+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Opening sentence
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
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Morning Reading: Psalm 144:1-2a, 15b NLT
Praise the Lord, who is my rock. He trains my hands for war and gives my fingers skill for battle. He is my loving ally and my fortress, my tower of safety, my rescuer. He is my shield, and I take refuge in him.
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Joyful indeed are those whose God is the Lord.
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Morning Reading: Isaiah 55:1,3 NLT
“Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink — even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk — it’s all free!
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“Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life.
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Prayer:
Stay with us, Lord, on our journey.
Help us to realize that our troubles are slight and short-lived; they are as nothing compared with the joy we shall have when we reach our home with You. Come to the lonely, the unloved, those without friends; show them Your love, and help them to care for their brothers and sisters. Take away our pride, temper our anger: may we follow You in Your gentleness: may You make us humble of heart. Give us the fullness of Your Spirit, the Spirit of sonship: make our love for each other generous and sincere.
Stay with us, Lord, on our journey.
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“Walk With Me” – Kim Walker Smith/Jesus Culture
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Canticle
Christ, as a light illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Opening sentence
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
__________
Morning Reading: Psalm 66:16-20 NLT
Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me. For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer.
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me.
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Morning Reading: Isaiah 56:6-8 NLT
Church of all Nations Mount of Olives, Jerusalem
“I will also bless the foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord, who serve him and love his name, who worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest, and who hold fast to my covenant.
I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
For the Sovereign Lord, who brings back the outcasts of Israel, says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel.”
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Prayer:
My house will be called a house of prayer.
Lord God, You have called Your people to become Your Church. Grant that all who gather in Your name may fear You, love You, and follow You in the way leading to life abundant and eternal – through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
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“House of Prayer” – Eddie James
May the fire on my altar never burn out.
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Canticle
Christ, as a light illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Peanut Gallery – 74 years ago my two moms (birth and adoptive) chose adoption and here I sit married for 48 years with two children and eight grandchildren and we are all most grateful for the choices these women made. Life itself is the greatest gift of all – sine qua non. The following article summarizes the current state of adoption in our country. I was one of the fortunate ones. Thank you moms.
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Each year in November, the President of the United States issues a proclamation to announce National Adoption Month, a time dedicated to raising awareness of the need for adoptive families and to encourage citizens to become involved in the lives of children and youth in foster care. Here are nine things you should know about adoption in America:
1. Adoption has been and remains rare. Between 1973 and 2002, the percentage of ever-married women 18–44 years of age who had adopted a child fluctuated between 1.3 and 2.2 percent. Men were twice as likely as women 18–44 years of age to have adopted a child. Among ever-married persons, men (3.8 percent) were more than 2.5 times as likely as women (1.4%) to have adopted.
2. Relinquishment of infants at birth is extremely rare. Only 1 percent of children born in the United States in 1996–2002 to women 18–44 years of age as of 2002 were relinquished for adoption within their first month of life.
3. Surveys reveal that women currently seeking to adopt would prefer to adopt a child younger than two years old, without a disability, and a single child rather than two or more siblings. (Two-thirds of women would not accept a child 13 years of age or older or a child with a severe disability.) The data also suggest that women would prefer to adopt a girl rather than a boy.
4. In 2012 there were 397,122 children in foster care and 101,666 waiting to be adopted. The average age of a child in foster care waiting to be adopted was 7.8 years old. The average age of children in foster care being adopted was 6.3 years old.
5. On average, a child will wait three years in foster care awaiting adoption. About 55 percent of these children have had three or more placements with foster care families, and 33 percent had changed elementary schools five or more times, losing relationships and falling behind educationally.
6. In 1851 Massachusetts passed the Adoption of Children Act, the first modern adoption law in America. The law is considered an important turning point because t required judges to determine that adoptive parents had “sufficient ability to bring up the child” and that “it is fit and proper that such adoption should take effect.”
7. The beginning of the foster care concept in America was the Orphan Train Movement. Between 1854 and 1929, as many as 250,000 children from New York and other Eastern cities were sent by train to towns in midwestern and western states, as well as Canada and Mexico. According to the Adoption history project, families interested in the orphans showed up to look them over when they were placed on display in local train stations, and placements were frequently made with little or no investigation or oversight.
