Dear friends, this last month has been hard.

No.

Not hard.

It has been rough around the edges, painful and messy.

And it has been redeeming, and filled with God’s presence and grace.

For the past six months our children have skated around the edges of their life story. They have talked about only the good and steadfastly ignored the bad. They have masked the pain in their little hearts the best ways they know how.

And then something shifted.

I choose to believe that they finally feel safe enough to be real. They feel secure enough to share their anger.

And, once again, it is our little spitfire of an oldest daughter who is leading the way. She has the most history to deal with. She has the most years to redeem.

Oh, the stories that have come pouring out. It really is as though a dam has burst and nothing can hold back the tears and the truth.

I want to kick Satan in the shins.

The phrase that keeps running through my mind is this….

We are in a battle!

Hear that again, my friends. We are in a battle! And we need your prayer support. Satan would love nothing more than to sell his pack of lies to my daughter. It would make him so happy to see her heart remain angry and bitter and unable to accept the redeeming love of Jesus. He does not want to let her go!

But we are going to battle for her. And we have Jesus on our side!

A song keeps running through my head, over and over again. It has become the anthem of my days.

My strength is in Your name, For You alone can save

You will deliver me, Yours is the victory

I know Who goes before me, I know Who stands behind

The God of angel armies is always on my side

The One who reigns forever, He is a friend of mine

The God of angel armies is always on my side

Do you hear that, Satan? You have no way of holding on to my daughter. The pain and the hurt in her past are just that…in her past! And I have the God of angel armies on my side.

He is on our side. And in our home. And in our hearts. We hold His hand daily. He is our support and our comfort and our strength.

This past Sunday during worship, our pastor asked us to pray. First, we were to pray for a specific need in our lives. Something that we were going through that we needed God’s help with. Of course, my heart cried out for Leah. I prayed over her and over our family. I asked God to do His redeeming work and to give us the strength to see it through.

And then, our pastor asked us to pray for those around us. He asked us to pray blessings into their lives. And this is what I prayed….

“Oh, Lord, if they could feel you. If they could walk daily in your presence. If they could know your love in a very real way in their lives. I would choose the pain and the struggle and the weary days spent walking with you, rather than a life of ease and comfort and never knowing you.”

Friends, we were never called to easy. We were never asked to find the smoothest path and walk it. God doesn’t want our comfort. He wants us to live daily in His presence. And if the way to do that is to walk through something so hard that it demands His support, then I am thankful for the hard.

But I still want to kick Satan in the shins.

And I still want to see my daughter filled with a joy that can come only from her heavenly father.

Listen! The Lord’s arm is not too weak to save you, nor is his ear too deaf to hear your call. Isaiah 59:1

Will you join us in praying over our family? And, specifically, for Leah’s heart to feel the joy of Jesus.

Blessings!

Natalie