A plea for prayers.

You know it's been a rough week when a death in the family isn't even close to being the most stressful, or the worst news.

My great-aunt Margie passed away last week. She was 87 and died, presumably peacefully, at home from heart failure. She never married or had children, and while she loved her nieces and nephews (and grand-nieces and -nephews, and great-grand-nieces and -nephews), she was really missing her siblings, all of whom had already gone to their reward. So it was what I consider a "happy death" (which is not to say there were no tears).

But.

Today I got some bad news regarding a couple of family members. Their struggles aren't mine to share, but they could use your prayers.

Add in the stress I'm feeling over the fact that our current lease ends Dec. 20, and we don't yet know where we're moving. Almost. (Lest you think we've brought this on ourselves: we've been working on it for months, but at first no one would entertain us because "it was too long to wait" for us to move in, and just yesterday we had a possible rental situation fall apart on us, bringing us back to square one.)

So.

All this to say that my family and I are sorely in need of some prayers. I need prayers for peace, and strength, and patience, and discernment. My family needs prayers of encouragement, peace, trust and healing.

St. Jude, pray for us.