for the prayin peeps

A very close friend of ours who knows our hearts helped us come up with this little prayer request page. Many times people ask us how they SPECIFICALLY can be praying for us. Honestly our needs change from day to day and even moment to moment. We have chosen to live this journey out on the front lines and hope that others can be encouraged by our transparency and never ceasing faith.
There are people far and wide who are keeping up with the mcelhannons and crying out to our Father for us. We have friends standing in the gap on those days when we are just out of words. We are surrounded by such well intentioned people and we recognize that God has opened doors and closed doors for us recently and we could not be more grateful.
So if you are wondering how to pray for us in general...please refer back to this page :)


Many people over the months have asked how they can be praying for us, and we have done our best to communicate openly. Quite honestly we have gone through this trial very publically, which has had moments that are trying, but also moments that have absolutely overwhelmed us with God’s love, grace, mercy, and community. We thought it would be helpful to put together a short general overview of some ways that you can continue to pray alongside us as we continue to seek God’s face, and desire His hand of healing, restoration and redemption.
1) Pray for our hearts to seek God above everything else, and to grow in a love for Him (even more than our desire for healing).
2) Pray for God to heal Justin’s body cell by cell. Pray for God to work from Justin’s head all the way to his toes.
3) Pray for relationships in the house to grow and flourish even through the hard times. Pray for our marriage and for each precious second with each of our boys.
4) Pray for wisdom of those that continue to seek answers medically. We know that God can use any means to heal Justin and we attribute everything that has given us another breath all to Him!
5) Pray for wisdom for our family to know what to do each step of the way (Prov.3:5-6)
6) Pray for great memories to be made and to take advantage of every moment we have. Whether there is sickness or not, we do not want to waste a single moment God has given us.
7) Pray for rest. As much as we are going going going, there will be times that we must simply rest. Not just the physical, because we need to do that, but our rest in the One who created all this and can do whatever He wants, at any time He wants. And so we trust and rest in God.

Primarily, we desire our prayers to be rooted in the understanding of God’s supremacy in all things, and pray as Jesus taught us to in Matthew 6. Following that we offer our requests in faith knowing that God hears and redeems (Romans 8:18-30), and we trust that He will act according to His will.
In Matthew 21 and Mark 11, Jesus tells the disciples that if they “have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith”. We have great faith in who God is and what He alone can do. As we read this passage, we understand that the faith Jesus is talking about is not a faith just in faith, a strong desire, or even a belief that something miraculous will happen (that is simply a strong hope in a change of circumstance). The faith Jesus is talking about is the trust in God’s kingdom, with King Jesus ruling and reigning. This is a faith in the one who holds the circumstance and trusting that He knows everything that takes place in His kingdom and can change the outcomes of anything that takes place because He owns it all! We know that this side of heaven we will experience some of the effects of a broken world. Some of those effects King Jesus will heal and make new immediately. Some of those effects will not face full healing until King Jesus returns (and we LONG for Rev. 19:11-20), or until we join him in heaven. Regardless of which healing it is, we offer our prayers in full faith knowing it is not our (nor your) faith, in and of itself, which heals us, but rather it is the Spirit who is renewing, restoring and redeeming by the command of Almighty God. Our prayer of faith is that Jesus will use this temporary vessel in this mist of a life for his ultimate glory, which he will do because he has already redeemed and brought so much restoration to our family.
So as you pray beside us please join us with this understanding. We are not giving up, we will continue to fight, and the Lord will continue to work, and we worship and praise King Jesus for the great work he has done, is doing and will do!

AMEN!!!!