Commemoration Week 2026 – Tuesday <3

As I read through the original post from 2014 that I shared yesterday (scroll back if you are just joining us at the bottom of the post and read Monday’s first!) I had revisit the harder parts of parenting that it drags up.

There have been losses and changes since I shared the Commemoration Week idea that first year. I had no idea, but again…God did.

But the point of commemorating God’s faithfulness is just that.

In spite of changes in our own lives, families, experiences….He is faithful.

And so it is that I determined back in 2005 to take a week that wasn’t a holiday already…not something I had to decorate the house for, plan gatherings, buy gifts…just pick a week to celebrate God and His faithfulness to us.

Yet somewhere along the way, I dropped the habit of writing it on our calendar at the start of each year. It got hard to look at the week and so I just let it come and go.

As I read some of the posts I shared in that first year, I came across a prayer I wrote in my 2005 journal. While I don’t remember the specifics of all that was going on, it must have been difficult and painful enough that I felt the need to lay it all before God and ask for healing.

We know from the journaling that He did answer and He did move. But here is the prayer I wrote back in 2005 when I hoped that August of 2026 would prove He was all He claimed to be.

Spoiler alert…He was and is and always will be.

Here is the prayer from 2005…

O Father God, we do know and we do believe that our lives are not our own, but often we act like they are. Lord, in truth we can not control our next breath. Any plans we make for the next hour, day, week – are all subject to You. 

Lord, we have made choices outside Your will that have brought us and others much trouble – much heartache. Not just one person, but many. Our ways are often thoughtless, careless and leave a wide path of destruction; damage often beyond which we can even see. 

Lord, I ask you today to correct each one of us at the places where we tried to direct our steps or tried to direct other’s steps and brought about this painfully dark chaos over so many. 

Correct us with Your Perfect, loving justice – go back, as You can, and work us out into a place of forgiveness, restoration and healing.

Thank You that You do not deal with us as we deserve. Thank You that Your justice is full of mercy, grace and love beyond our understanding. Thank You that You will bring us to righteousness and that You will redeem the messes we have made. 

May Your great works in all of these areas of our poor choices bring glory and honor to Your Name. 

Cause all who look upon our blessedness to worship You; may our redemption in these tragic, pitiful circumstances be evidence of Your great Reversal of the works of, both, the enemy and our own flesh. 

Lord, my heart’s desire is that as Your will is worked back into our lives and our paths are Your paths – others will be drawn to You by our obedience even if they don’t understand why. This is a work only You can do in us and through us. 

May it be on earth today as it is in Heaven; Your perfect order restored. 

In Jesus’ Name. Amen <3

As I say, looking back, I have no idea what we were walking through.

It must have been a difficult season and I felt the need to confess corporately for all of us that we are fully human and had encountered other fully human humans and damage had been inflicted.

I was interceding for us as a family at that time and while I don’t remember what was happening in the earthly realm that prompted the prayer, I can relate it to so many other times when I have prayed desperate prayers for God to heal and restore and redeem some situation.

If you thought Commemoration Week was all fun and games, it is not.

It is visiting the hard places of life where all we had was a wing and prayer, and a God who is so very good and kind.

He is faithful and worthy of our celebration <3