prayer – Creative Content

Psalm 144.7

The day a category 5 Super Typhoon was threatening to hit landfall directly on Dededo, Guam where my daughter lived, I was preparing for my third night as a new hire night shift grocery store stocker. It was 10 pm and I was just getting ready to clock in to work on my cell phone. I was in the truck in the parking lot of the big chain store with my employee vest on and name tag. I did one last search on my phone.

I Googled “Guam news” and sorted it by latest date media posts. In the parking lot in the dark, I could see the Vermont mountains in the distance and everything was calm and peaceful here. But in the videos of Guam, I could see palm trees being whipped around in the wind and forced over to almost bending halfway from the pressure. There were a few videos of some crashing waves on the shoreline and one video of some items falling off a building from the wind. The news outlets were saying that the Super Typhoon would be the worst storm in 20 years to hit the tiny island of 150,000 people in the Pacific. They were comparing it to a storm called Typhoon Karen that in the 1960s had devastated the island and destroyed many, many buildings. Fortunately, they said that the buildings had been reconstructed over the years using concrete and would be able to weather this storm better but that there were still major concerns with potential storm surges from the ocean, landslides, flash flooding, and the winds would be expected to be above 140 miles per hour. All residents were advised to stay inside during the storm and shelter in place.

My daughter was living in a one story home in northern Guam in Dededo close to the military base. Her father was former military and lived there and she had come to live there for two years with him, his wife, and their newborn son. The last messages I got from my ex-husband were that the storm was coming soon and that they might lose power and not be able to communicate with us for a while. I texted my daughter and ex-husband back to be safe and that we would be thinking of them and praying for them.

I clocked in to work and crossed the dark parking lot to enter the store. A truck had come that night which meant there were more pallets in my area than usual. I had 7 pallets piled high to unload by 6 am when the store opened for customers and I needed to make sure my area was cleared of all cardboard and pallets after stocking the shelves.

I was tired.

I was transitioning from day to night shift. In addition, my daughter was facing a Super Typhoon in the Pacific. My husband had a medical emergency earlier that week that nearly sent us to the ER. And to top it all off, that night, I had started my period.

It was gonna be a rough night.

From 10 pm to 12 midnight, our department worked fast unloading 27 bins of product onto the shelves. At midnight, I stepped outside for my 15 minute break and headed for the truck. I started up the heat in the truck and dug in my employee vest pocket for my cell phone in the dark. I grabbed a water bottle and drank it while I typed in another Google search and a Facebook search and an YouTube search. I was looking for anything about Guam and the latest videos and stories or news articles I could find.

It didn’t look good. It did not look good at all. I was beginning to get scared.

The winds were picking up. There were a few articles sporadically here and there but they pretty much said the same things that the storm was intense and highly dangerous. The people of Guam were right in its path and there could be flooding, landslides, loss of power and water, and potential mass destruction to the island if the category 5 storm went right over the top of the tiny island.

I checked the storm radar and you could see the storm all in red and yellow with the eye in the center and it was massive. It was still a few hours away from hitting the island.

From midnight to 2 am when I would take lunch for an hour, the work pace at the store was pretty fast. We had to clear at least 2 pallets or maybe even 3 hopefully before 2 am. We were stocking vitamins and shampoos and all sorts of pill bottles. We were ripping open lots of cardboard and putting things on shelves or top stock or sending it back to the spare pallet for overstock to be binned in the back warehouse by 6 am.

As a new hire, my feet were sore. My legs were sore. My lower back was sore and my fingers hurt from pulling apart boxes. I had to get conditioned to the work and was just sore all over by the third day. But I didn’t grumble much or speak of it and just tried to keep a fast pace to prove my worth.

At 2 am, I was out in the truck again for an hour lunch. I dug in my lunchbag and grabbed a soda and popped it open and a twinkie. I then checked online again.

More videos, not alot, just a few that people had taken from hotels in Guam behind windows where you could see the wind was crazy hard on the trees and some trees were breaking. There were a few other videos of things flying off roofs or things breaking off buildings. There was intense heavy rain and the winds were up to 100 mph.

They said the eye of the storm was almost upon them.

It was then that I started to pray. There wasn’t much else I could do as a mother stuck on the other side of the world worried about my kid in the storm on the tiny island. There were a few YouTube videos where I could see comments where folks said that there was some inland flooding too and that some water had gotten into barracks and such and first floors of homes. I knew my kid was in a one story home.

From 3 am to about 7 am that morning, while I was busy busting open boxes and going from aisle to aisle putting items neatly on shelves, in my head I was saying prayers and asking God to put a hedge of protection around the island like he did Job. I prayed and prayed and prayed a lot. There was nothing else I could do. Their power was out now and the storm was upon them in those hours and all I could do was pray.

