Update on prayer request 24. And prayer request #25.
**LONG & IMpORTANT post** please read thoroughly in your own time, whether in chunks or as a whole..
Friends,
Your prayers are powerful for the faith in Christ Jesus. God is at work.
Isaac and I had in mind to see each other for my 24th birthday. With the rise of uncertainty about marriage, we were not sure whether he should still come to Ohio. He prayed of it and felt led to come to Ohio. God is good: we feel there was a breakthrough on Friday night.
Kcc em has prayer meetings on Friday night after bible study. Isaac sat in like a guest teacher in josh and my class (high school girls). The topic was prayer. We all learned and were reminded of the six things that hinder prayers as well as the structure of prayer taught by Christ (ref: Matthew 6). For us, it prompted introspection that was helpful to the prayer meeting we joined afterwards.
After the em prayer meeting, we talked for about an hour and a half about matters with his mom. Then it didn’t feel finalized until we had prayer, especially with my mom. Conveniently, and fortunately. She was still awake; we knew because she called at 2am to check up on me. We went home and prayed with my mom after singing hymns and reading scripture (Ephesians and Philippians). We declared freedom, healing, and liberation for each individual, and inquired about marriage… Along with spiritual warfare with squatting negativity and evil presences. After, we shared a sense of relief amongst each other.
My dad is on call this weekend at the Lima memorial hospital, so he was not home to join us in prayer. He will come home this coming weekend(in 7days) so my parents and I can discuss and pray together as a family/household, as well.
Before Isaac came to Ohio, he spoke with his grandparents. Together, they confronted his moms refusal to attend church and demanded she go: no excuses. He also spoke with his grandparents privately to thank them for their advising and also seek additional advising.
He went back to Maryland today, and is speaking with his mom. He gave her our apology for miscommunications and misunderstandings and repeatedly emphasized our loving care for her. Her mind was elsewhere: on how she strongly felt my dad would reject them for marriage, and the surprise that he did not jump to that conclusion. Isaac left her to perhaps absorb his message; he will speak with her tonight about further matters.
His mom has a number of issues… Some of which I will list below for your understanding as you pray, and lift up matters to God almighty…
+ anorexia in college (brain shrinks in those who do not eat and ability to reason logically becomes compromised)
+ abusive ex husband
+ ancestral worship in ex in laws family
+ harsh and controlling parents in her upbringing
+ her parents demonstrate blatant favoritism on her younger brother for his gender against her and her older sister
+ introduced to and involved in spiritual warfare without any training or preparation: scarred by encounters with demon possession of those she knows relatively intimately
+ ex husband and ex mother in law constantly comparing her to another woman
+ social alienation and rejection that fed into her own choices to isolate herself
+ gift? Or curse? Of prophecy
PRAYER REQUEST 25»»»»»
I am somewhat protected because of my parents and their God given authority. I feel at the moment Isaac is the most vulnerable. Please pray for his divine protection.
His entire relationship with his mom is getting put to question on the grind. He shocked me when he said he frankly doesn’t care at this point whether his mom opposes his decision to marry me. I asked why. He said because her ability to reason is compromised right now, and he felt she lied to him about so many important parts of his life, as well as her own. The things she revealed in the blow up two weeks ago changed the story she raised him with, about the divorce and abandonment. Turns out, she chose the divorce and pursued it. He now questions the validity of any of her stories and is having major trust heartbreaks.
I brainstormed aloud with him why and how she became a compulsive liar. I was at one time a compulsive liar to select people. And those I didn’t lie to verbally, I lied with behavior. I perform quite well. So knowing that I am a very slick liar, to the point that I trick myself, I thought about where she is coming from. If any of what I think, and analyze, combined with how I am led in prayer— if any of it is right, she is a very pitiful person and stuck in the worst kind of mire. Only God can save her. And he is mighty to save: he will receive all the glory for her salvation and sanctification and edification. If He chooses to use any of us, thats up to him. But it’s going to be a God thing. That is certain.
