A warm summer greeting! The days of extra sunshine and lightning bugs are upon us at last! It is just starting to get warm here as I take in the first few weeks of my first summer in Maine. I’m liking it so far, but I do wish that it would be less rainy. It’s no fun working on an island in the rain.

Speaking of Eagle Island, the job is going well! So far, it’s been a lot of manual labor-moving things to our dump pile, mowing the lawns, etc. just to get the island up and running. Well, we’re open, and there’s literally nothing left for me to destroy/move and put in the dump pile. I sledgehammered and demolished not one, but two outhouses since I started work and let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it sounds! But I’m loving every minute, even though I come home bruised, smelling like seaweed, and itchy from a brown-tailed moth rash almost every day. Haley has been gone the whole month and will not be back until it is time for Rachel’s wedding (which I’m the videographer for) It’s been good, ’cause I have gotten time to figure out the nuances of her house without looking like an idiot in front of her. But come home soon, Haley! I miss you tons!

That’s really all the updates I have for now, so story time…

This took place earlier in the season of my second summer at the ranch in 2018. I can’t really remember, but it might have been week two or three or somewhere close to that. Everything was winding down for the night. Guests were going to bed, and a bunch of girls started wandering into the kitchen. The ranch kitchen was a fun place to be when it was all cleaned up for the night. The industrial oven was quiet, and all the dry goods and spices were perched on the long shelving, silent, and listening to all the chatter after a long day. At first it was only two or three girls, but as more started wandering in, it ended up being around eight or nine total. I think we even chased a boy or two out because this conversation was slowly transforming into girl talk. And as we talked and with every new girl that came in, the topic turned to boys (as it usually does), and it was revealed that every girl had a man in her life who she was worried about and/or praying for that they would come to faith or deeper relationship with Jesus, whether that was a father, brother, crush, or friend.

I told them about a friend of mine.

One by one, the stories unfolded. Such stories of grief and hurt they were, so I suggested we pray. For each man mentioned that night, and that we could pray for the person to our left’s guy. Then Mo suggested we do fiesta prayer as well (that crazy bold Texas girl that she was!) and if you’ve never experienced that before, it’s pretty wild and sounds a little kooky. Everybody prayed, out loud and at the same time for the man that the person to their left mentioned. It sounded powerful. All right there in the ranch kitchen, completely by happenstance. This moment has really stuck with me as a humble yet bold experience we all had.

If that kitchen was the temple of Jerusalem and I am Anna, then boy, did I stop praying too soon. She prayed for eighty years or something like that. We prayed for their futures, of course, but all the memories burned hanging off my tongue screamed of the past. They begged to be heard that night as we talked, but it was not the time for grave robbing because these were prayers of hopeful futures.

I wonder when guys get together if they are praying for us. If they have the women in their lives on their minds for prayer like we do for them all the time. I wrote a line of poetry that goes-“God says I am treasured, but if that’s true, then the only name I’ve known for his sons is pirate.” Yet in that temple of a kitchen, we didn’t pray for healing for our pasts. We did’t pray that our broken hearts would be mended. We prayed that the men in our lives would be better and go in search of God.

I can’t tell you how I know prayer works for sure. I don’t know what has happened to all those dudes we prayed for, whether they have come to love God or are still far. Prayer isn’t something anyone can know in their brains for sure. It takes faith to believe that when you pray, your words are actually going somewhere. I laugh as I write about faith, though, as my friend Jake puzzles at the word. He doesn’t yet grasp the big, open contradiction that it is to put stock into something that cannot be proven. He would rather know about faith in his brain, but it goes beyond that into your soul, to say the least. All I can tell you is that I know prayer works, even if God doesn’t answer all my prayers how I think He will. I’ve seen it time and time again, and I really should start keeping a list so I can be reminded of His faithfulness.

Us girls are hurting as we get on our knees every night and cry, plead, beg, pray, whatever, for men to grow into gentlemen, leaders, and lovers. But we do it anyway, and I am working on putting the past behind me-I hope you guys are doing the same.

~J

“Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness-take it to the Lord in prayer. Are we weak and heavy-laden? Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge—take it to the Lord in prayer.”