Are you one of those people who prays only when there is a crisis in your life, and when it’s over you stop praying?

When you pray do you pray for an immediate answer and you want that answer to be yes? And if it isn’t yes do you just throw up your hands on God and get back to your old life?

When you ask for God’s Will to be done do you really mean it or do you mean you want YOUR will to be done? If you don’t get what you want do you walk away from Him again until you have another crisis?

I learned a lot about prayer and waiting upon the Lord, but it took years for me to see the fruits of that prayer.

My parents were not married when I was born. I barely knew my mother and didn’t even know what my father looked like. I was raised by my mother’s aunt and a boarder in the house who had lost his wife.

I had two step-fathers who beat me; one even went so far as to hit me in the face with his fist and throw me across a room.

If it hadn’t been for my aunt and uncle returning to our area on military assignment I honestly don’t know what kind of release I would have had or chosen. By then I was staying with my mother and I would be allowed to stay with my aunt and uncle as often as I could.

When I was 13 years old I got it into my head that if my father knew what was happening he would come to my rescue like a knight in shining armor.

That’s when I started to pray every day that I would meet my biological father on my fourteenth birthday. Birthdays fourteen through sixteen came and went and I quit praying to meet him.

I was saved and I believed I would meet him, but after two years I decided the Lord had other plans for me.

After I was married I found out where my father was and gave him a call. He gave me a calling down. I was 22 years old then.

My mother died suddenly in February 2000 and it became urgent for me to see if my biological father was alive or dead.

At the end of May 2003 I had mailed a check to someone back home in Maine to be used for charity. The check came back stating I had the wrong address.

I checked Yahoo to get the fellow’s telephone number, but I was informed I’d have to pay to get the information. I decided not to do that but then it struck me that I might be able to find my father because the note on the side said if you knew where anyone lived in the past ten years they could locate them for you.

You could pay $25 for an answer in 24 hours or $65 for an answer in an hour. I typed in my father’s name and my home town and struck out.

Then I remembered I had heard he lived in a different town so I put in that town. Voila! His name came up and I chose the one hour option.

When I got the information I called him, told him who I was and was met with the answer I had been waiting 40 years to hear: “I think it’s about time we met, dear.”

He was in the Panhandle of Florida and it just so happened I was on my way to Florida that very week-end. (This was on a Tuesday) All this time he had been three and a half hours from where my aunt and uncle lived and I had been going there every year.

We met at a Waffle House because his wife didn’t want me at her house. She was apparently afraid I wanted money. We hugged and kissed when we first met, and when we left we each studied the other’s face, cupping it in our hands a couple of times.

I thought I’d never see him again and I was satisfied with that, but a month later he needed serious surgery and wanted me to be there.

My Dad died 25 months after we met, but every minute we were together or on the phone during those 25 months it was a love-fest.

He had been a heavy drinker when I was growing up and said I wouldn’t have liked him back then.

I forgot about my prayer, thinking God had said no, when He actually said “Not yet.”

I held my father’s left hand as he drew his last breath. He, too, died suddenly, but our last exchange of words before he went to the rehab hospital on the Tuesday before he died Thursday night were, “I love you, Dad.” “I love you too, Dear.”

Don’t give up on your prayers or on God. He always does what’s best for you when it’s best for you. Just ask me. And my step-mother? She and I are best friends now.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

From Conservative Quarterly’s April 30 edition:

Sen. Tim Johnson, who suffered a debilitating brain hemorrhage in December, has left a rehabilitation center to continue his recovery at his home in northern Virginia.

The transition from a full-time rehabilitation facility to outpatient and home care puts Johnson, D-S.D., one step closer to returning to full-time Senate duties. While Johnson has started to handle paperwork, cosponsor legislation and receive briefings, his staff and his doctors have refused to speculate on when he might be able to return to the Capitol.

“He’s at a point where rehab is the focus . . . five days a week,” said Julianne Fisher, Johnson’s press secretary.

In a statement released today, Dr. Michael Yochelson of the National Rehabilitation Hospital said Johnson has shown “significant progress” and is working on walking.

This is remarkable and we are certainly grateful to God for bringing him through this harrowing experience. Now on to the therapy to get him back to as normal as possible.

From the official White House Web site is the transcript of the president’s veto message:

THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. Twelve weeks ago, I asked the Congress to pass an emergency war spending bill that would provide our brave men and women in uniform with the funds and flexibility they need.

Instead, members of the House and the Senate passed a bill that substitutes the opinions of politicians for the judgment of our military commanders. So a few minutes ago, I vetoed this bill.

Tonight I will explain the reasons for this veto — and my desire to work with Congress to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. We can begin tomorrow with a bipartisan meeting with the congressional leaders here at the White House.

Here is why the bill Congress passed is unacceptable. First, the bill would mandate a rigid and artificial deadline for American troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq. That withdrawal could start as early as July 1st. And it would have to start no later than October 1st, regardless of the situation on the ground. (more…)

California Conservative does a pretty good job of fisking the comments made by Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi after the president’s veto speech last night.

Here’s the transcript of their speech:

Statement by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on President Bush’s veto of the Iraq spending bill, as provided by CQ Transcriptions:

REID: The president may be content with keeping our troops mired in the middle of an open-ended civil war, but we’re not — and neither are most Americans.

A bipartisan majority of Congress sent the president a bill to fully fund our troops and change the mission in Iraq. The president refused to sign this bill. That’s his right, but now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war.

In the coming days, we’ll continue to reach out to the president, and we hope congressional Republicans who remained silent — congressional Republicans through this whole debate — will work with us as well.

But if the president thinks that by vetoing this bill he’ll stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken. (more…)

Remember the flying imams who prayed loudly in the airport public area, asked for seat belt extenders even though they were slim, bashed Bush and sat in seats that looked eerily similar to where the 9/11 hijackers sat?

They were reported by some frightened passengers and removed from that flight. It turned out they decided to sue the airline and all the John Does on the plane.

Now comes this.

Key Republicans are lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to protect legislation that prohibits airline passengers from being sued if they report suspicious behavior that foreshadows a terrorist attack.

Republican leaders used a procedural motion to insert that provision into a transportation-safety bill last month, but House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, has threatened to bar from becoming law all language entered into bills under such “motions to recommit.”

“We cannot afford to wait any longer to protect individuals who seek to do the right thing by speaking up to prevent a terrorist attack,” more than a dozen Republicans wrote to Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, today in a letter obtained in advance by The Washington Times.

The legislation responds to a lawsuit filed by six Muslim imams after they were removed from a Nov. 20 U.S. Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix for suspicious behavior. The lawsuit was filed on March 12 and also named as defendants any yet-unknown “John Doe” passengers who reported the imams’ behavior.

“This represents a startling precedent, one that could freeze the very behavior law enforcement has encouraged,” the letter said. (more…)