All I kept saying in my head was protect Guam, God. Please protect Guam. Put a hedge of protection around the island.

By 7 am, I had done my best at work as a new hire. I still had 1/2 pallet that was undone. I tried hard but couldn’t get it all done. We cleaned up our boxes and mess and pallets and made everything look presentable for the customers and clocked out that morning.

By 7:05 am I was crossing the parking lot at daybreak with my cell phone in hand looking up Guam. When I got in the truck, pretty exhausted, I looked up more news about Guam and what I saw was pretty amazing. I started driving home in the pickup truck and started crying on my way home, worried about my kid overseas and the storm and feeling like there was nothing I could do to help her. And I kept praying to God and asking for his help over and over again with tears streaming down my face and ruining all my makeup.

My husband was up when I got home and he too was watching The Weather Channel for news of Guam. Despite being tired, we stayed in the living room for hours watching anything we could on the news about the tiny island and Super Typhoon Mawar.

Turns out, sometime in the night while I was stocking shelves, sometime after 2 am my time, the storm had started to turn. It turned just north of the island and the eye of the storm passed just north of the island by 15 miles. It missed the island barely and went between Guam and the Marianas.

On top of that, just before it hit the island, the storm miraculously downgraded from a category 5 to a category 4 and no one knew why. The storm was still intense though and videos were coming in here and there of the whipping winds breaking the trees, the lightning in the dark in the storm, of the massive rain pelting the island and more. The power and water were out in Guam and the last text I had gotten from my ex-husband was at 3 am to say that the power was intermittent and that they were alright. After that, there was nothing more from them.

Around 9 am or maybe 10 am, I had screen shot this photo of the path of the storm, Super Typhoon Mawar. I don’t know what website I had found it on. I must have searched at least 200 or more during the night. But here it is.

As you can see from the picture, the path of the storm Mawar had veered hours before just to the right of the island rather than going directly over it. It had also downgraded in intensity before going past the island. No one could explain why.

I looked at the numbers in this screen shot. I looked specifically at the numbers that were associated with the exact position of the storm. Position 13.8 N and 144.7 E. And that’s when my jaw fell open a bit.

The number 13 is usually associated with a bad omen or death or the devil according to the Bible or to Tarot. In Book of Revelations, 13 corresponds to the “beast of the sea.” But the number often associated with Jesus Christ in the Bible is 8. In Matthew 8 specifically Jesus calms the storm. In Book of Revelations, 144 is a special number corresponding to the number of the saved or chosen ones. Meanwhile the number often associated with the Holy Spirit in the Bible is 7. Furthermore, I typed in 144 and 7 in my Google search and put Bible with it.

For the past month or two, I had been doing a Billy Graham Words of Wisdom Psalm and Proverbs reading plan and writing about it online daily. Each day I would read 5 Psalms and 1 Proverb and write thoughts on it and I would ask the Holy Spirit to guide me on what to say.

When I typed in 144 and 7 and Bible in Google, this is the verse that popped up immediately, I screen shot it at that moment.

Tears started to well up in my eyes and I began to cry. Just hours before, a flash flood warning had been issued specifically for Dededo and there was concern about storm surge. My daughter was with her baby brother, father, and mother in a one story home in Dededo.

I honestly don’t think this was just coincidence. I think it was the Holy Spirit’s way of letting me know my daughter was going to be okay…..that she would have nothing to fear from the winds and rains and the potential flash flooding and storm surge that had been expected for the island.

I finally got exhausted and went to sleep and slept for a good 6 hours. We couldn’t get any communication from Guam. The power was down. Later on, I finally heard from my daughter one small text:

They are ok. The whole family is ok.

There is a lot of damage to trees on Guam and some buildings that need repair but the island is ok and I am grateful for that. My ex-husband took his family to his office where they have a generator for power and electricity. In a while, utilities and water will be back up and running for the island.

It was a close call. I don’t know what caused the storm to turn or the intensity to downgrade but I thank God for it.

https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/typhoon-mawar-eyewall-replacement-cycle-guam

God is good, all the time.

Prayers vs. Pandemic

Here are some great and easy YouTube videos to follow to assist you in praying for loved ones during the pandemic. DailyEffectivePrayer has many short and easy-to-follow prayers that you can use. They are usually about 4 minutes long each. These are just a few of the collection. Consider your own loved ones. Does one of these categories fit that loved one? Then click on the link below and just listen and follow along with the words.

At this time, I also like these 3 prayers. The first is Psalm 91, a protection prayer against pestilence that is the exact opposite number of COVID-19. According to some videos regarding Psalm 91, the words in Hebrew have many symbols over the tops of the letters. This is supposed to mean this is a very strong spiritual warfare prayer for your family. The second video is a short hedge of protection prayer. In the biblical story of Job, a special hedge of protection surrounded Job and kept him from harm. The third video is a longer prayer but talks about pleading the blood of the lamb over your family during the pandemic. It draws from the Passover story of the Israelites.

