In the first week of this year a stomach bug has gone through our home, my daughter has come down with the cold/respiratory thing going around which seems to be starting to affect the children, and this morning I woke up with vertigo. My life is spinning out of control. I first want to thank all of you, my Beloved, for your thoughts, prayers, and regular encouragement. My family is not unfamiliar with life’s challenges. We have seven people in our home, my four grandchildren, my daughter, her husband, and myself and when two of the three adults are down it becomes very testing for the younger ones. Yesterday, we prayed that it would pass, but it didn’t, it got worse. Each of the children in our home has some form of special need, and that is one reason it takes extra hands and more importantly hearts and prayer to raise them. I have learned to pray as fervently in the good times as I do in the bad because of certain Bible verses like what is written in *1 John 5:14 This is the [remarkable degree of] confidence which we [as believers are entitled to] have before Him: that if we ask anything according to His will, [that is, consistent with His plan and purpose] He hears us.* I have experienced God in times of ease and that has been a great blessing, but there has never been a time when I have not seen God work when I have prayed in my times of adversity, and to me that has always been a greater blessing. Charles Spurgeon wrote in “The Happy Christian”, “The worldling blesses God while he gives him plenty, but the Christian blesses him when he smites him: he believes him to be too wise to err and too good to be unkind; he trusts him where he cannot trace him, looks up to him in the darkest hour, and believes that all is well.” So for my family, no matter how our day, week, month, or even year goes, for better or for worse, God is good and we will continue to trust in Him, Amen.