Prayers and Graces Day Four

Aha! Now comes the fun part of praying for this tour! Providing cover fire for my fellow trench workers (a.k.a. clerks and event staff at bookstores and abroad) Don't get me wrong, I love praying for the authors on this tour but I'm not one of their number. . .yet. Praying for them is kinda like praying for Christians in another country, I can't quite get inside their skin or speak their language and I only have an inkling of what they are going through. But the clerks! The people sweating blood and tears over setting up the signings, now I know exactly how they feel, because they are my own kindred, they are of my clan, and my people. Okay, I'll stop before someone throws up. Heart cry number four;

Heavenly Father I lift up before You today Linda Reed and everyone who is working to make the Heart & Hearth Home School Support Group event a success. I pray for rest for the organizers, and for smoothness of transition from the time the authors arrive to the time that they leave. I ask them to have many hands to make the work light in the set up and clean up at First United Methodist Church in Manchester, TN. I ask for joy to be pinging from heart to heart and family to family, that Linda would see the work of her hands made bold and more beautiful than she could have imagined. I also ask that You would do abundantly more than any there had dreamed with this opportunity for young readers and writers to meet and talk with Bryan, Wayne, Christopher, and Sharon.

Awaken the hunger and fire in the next generation of authors Christ, let the words today spoken be like coals banked down in the hearts of those You have called to take up pen and paper in Your name, stir up the next generation of storytellers for Your glory and encourage those all ready laboring to not give up, but to press on and finish the race You are calling them to run and equipping them to win.

And Lord, let there be no item lost, no author miss placed, all things together and gathered under Your wings as they move from the Heart & Hearth Homeschooling Support group in Manchester TN to the Borders store in Nashville TN. Open up the gates there Christ, open wide the gates of salvation at that store, I ask that You bless and keep the staff there for having these authors in and for any of our family You have placed there on staff as watchmen I ask that their hearts be lifted and encouraged as they see that You are on the move in the genre of fantasy and You are inviting any and all who wish to join You to fall into step and see what great adventures are possible.

You know that I don't ask for numbers usually Lord. I tell You that if it is five or fifty it doesn't matter as long as they are the right ones. But this time I am asking for numbers, I am asking for Your grace to draw people to these storytellers who have tucked the Gospel in their work. I am asking that You go out into the highways and hedges and call them in, I am asking to see the nets so heavy with the catch that we can not lift them into the boat. I want to see the harvest. Show me, and show my brothers and sisters how white are the fields to harvest.

In the name of my Savior Jesus Christ,

Amen

Amen.