Oh God, You alone are God and worthy and greatly to be praised!
Thank You for designing us able to speak to You directly, spirit to Spirit. Thank you for the freedom I have… to walk outside, by myself, even in the early morning dark; for access to You and Your word and gathering together publicly in Your name with others. There are many places on this earth where ladies don’t have these treasures so I am thankful, God.
You are intimately aware of all your precious girls, wherever they are, whatever circumstances they are in, Jehovah Shammah, the Lord who is there. You made us soft and tough and able altogether, to stand and love and fight and cry out.
I thank You for how Your Spirit is moving and working in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the north-south-east-west Americas.
For Your ministry to a mama’s grief as her only son goes off to war.
For the aunt adopting a niece born in quake-rubble to a sister she’ll never get to hug.
I thank You for Your supernatural rescue, comfort, and healing to girls poisoned for simply attending school.
For Your tender presence with the wife making a makeshift way of washing dishes on the sidewalk in front of where her home once stood, before shaking earth smashed every wall and memory.
Thank you, El Roi, the God Who Sees, for seeing past layers of head-to-toe fabric where culture says a woman should be covered and never seen; You’ve got her covered and You see her heart; all her desire is before You and her sighing is not hidden from You.
God, you know about all the ladies abused and stolen and trafficked…
And about the dreams that feel shattered in hearts and homes and homeless and hopeless in every corner, every country.
But You sent Your Word to heal and deliver from destruction.
We know Your esteem for woman; after all, she made up half your image-bearing creation on Day 6. And it was through a highly-favored woman that Christ—Salvation—divinely came to all mankind.
You are God who makes a way where there doesn’t seem to be a way.
Part of Psalm 107 says:
When they are diminished and brought low
through oppression, affliction, and sorrow,
He pours contempt on princes,
and causes them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way;
yet He sets the poor on high, far from affliction,
and makes their families like a flock.
God, You are Justice over oppressive authority, rendering their efforts empty of substance and power, and set to wander aimless with no purpose, no direction. Jesus is victorious over all the works of the enemy; on His shoulders rests the ultimate authority. There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against You; we know that You can do all things and no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted. You pour contempt (Justice) on princes (oppressive authority of any kind) and cause them to wander in the wilderness where there is no way. You alone, God.
Yet You set the poor on high—poor in circumstances, poor in spirit, poor in subjection to whatever, poor in strength, poor in hope—far from affliction, far from affliction, and make their families like a flock. Herd-size hope. Generational promise. Personal connections. Legacy. Your plans for good, to prosper, not to harm, for future and a hope. Oppression, affliction, and sorrow are not our destiny.
Thank You, God, for the multitude of Your tender mercies, Your abundant grace, and Your so great love for babies and girls and teens and young ladies and middles and matures all over this world!
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image by jackson david on pixabay