.

Lastly, I am so thankful for God's provision. He has taken care of our every need, and continues to do so daily. We have been through a few rough patches since we moved here, but God has taken care of us. Josh told me the other day his work is having to cut back everyone's hours, so when he signed up for hours he was not sure exactly what he would get. But despite the company's cut in hours, God has provided more than enough for us. I am so thankful and my heart is full of praise for God's care and provision for us.

"Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts" -- 1 Chronicles 16:9

Hope you are having a great evening, and I hope you are reading this post meaning our blog issues are resolved!