Choose Faith or Choose Fear

It’s a cold, cold night. The winter storm is coming. Tomorrow is supposed to be -35 degrees. I am warm inside the house. I let my dogs out for 5 minutes and then bring them back inside. They whimper because the ice is frigid. It hurts their paws.

The storm is coming.

I could worry about everything. Will my car start? Will I make it through the snow and ice? What about the storms at work? What if someone else gets Covid? What will we do? What about this? What about that?

What if…What if…What if…

2022 is not starting out well. We are stuck in a bad, bad approaching storm. Think about the economy, think about Covid, think about the supply chain shortages, think about this, think about that…..think about all the bad stuff on the news…….get all filled up with anxiety and fear. Get all angry and frustrated and all worked up.

Or…..

choose to stay calm. Choose faith. Not the crazy blinding stupid faith that totally ignores the potential dangers. No the kind of faith that informs the serenity prayer.

Lord, help us to accept the things we cannot change and give us the courage to know the difference between what we can and what we cannot do.

I went to Galilee when I was 21. It was a study abroad for a summer. We took a rickety old metal bus up to the Golan Heights for the day and then on the way back, we stopped at an outside cafe. We got the wild notion to swim in the Sea with our clothes on. I still remember the joy of that moment swimming in the Sea with friends.

It really wasn’t that big, the Sea of Galilee. You could see the other side….much like a big Missouri lake. I wondered then what the disciples were so afraid of when the storms tossed their boat around and the waves threatened to come over the sides. Why did they panic? Jesus was asleep in the boat and they came to him and asked him to save them. Now, I realize that they probably didn’t know how to swim. That would be scary for sure.

Anyway, he got up and told them to have faith and then he calmed the waters to ease their minds.

We’re all kinda stuck in a Galilee boat and we don’t know what to do and we’re worried that this dang disease is gonna drown us. But remember what JFK said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Fear causes anxiety and procrastination and arguing and in-fighting and endless stupid drama which only serves to compound our problems. It causes the blame game and finger pointing. People stop fixing things and looking for solutions. Instead, they just throw shade and throw each other under the bus in an attempt to save their own hide. Every man for himself like we’re on the Titanic and there’s only one lifeboat left.

Admit it. You’ve done this. I’ve done it too. But this time…

Relax. Stay calm. Stay the course.

We’ll get out of this.

The man who wrote the song Amazing Grace was once in a storm too off the coast of England. He tied himself to the boat and he asked for mercy. He came through the storm and gave up his profession of slave trading. He went on to become a prolific preacher and hymn writer and we still sing his songs to this day.

It’s getting colder and colder outside. I could sit here and worry myself to death about the endless possibilities of what could go wrong. Or I could sit here and write something encouraging.

I choose to write.

An Unexpectedly Good Read

I’m not good at going to church. I’m pretty lazy. Once a week though, I go to the little chapel near the church. The chapel is open 24-7 and the members of the chapel each devote one hour to prayer. They are each assigned a one-hour time slot equivalent to time spent in the Garden of Gethsemane to spend with God.

My time slot is 3 am to 4 am. It’s supposed to be the devil’s hour, or the exact opposite of the 3 pm time of death of Jesus. So I figure that is as good a time as any to try praying, although my prayers are admittedly probably not that great. I spend about 10 minutes in actual prayer before I run out of things to say, I do general petitions for folks (the homeless, the sick, the elderly, immigrants, etc.) 15 minutes doing a rosary, and then I get off my knees, sit in the chair and look around the little chapel. Generally, I got nothing to do for the rest of the hour so I wander to the back of the chapel to the little religious books library.

The library is full of all sorts of religious books. Many of them are kinda dry or boring. Some are convoluted and some are definitely too flowery for my tastes. But occasionally, I find a real diamond in the rough, a high quality read. I always close my eyes and let my fingers wander over the book tops in a sort of eenie-meanie-minie-mo fashion until they stop on one particular book. I figure maybe if I do it this way, God will lead me to something I need to read.

I pick up the book, take it to my chair, and once again I just close my eyes and let it fall open in my lap. Again, I superstitiously think well maybe, God will let it fall to the exact words I gotta hear. I know. It’s kinda silly. But who knows, maybe it works…

Today I picked up a book by David Jeremiah in the Billy Graham Library Selection Series. It was called Slaying the Giants in Your Life. Apparently, in the book, the giants the author speaks of are not physical giants like Goliath but the giants of anger, loneliness, discouragement, etc.

