Cathy's Heart

Asking God to Bring Out the Big Guns. "We have major spiritual warfare here. Can't share details. Everyone is safe, but there's a soul battle going on. Please pray..."    This prayer request was a text I recently received from a desperate mom of teenagers.    I didn't know the specifics, but I knew how to pray and how to encourage my distraught friend.   (And, dear ones, lest you think this post is just for parents, it's not! This prayer has become my "big guns" petition, when necessary, for each of my kids, my husband, friends, family, others, even, and especially, for myself! So, please, keep reading)!   It was more than a decade ago, when my own teenager brought me to my knees, crying out the hardest prayer I had ever prayed!    He was 16! Our first born. Intelligent. Contentious. Tester-of-boundaries. Lover-of-fun! Of course, each year, as good parents do, we increased his freedoms and responsibilities. And, true to his nature, our son pushed ...

` A Struggle Shared Can Set You Free It began as a dream, which stirred within me a word for one, then evolved into a message for many.     In the dream, I sat next to a young woman. "Tell me about yourself," I asked.    "I don't share," she said blankly.    I knew, immediately, it wasn't because she was shy or reserved or selective in who she spoke to. No, her answer was from a place of pain. A secret. A wound. Or perhaps, a problem too deeply buried to reveal to anyone, let alone a stranger.   As I began to wake up, there was a message in my heart for the young woman. I knew, without a doubt, God wanted me to tell her that His desire and His plan was for her to be free!   Then by the time I rolled out of bed, the message had grown to one about how much God longed for each of His children to be freed from painful problems or a hurtful past or hidden secrets that held them back from all He intended and created them to be!    For weeks, I...