Pressing In

It's a very busy day, but I just have to take a couple of minutes to brag on God. In just a few hours I will be leaving to serve on the Walk to Emmaus, a 72-hour Christian spiritual retreat. I've been concerned about how I will manage physically, because I have MS and I'm supposed to avoid stress and fatigue (yeah, right!). Anyway, the Walk is always tiring and as one of the four ALD's (assistant lay directors), I can pretty much bet there will be some stress involved at times. Therefore, I have prayed diligently that God will grant me rest when I need it and help me to remember to press harder into him when I start feeling stressed.

I am so thankful that I can enter into this weekend with confidence that God will do just as I have asked. I am confident of this because of the faithfulness he has shown thus far. When I was first asked to serve on this walk, I asked God over and over to work things out not only with my health, but also with my schedule. He has kept me healthy so far, and as for the schedule, I have been amazed! I didn't want to miss my girls' volleyball and soccer games or the other things we had on our calendar, and it seemed like the team training session and other things I had to attend just fit right in. We hardly skipped a beat! How often does that happen?? Usually there is conflict after conflict, but not this time.

Even today, with our kitchen renovation finally nearing completion, I had to arrange for pick-up of a new refrigerator we had gotten that wasn't working out. I also had to arrange for delivery of a new one. All that today with a million other things I had to take care of so that I can leave for the weekend. I prayed this morning that God would work it all out, and it was easy as pie. The pick-up guys arrived first (I didn't know which would end up getting here first), hauled off the "bad" fridge, and an hour later the new fridge came. The delivery guys even took care of installing all the shelves for me!

It might not seem like such a big deal, but I know that God heard my prayers and answered. He is helping me to avoid stress just as I asked. I know that he will continue to sustain me throughout the weekend.

When you respond in obedience to God's call to serve, trust that he will give you everything you need to carry out the task. He is good, he is in the details, and I believe that he is eager to reward faithful service.

With that, I'm off for a wonderful, Spirit-filled weekend!