I’m not here to complain, but things continue to be difficult.
I am grateful that the very late birthday party that I had stress over went off without a hitch. We booked the “meeting room” at a McDonalds with a climbing set, and the RSVP response was more than I ever would have expected. Me being me, I then became concerned about having too many people there, especially during a time period where McDonald’s usually has a lot of people. Well, we ended up in the meeting room and the (many) tables in the room with the play place. For nearly the entire time we were there, the restaurant was absolutely dead apart from us. We had both spaces pretty much to ourselves until about 20 minutes before we left, when people were starting to get ready to go anyway. In the meantime, there were 16 kindergarten-aged kids having a blast bouncing around and climbing with their friends. A couple of the moms seemed to be quite impressed with the idea, and a couple of them didn’t even know that this McDonald’s had a play place at all.
On top of everything else, there ended up being some weirdness between me and one of my closest friends. It’s not like things like that don’t happen, but the timing is awful. I was doing dishes and just about in tears, and I started saying the Jesus Prayer (Lord, Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner) and I could feel the burden lift a little, which convinces me more than ever that there’s spiritual warfare going on here. This is a friendship that has lasted decades, and I truly believe that God has had a hand in it, and once the first wave of emotion had washed over, I had to logically just step back and reason that I need to trust God again on this, because things happen in His time, not mine.
I am grateful that when that was all going on, every signal I seemed to bump into was “Don’t give up, stay strong” (Lisa over here: Do You Hear It, to Abbot Tryphon’s videos -a couple which I shared earlier in the week- to Barbara at Blisswood’s post about Patient Endurance to things that came up in my Vimatarissa app.)
I am grateful for the people who keep smiling everyday and make the day that much better because of it.
I am grateful that we made it to church this morning (well, me and four of the kids). I am thankful that a couple of people said that they were happy to see me, and I am thankful for friends there, in particular those who are actually interested in hearing the real answer to “How are you?” (And I am incredibly grateful to be able to talk to friends from a long distance as well.)
I am also very grateful that we seem to be doing much better health-wise. There have been sniffles and coughs (and my ear still doesn’t feel “right”) but we’re doing much better.
I am grateful for all your prayers.

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