As I am sitting here typing my body is pretty tired. The kind of tired that reminds you that you are no longer 22 and that the commercials for pain relievers are more interesting to you now. My coffee is practically my life raft today as I float through my morning routine of catching up on 500 emails in my inbox, phone calls to return, dinner to get in the crock pot and the ever present laundry to be done and put away. It is in this short blog break that I am going to "rest".
Why am I so tired? I just got back yesterday afternoon from a weekend in Illinois. An all night Women's prayer and worship event on Friday and a concert to benefit a homeless shelter on Saturday night. Note the ALL NIGHT part of the last sentence. I am admittedly NOT a night owl. I am proudly a morning person(as long as their is coffee) and get cranky if I do not have my 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Save the "7-8 hours?! well, I have a newborn I sleep 2 blah blah..." yes, I know.. I had babies too at one point.. 3 to be exact I am aware of sleep deprivation.. I am no longer in that phase (maybe will be in the future again) but for now I am blessed to usually get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. (note that last sentence and use it as a reference point to the "i get cranky with less sleep" statement). So, as you can imagine the all night prayer event had me a little intimidated. I was anxious and in prayer all last week for God to help me be able to stay awake. Looking back I realize what a silly short viewed prayer that was. Let me tell you... not only did He help me stay awake.. He showed up in ways I could not have imagined. At one point we were in our break out prayer groups and sharing the cards that were given to us at the beginning of the night. These cards were given to us with a characteristic of God typed on them. They had been prayed over specifically for the person who would receive them. Mine said... Strength. I was unable to contain the tears as I read it to the group. I was so thankful that God allowed me to receive THAT card in THAT moment. We prayed, as we did repeatedly all night. I had God move in my heart in amazing ways. I prayed specifically for an area in my life I have been struggling with over the last couple of years and He removed the burden from me and I can say that this morning even though I might feel physically weak and tired I feel spiritually lifted up by the Strength of God. He tells us in His word that He is our strength; that it is IN our WEAKNESS .. HE is STRONG. I am reminded of the song, Jesus loves me... the line that said.. "we are weak but HE is strong" We even had over enthusiastic hand gestures of us have wimpy muscles as we sang the " we are weak" and then popeye-esque physique when "HE is STRONG". That is how I am today.. OVERLY enthusiastic about the Strength of GOD. I am childlike in my admiration of HIM today. So, as I will stop typing now and sip more coffee I will be GLAD and let the JOY of the LORD be my STRENGTH today. I encourage you to not be afraid of your weaknesses.. rejoice in them.. for in them HE will be your strength.
<3 heather
Prayer is certainly an area of weakness in my life. I pray with my family. Pray at meals, but, the personal prayer is woefully absent. Even though I know that it benefits me deeply when I do pray - and even though I have no problems doing it when I am dealing with my greatest challenges (in fact, I jump into prayer then) - I fail to do it on a daily basis. My daily devotional readings seem to get shorter by the day and, as a consequence, I see a very real and direct effect on my personal spirituality. Yet I continue to let prayer reside on the bottom of my to-do list. Unbelievable.
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