8. Each year thousands of U.S. citizens adopt children from abroad. In 2013, Americans adopted 7,092 children from abroad. The total number of intercountry adoptions from 1999 to 2013 was 249,694. According to UNICEF, approximately 13 million have lost both parents.
We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
2 Corinthians 4:14-16 (NLT)
My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who bore my pain;
Who plumbed the depths of my disgrace
And gave me life again;
Who crushed my curse of sinfulness
And clothed me in His light
And wrote His law of righteousness
With pow’r upon my heart.
My heart is filled with thankfulness
To Him who walks beside;
Who floods my weaknesses with strength
And causes fears to fly;
Whose ev’ry promise is enough
For ev’ry step I take,
Sustaining me with arms of love
And crowning me with grace.
My heart is filled with thankfulness
To him who reigns above,
Whose wisdom is my perfect peace,
Whose ev’ry thought is love.
For ev’ry day I have on earth
Is given by the King;
So I will give my life, my all,
To love and follow him.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Opening sentence
One thing I have asked of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple.
You will find the Lord your God, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Morning readings
Psalm 65:9-13 NLT:
You take care of the earth and water it, making it rich and fertile. The river of God has plenty of water; it provides a bountiful harvest of grain, for you have ordered it so. You drench the plowed ground with rain, melting the clods and leveling the ridges. You soften the earth with showers and bless its abundant crops. You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness become a lush pasture, and the hillsides blossom with joy. The meadows are clothed with flocks of sheep, and the valleys are carpeted with grain. They all shout and sing for joy!
An Ultra-Orthodox Jew carries sacks full with wheat after harvesting it using hand sickles in a field some three kilometers from the Mevo Horon settlement in the Israeli occupied West Bank, on May 22, 2012. (Photo credit: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/GettyImages)
Leviticus 23:15-22 NLT:
“From the day after the Sabbath—the day you bring the bundle of grain to be lifted up as a special offering — count off seven full weeks. Keep counting until the day after the seventh Sabbath, fifty days later. Then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. From wherever you live, bring two loaves of bread to be lifted up before the Lord as a special offering. Make these loaves from four quarts of choice flour, and bake them with yeast. They will be an offering to the Lord from the first of your crops. Along with the bread, present seven one-year-old male lambs with no defects, one young bull, and two rams as burnt offerings to the Lord. These burnt offerings, together with the grain offerings and liquid offerings, will be a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Then you must offer one male goat as a sin offering and two one-year-old male lambs as a peace offering.
“The priest will lift up the two lambs as a special offering to the Lord, together with the loaves representing the first of your crops. These offerings, which are holy to the Lord, belong to the priests. That same day will be proclaimed an official day for holy assembly, a day on which you do no ordinary work. This is a permanent law for you, and it must be observed from generation to generation wherever you live.
“When you harvest the crops of your land, do not harvest the grain along the edges of your fields, and do not pick up what the harvesters drop. Leave it for the poor and the foreigners living among you. I am the Lord your God.”
Acts 2:1-2 NLT:
On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.
Reflection/Prayer:
The temple priest now returns to the grain field, now full and rich with a very ripe crop of grain, ready for harvest. He cuts and gathers enough to make two loaves. Back in the temple, he beats and presses the seed, grinding it to flour, adding water to fashion loaves from the dough and slips them into the depths of a fired oven. He waits. It is now about eight in the morning. Soon the loaf will be ready to lift out from the oven, take to the altar and lift up to God. Then the day of Pentecost will have fully come.
Meanwhile at a house somewhere in the city people are praying, and the presence of God bursts upon them. The Day of Pentecost is fulfilled. Harvest is here. The church is born.
(Gene Edwards)
Canticle
Christ, as a light… illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield… overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful.
Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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The website and prayer book are rich in prayer resources and I commend them to you. For our purpose here, I will limit my selections to the Morning Prayer resources.
The Peanut Gallery 