Election Day and Balaam

 

Today is election day - it's been a long time coming.  I have prayed for four years that Donald J, Trump will win.  I also pray that there will not be chaos when he does win. No violence, Lord, please.  Let the numbers be a landslide "too big to rig"!!

Today, I'm reading Numbers 22 - 24.  Please silence and control the left to the point it's like Balaam and his assignment to curse the Jews.  He was on his way when his donkey saw the angel in the road and turned aside.  Please place angels in the pathway of every evil person who is plotting to kill, steal and destroy.

Please turn the hearts of those voting for Kamala Harris - open their eyes to the evil they are doing.  Do it just like you did with Balaam.  Three times, he opened his mouth to curse Israel, but the words came out as blessings, giving glory to YOU! 

May it be so on this day is my prayer.

PRAY FOR AMERICA

 

• Ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to deception and give you discernment as you determine how to vote. 
• Pray Proverbs 2:10 – that wisdom will come into your heart and that knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. 
• Pray James 1:5 – ask God for the wisdom you lack. He promises to give it to you freely. 
• Pray Colossians 1:9 – that you and all who are voting will be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 
• Ask for the wisdom from above that is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere (James 3:17). 
• 

Sukkot, Simchat Torah, and Hurricanes

 This is my favorite time of the year, Gail-Friends.  I love Sukkot and I love preparing and decorating our sukkah.  We are doing it on our backyard patio again this year.  It's a lot easier on us this way.  

I love having our meals and quiet times there in the mornings and the evenings.  We've been having cooler days this week. Morning lows in the seventies and days in the mid-eighties are a welcome respite from the scorching nineties.  We hope it continues in the week ahead.  

Since closing the synagogue, we've been attending a synagogue online.  We went there in person during Sukkot and had a wonderful celebration with our mishpocha.  Here's a photo of us in their sukkah:

Something happened during Sukkot that made me so sad.  In the past years, our golden rain trees have thousands of tiny blossoms on them and the flowers always fall during Sukkot.  I've always loved having the golden rain falling on me in the sukkah.  But, due to the rain and wind of the hurricanes, we didn't have the golden rain.  Oh, how I missed it.  You can see it in this post:  Reflections on Sukkot 

After Sukkot, we celebrated Simchat Torah. We joined the synagogue's online observance and really enjoyed it.  We even paraded the Torah in our living room. We danced, sang, waved flags, and rejoiced in the amazing gift of Adonai's Word.  

So, our High Holy Days were filled with JOY!  That word is all over our house because it's what I feel when I reflect on the blessings He has poured out on us.  I can't thank Him enough for preserving the Scriptures for thousands of years.  I can't imagine what my life would be like without His Word.  

I haven't posted much lately due to the hurricanes Helene and Milton.  We didn't have any flooding for bad damage, but we did have tree limbs and debris to deal with.  We lost power in both storms, but only for short periods. (Only fourteen hours with Milton.)  Our daughter who lives nearby lost power and internet for four days. 

We feel blessed, especially as we see the devastation on the west coast of Florida and the horrible damage and deaths in Florida, North Carolina, and other states.  Unlike us, the Appalachians were not prepared for a hurricane.  We are always prepared, having been through at least a dozen hurricanes here in my home state. (Four of them were back to back in 2004, and I've done blog posts on five of them since 2009.)  Please pray for all who are going through such horrible devastation.  

What's amazing is that these good people are helping each other through the pain and distress.  They're not waiting on the government to come and help.  They're clearing roads and bridges and beginning to rebuild.  That's the American way.    

The mainstream media has already moved on, but just go on YouTube and you'll see many videos of people and communities that have lost everything.  It's heart breaking.  We hope you will join us in supporting these groups that are providing help to the victims:

https://reverencefarms.com/

https://cajunnavyrelief.com/

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/disaster/hurricane-helene/

For a long time, we've been following a vlog on YouTube by Justin Rhodes who lives near Ashville, North Carolina.  The videos he posted will give you an eye-opening view of what people are going through. Many people and businesses have been without power and/or internet for weeks.  Hats off to Elon Musk who is giving people free Starlink service in those affected areas.  Here's another vlog we follow that is documenting what's going on there:  The Appalachian Channel

I've been busy working on Jem's next book.  It's called Shenanigans and is a hilarious memoir of his Navy days.  we hope to have it published very soon. Pray that we don't have any more hurricanes to set us back.

We've been doing volunteer work related to the election, and I will be posting some things about praying for America in my next post.  Please stop back by and join in the prayers.

I'm thankful to be back online.  I was unable to get into my blog for weeks due to some kind of browser glitch with Google.  Hopefully, I'll be posting regularly again now that the wrinkle is ironed out.

Blessings to you all, dear Gail-Friends.