Worn Out

Remember my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and bitterness.  Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me.  This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.  The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning Great is Your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:19-23)  This is pretty much how I felt this past evening...afflicted, wandering the past few days with lack of intimate prayer and slothfulness in reading my Word.  My soul is wounded and my heart is extremely heavy even this morning.  I know that lack of sleep contributes, but I feel like David when he said that his soul pants for God as the deer pants for the water brooks.  It seems not to take much for my soul to get weary and for worry to takeover my joy.  I was doing well last night and as the night went on I found myself feeling weird, anxious, and a bit speechless.  It is easy to point the finger and blame others for the way I feel, but after praying and reading I found how responsible I am.   I read Lamentations this morning and found Christ.  I am thankful for His rest, His consuming lovingkindness and His faithfulness.  What a great God.  

2 or 3

Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two of three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst. This scripture popped up in my head when Amber was praying for me tonight. I am working the late shift and it has been tough to make it through the past few nights. Tonight is my last night and I needed some serious prayer. I even asked Allison, Colleen, and Josh to pray for me. We huddled up in the kitchen with our arms around each other petitioning our Father. I thought to myself,"This is what it's all about!" When I am sleep deprived my world can come tumbling down at any moment. Last night it almost did. Everything seems like a huge deal when I haven't slept well. I can just be walking down the hallway thinking about how I want to sleep and how I have to do it again the next night and start getting emotional....like I might actually end if I don't get to sleep. Let it be known, I despise the graveyard shift. Although I figure that God is teaching me to humble down and ask for prayer and depend on Him to get through it. To think when I prayed with Amber:) and my other friends Jesus was in our midst. Thats amazing, the Lord Himself was amongst us taking it all in. I imagine it brings Him great joy to see His children in unity seeking Him.

Boxers

I am re-reading Velvet Elvis and Rob Bell goes into a short story describing him and some close friends sitting in a restaurant enjoying each others company. They end up closing the place down...and it seems that he is with his dearest friends in the world. He goes on to say,"And I'm sitting in this restaurant looking around the table, soaking it in, totally overwhelmed with the holiness of it all. The sacredness of the moment. That sense that in spite of everything awful I have ever seen, we're going to make it." I read this during my late shift tonight and it sparked 2 instances recently I have felt this "feeling." Last Saturday my friend Troy spent the night and we got up Sunday morning to go to church together. I was at the kitchen table eating cereal when he and my roommate both came in still half asleep in their boxers. I love mornings and the one thing I am most grateful for apart from Christ is my friends He has given me. Guys like to give each other a hard time and crack jokes at all times it seems. Even more so when women aren't around and it was already happening upon us all waking up. I was so content and grateful at that moment. I was in awe of the gift of friendships and how God restores what I have broken. I saw God at work through two dudes in boxers in my kitchen on Sunday morning. There was a time when I was just about friendless and now I don't care to count how many friends God has given me. Praise God for friends and simple moments of joy. I pray to God that I never get too busy or too preoccupied with this world to enjoy life. Another moment was at house church last night. It was my turn to share my junk and during my time of sharing I could tell that the enemy was at work in my thought life. Sometimes it just takes me speaking out loud what is going on inside and I then realize that the thoughts I am believing are lies. I had 4 brothers encouraging me, asking thought provoking questions, and praying for me. I didn't feel alone. I looked at the 4 men sitting around me and I knew that they were there for me..standing shoulder to shoulder with me...loving me...not judging me...helping me to know that I am not crazy! Holla