I Know The Plans That I Have For You

Something amazing and wonderful happened yesterday in Blogworld that was just too exciting not to share. New friends were made through this incredible set of events and God was glorified through it all. It's long and detailed but worth the read if you like to hear of yet another of God's moment to moment miracles in people's lives. How thankful I was to be a small part of this one.

Years ago, I read in a magazine somewhere that Lisa Welchel, a kid actor on Facts of Life, had quit show business to become a wife and homeschooling mother of three. At the time, I was heavily exploring homeschooling and went to her website to find out more. She kept an online journal of her family's slice-of-life activities, similar to a blog, but without the ability to comment back. Her honest portrayals of daily life kept me coming back to read weekly for years.

Then last summer, Lisa's life got crazy. She was still homeschooling, but also had added book writing and inspirational speaking to her long list of things to do. On a particular week she was too busy to be able to write her journal, she directed her readers to a guest writer, Sarah, at In The Midst Of It. Sarah's site was funny and poignant and reminded me A LOT of my own life. And it introduced me to the world of blogging I had only vaguely heard about before. Through Sarah's blog, I found my way to several other blogs, including my sweet dear friend Calissa at Renovating This Heart. Calissa and I hit it off instantly through small discussions held in her "comments" section. I was enjoying our exchanges so much, I was inspired to start my own blog. About the same time, my brother started a blog to keep family informed of the progress of my sweet little niece, Ashley, who was then waiting for a triple organ transplant in order to live.

Through Ashley's blog, I met Krista at New Beginnings. Krista was following Ashley's progress as a former patient of my chiropractor brother. She is a fairly new Christian and I just love being reminded of the excitement I should keep from those first years of knowing Him. I can't wait to meet her IRL when I visit my parents and brother and Ashley hopefully sometime pretty soon.

O.K. Now here's where it gets really cool. Through the past few months of blogging, I have "met" certain bloggers who "know" other certain bloggers that I "know", because we are, of course, visiting the same sites. So it was rather exciting a few weeks ago when Five Minutes For Mom hosted a "Blog Party" for bloggers to get to know new sites outside of the little circles they had already naturally formed. Anyone who wanted could sign up under a list on their site and likewise cruise the list for anyone whose blog name sounded particularly interesting to go pay them a visit. Some souls were even diligent enough to visit all nine hundred something sites and leave a short comment on each one. Me, not so much. I chose about 10 new ones to try and ended up keeping maybe two or three to visit regularly - namely Big Blueberry Eyes, An Ordinary Mom and Crazy Bloggin Canuck. You've got to visit these for tender observations, wisdom and laughter consecutively.

O.K. So, somewhere in all of this blog hopping around, I saw a comment under one of the blogs I decided I would NOT have time to visit again and again. The comment was astute in it's observation and the blog had a beautiful name, Blessed Assurances. And this is how her writing feels. Peaceful, inspiring and real. So we have been reading each other's little daily recountings from time to time and I don't even know her real name or age, but she's great.

Meanwhile, I went over to visit Krista's blog recently and she asked for prayer for a sweet little set of baby twins born extremely prematurely and fighting for life in the Pediatric ICU. This, of course, touched my heart with the knowledge of all my own sweet niece has been through. So I began to pray for these tiny fragile babies. Sadly, the little girl, Jayde, went to be with Jesus last week. Kanyon, her brother, is steadily improving but still much in need of continued prayer. And after not hearing an update for a while, I asked Krista about Kanyon in her comments section. She answered my question by leaving a comment back. Then I got the neatest comment of my own.

Blessed Assurances commented on my blog to ask, "Who is Krista? How do you know her?
The twins you are talking about are my cousin's children!" Wow!!! Krista, Blessed Assurances, and I - none of us knows each other except through blogging. But it turns out Krista's aunt is a secretary at the school where the twins' mother teaches. Blessed Assurances is the twins' mother's cousin and my brother was at one time Krista's chiropractor! I just LOVE how God revealed all this in His perfect time! Why is any of this a big deal you ask? For exactly the reason Blessed Assurances said.

"I can't believe how God is bringing all these people together to pray for my family."

(Go read how just TODAY, Mommy got to hold Kanyon for the first time!!!)

My family has said the same thing about all the people who have had their (extremely important) part in praying for my brother's baby Ashley! And if you have come by here today and you love to pray for the "little children" Jesus commanded to let come unto Him, please take time to join the prayer chain for all of these amazing children, plus the nephew of one of my most encouraging commenters Toni (whose blog is sweet and insightful and wise and sunny, by the way.) Connor is three and bravely battling Leukemia. He doesn't have a public website, but he does have a hopeful family and a need of prayer.

God is SO WONDERFULLY AMAZING!!!

"And a little child shall lead them." Isaiah 11:6b

These are the babies God has provided a blog family to pray for:

Ashley

Kanyon

Addie (Sarah, the first blog I ever read)

Ivey (Sarah's long time IRL friend)

Connor

Ethan (introduced to me today through all this, but I'm praying for him now)

If you feel so led, please visit my sidebar for other sweet children also in need of prayer. I was just struck by how God has brought together these particular children through such an incredible set of "coincidences," or as I like to refer to them, His plans He is just now letting us know about!

And if you want to be reminded to be thankful for your awesome children today, watch this, about a marvelous little boy named Eliot who now resides in the bosom of Jesus, told by his dad whose love and wisdom absolutely astounds me.

P.S. Please forgive me for the links that do not work. Blogger seems to only be accepting links that are found on Blogspot. If a link you would like to visit does not work, you can find most of them in my sidebar. Sorry for the inconvenience.