The giant that my hands opened to was the giant of failure. It was Chapter 11 called Facing Your Failure. It’s kinda something I needed to hear since some of my projects and work and stuff aren’t doing as well as I had hoped.

This book was so easy to read and cited a lot of great and fascinating people in their experiences with failure from Abraham Lincoln to Saint Peter to Charlie Brown to Michael Jordan. I really recommend the book from the chapter I read. Here is a small excerpt:

“The lanky, quiet boy never had much of a chance. He had to work from the age of seven, when his family joined the homeless. His mother died two years after that. As he grew to adulthood, the young man held a series of small jobs until his twenties, when he was fired as a store clerk. But the idea of operating a store appealed to him. At age 23, he took out a loan that would enable him to buy a small business. But the run of bad luck continued; his partner died 3 years later. Now the young man’s debt was more than doubled and it looked like he would spend years just repaying it. He fared no better in relationships. Approaching his 30s, he was a bachelor. He proposed to one young lady after 4 years of dating, but she turned him down. It was just another failure; he was used to that. Twice he ran for Congress and twice, he unsurprisingly lost. To put it kindly, his credentials were unimpressive. But at the age of 37, with more than half his life over, he was finally elected to an office – only to be subsequently voted out! He failed in 2 separate runs for the Senate. He failed in a Vice Presidential try. No one was more conscious of his legacy of failures. “I am now the most miserable man living,” he said. “Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell.” Some would say he didn’t know when to quit – and most of us are glad he didn’t. For at the age of 51, Abraham Lincoln became probably the greatest of all American Presidents.”

Another passage in the chapter, cites Michael Jordan, the famous basketball player:

“I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I have been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over again in my life…………and that is how I succeed.”

In another paragraph, the author speaks of the best coaches in the history of sports:

“Anyone in the world of sports will tell you where the best coaches are found. They’re found on the benches. They are found among the players that were beaten out by the better athletes. A 3rd stringer can sit on the bench and dwell on his/her failure, or keep trying, keep hustling, and keep learning everything there is to know about the sport. That’s why the best coaches have often been the more obscure athletes in their youth. They fell down and they got back up.”

There’s a lot more material to that chapter and also to the entire book itself. It was a good read that I wanted to share with you. I really liked the chapter so much that I came home and took the time to write this brief review. Here is the book:

Amazing Grace

Do you know the story of the man behind the gospel song, Amazing Grace? He was a slave trader. His name was John Newton and he lived from 1725 to 1807. John Newton was a slaver, a captain of slave ships. But in 1748, he was on a ship off the coast of Donegal, Ireland. The ship was hit by a massive and terrifying storm. It was said that night, that John Newton experienced a Christian conversion when he prayed amidst the winds and rain and tossing of the ocean waves. He prayed for deliverance.

He later gave up the slave trade and became a vocal advocate for abolition in England. He became a very charismatic Anglican clergyman and produced many speeches and a book of hymns. Amazing Grace is one of his hymns.

Here is a really beautiful version of Amazing Grace by BYU Noteworthy:

At this time, when our world is facing the Coronavirus pandemic, I wanted to bring you some encouraging and hopeful songs as well as prayers you can use for your loved ones. Here are some great songs. I will include the prayers in my next post. Please enjoy these songs and I pray you and your loved ones are safe and well.

A Twist of Fate

I was having a really bad day.

I felt about as bad as Alexander….

It got pretty bad.

So I did something I don’t do enough. I talked to God and asked why he wasn’t helping me. I said, “This is too much, God. I just can’t carry this burden by myself. Could you please help me?”

It wasn’t much of a prayer but it was heartfelt, exhausted, and true. I’ll admit, I’m not much for religion anymore. I’ve seen my fair share of judgement from others and unkindness. It has left me quite bitter at times. But still, when push comes to shove and when my chips are down, I ask God for help.

I went back to work and it continued to be a terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad day. Plus it was raining.

But then something happened. I got to clock out and go home to my family. My husband informed me that some commissions from his sales would be coming in soon. Not much, but enough for us to cover Christmas presents for family in December. I also learned that my publishing company was almost done with my royalties report for the book Searching for Fire and they had direct deposited the amount owed from their website already. It made me feel better.

Next, I went to dinner with my husband and children and fortunately, through some good luck, we were put to the front of the line of folks waiting at the steakhouse. We had a nice meal and did a little Christmas shopping at Books A Million and Game Stop with the children and life seemed better.

Thank you, God for listening. Sorry I get frustrated and try to manage and control it all myself and then get overwhelmed and make a mess of things and end up begging for help again. Like a loyal friend, you come through time and time again. I so easily forget that I need to trust in you, God.

Anyways, I suppose I won’t move to Australia after all.