prayer

Inspiration, Paintings and Prayers (& Free Mary Cassatt Picture Study)

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment
“Summer” by Mary Cassatt

A Summer with Sarah is a series of journal entries from the summer Sarah turned 18.

Reflections in Virginia Beach

It’s Tuesday, June 14th, 1994. We arrived in Virginia Beach earlier today and are staying in a motel apartment just half a block from the beach. It’s pretty nice.

Mom and Dad just got back from shopping at the commissary. I can hear the others in the living room and kitchen. They’re all excited because they saw on C-SPAN that the Senate is in session. We visited that room yesterday when we went to Washington, D.C. We even took some pictures while we were there.

My favorite part of the trip was the art museum. I love Mary Cassatt’s paintings and Gainsborough’s. I could imagine them, hundreds of years ago, stepping back to critique their finished work, having no idea that in 1994, a young lady named Sarah Janisse would also be stepping back to admire their wonderful masterpiece.

At the Museum of National History, I found myself dreaming of watching the First Ladies and their dresses dancing with the President at the Inaugural Ball 200 years ago.

Something really pierced my heart as I walked past the Vietnam War Memorial, with its wall engraved with the names of thousands of men who died. My dad said his name could have very well been on that wall too. It was the first time he saw it, and he was really touched. He looked like he might cry.

A Conversation on the Subway

On the subway back to the parking lot, I sat beside a lady named Joyce. She was a small Black woman in her early 30s—very sweet—and we talked. She had lived in Washington, D.C. her whole life. She asked where I was from and where I was going, so I told her.

She asked me about college, and I told her I planned to go to art school and Bible college. She asked a few more questions, and I was able to share a little about how I’m a Christian and how believing in the Bible is so important in life. I didn’t say much, but I pray the Lord will use my witness to inspire her to read the Bible and come to know Jesus.

A Prayer for Provision and Blessing

I hope and pray that this will be a very successful art show. Lord, bring people to buy more paintings. Please provide for our needs. But I don’t ever have to ask—you always provide, so I’ll just thank you instead.

Father, I thank you now for abundantly meeting all of our needs. You are so faithful. Thank you that I can trust in you to give me all that I need. Thank you for caring. I will lack nothing.

A Prayer for Josh and His Family

I’m going to call Josh sometime and give him the number here. Lord, work it out and make a perfect time for me to call him. Pour your blessings on him and his family. Give them joy. Show his dad where to go on vacation—you know just what would be best—so let your will be done.

Thank you for working everything out. I’m not quite sure how Josh’s parents expect me to act, but I want to please them as I please you. Work it out. Let it come naturally for me to be a blessing to them. Please, Jesus, don’t allow me to be a burden.

I want to be helpful, not in the way. I want them to be happy to have me with them. Let me be someone they enjoy, not just someone they tolerate. I love Josh, and it’s important that his family loves me.

Let them see that it’s your plan that Josh and I are together. Let them accept the fact joyfully and receive me as I am, in your time.

A Prayer for Josh’s Sisters Becky and E (E is his foster sister). The are both young teens.

Use me in the lives of Becky and E to draw them closer to you. Let me be an encouragement to them to follow you with all their hearts. These girls will be part of my life forever—let us love now.

I know that you love Becky and E so much, just as you love me. Use me to show them your love. Work in their hearts. Use me.

Bless Josh now with your peace.

Be glorified. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Click here for a free Mary Cassatt picture study for homeschoolers.

A Mother’s Calling

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

I’m at a cafe today

Flipping through the pages

Of a journal I filled

When Anna was seven

I read the prayers

Of a discouraged mother

Who had hope

That someday

This little girl would read and write

But most of all,

I poured out my heart

That I could be devoted

to preparing Anna

To serve and follow God

In the calling He had for her

Not my plan

But His.

March 2, 2008 (Anna age seven)

Oh Lord I come to you and pray that Anna’s heart would be so fervent for you. Open her eyes to see you, give her ears to hear. Let her be hungry for your word and thirsty for more of your presence.

Help me to be full of wisdom to show her your path. Help me to teach her what YOU want her to know.

Help her to read very well soon.

I will trust you to show me how to help her. Give her a strong desire to learn. Let her mind be strong to grasp the things that will help her to be fluent in her reading. Let her develop a great love for reading even now.

Help me to devote myself to prepare her to serve and follow you in the calling that you have for her.

In Jesus name, Amen.

————-

As I read my prayer from 15 years ago I remember feeling God impressing upon me to NOT raise her to reflect the teaching of the current culture or the standardized path that so many were pressuring me to take. I saw an anointing upon her, and I felt so strongly not to try to conform to the ways of the world in raising her, to block out the well-meaning voices of concerned relatives and friends because this child was chosen to do things in this world that a person with a standardized education could never have the time or creativity to do. “Let her be an artist,” God spoke to my heart. “Let her major in the Arts now”, my heart demanded.

If there were two things I knew about my call to raise Anna, they were: Empower her in creativity and plant the most beautiful seeds of Art and God’s word into the garden of her heart. It was obvious that she was an artist and a storyteller and she assured me that she didn’t need to learn to read to become an artist. I assured her that God would not have put the Bible in written form if He wasn’t going to give her the power to read it.

The Arts, Travel, History of Fashion, and the Bible became her entire curriculum throughout her homeschooling years from age 6 to 15. At 15 she wanted to add singing and songwriting to the plan and I hired Christine Dente to be her coach. At age 17 she completed the writing of an audio musical about the life of Jesus. It was her senior project, bringing forth all of her learning from her childhood. That year I didn’t require any other schoolwork — “Just write your musical” — and she did!

Learn what has become of her talents, her hunger for God’s word, her thirst for His presence and her devotion to serve Jesus and follow His calling to reveal His heart to this world… see how He answered the prayers of a discouraged mother who sought God’s will and not the world’s for one little girl. Anna’s faith is beautiful, free, passionate, and alive. She is a bright light in the darkness and brings me so much joy.

HisStoryTheMusical.com

Anna today.

Praying for Your Family, Your Country…the World

/ Sarah Janisse Brown / Leave a comment

Over these years Josh and I have traveled to several countries. During our time in each one we would feel called to sing and pray over the land and the people. These books each represent the counties we have traveled to and have committed to intercede for. The Lord had called us, His Bride, His Children, to pray for all the nations, and this is just one little idea for how to do it. Creating a book of prayer and blessings for each place we pray for.

I feel so strongly that these prayers are heard and answered and God is working in the world through the release of our prayers, supplications, decrees, songs and words of blessings over land and people.

God has given the earth to humans, it is ours to care for, protect, and nurture like a garden. Humanity fails and blames God.

But… in fervent prayer for the lands, the nations, the people, the governments, the church, the religious leaders, the sick, the bound, the suffering ones, the lost… we bring forth blessing, light, deliverance, power and healing on earth.

“The heavens belong to the Lord but the EARTH He has given to the children of men.” Psalm 115:16

I want so much to be a good and faithful servant and leader in all the authority God has given me… over my family, and over these places in the Earth where I have a calling and where I have authority to bring the blessings of the Kingdom of God down to Earth. Through prayer God releases power. Power of angel armies, power to bless, power to heal, power to bring deliverance and salvation! Prayer brings light into the darkness.

If you say you are part of God’s family, I just want to encourage you to take your authority in prayer and supplication over your family and over the land you have walked upon to pray… “Your Kingdom Come! Your Will Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven!”

Being an active member of the Kingdom of God is a great honor, joy, blessing and a great responsibility. To whom much is given, much is required. Don’t squander your role in your family or your role in God’s family.