What a week! Let me tell you…the enemy has a hold of my leg and I’m pushing and kicking him off. Get back! 😉 This retreat I’m about to lead in Washington State must be a mighty one because every play in the playbook of lies is being used against me.
It kills me to not be more available to the Hughes family, yet I’m selfishly grateful the funeral isn’t until Monday so I am able to attend.
Neal’s shingles are causing him to hallucinate (or it could be that he has also chosen to give up tobacco as well which might have been a factor in adding to the onset of a shingles outbreak) and he woke up in the middle of the night shouting, “Shannon! Something’s wrong…I can’t breathe!” and rushed into the bathroom.
Groggy from having taken a Tylenol PM I sat up and stumbled into the bathroom where he sat on the edge of the bathtub staring down at the floor. “Do I need to take you to the Emergency Room?”
“No, I’m fine. But I think I’m dying.” 🙁 What??
Knowing that when Neal gets sick he also tends to emotionally and mentally find his way back to childhood, I rubbed the medicated sleep from my eyes and said, “If you are dying then I want to take you to the hospital.”
He sat with his eyes transfixed on the tile floor. “No, I’m just losing it. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.” Thankfully, he went back to bed and drifted off to sleep again. Now this afternoon he came in from a golf game (work related) and said that his shoulder and arm were feeling ‘odd’. It is usually his leg on that same side that gives him fits when he is about to have an MS attack but MS is a strange disease and it very well could be that it is presenting now in his arm and shoulder.
Great, right? Just what he needs? An MS flare up and shingles…together. “I’ll be surprised if I live to be 45,” he says. 🙁
And I’m leaving tomorrow to lead a women’s retreat in Ellensberg, WA… I am very excited to be with these women of St. Andrew’s parish but I need you guys to cover me and my family in prayer.
Lack of sleep, husband sick, and then I get a ‘rejection’ email in regards to REDEEMED…this particular publishing house considered it and then decided not to pursue it because, as they say, “We don’t see the potential for strong enough sales for a second memoir…” Rejection is a part of the business and though I’ve had enough in my lifetime it never feels good and I never am ‘fine’ with it. For the brief moment I allow the lies to roll in and I get disheartened figuring maybe I’ve been listening to my will and not the Lord’s. Maybe I’ve wasted my time working on these projects, etc.
But the Lord listens and sends me a prayer warrior to interject just as I’m really settling into wallowing in the pit. “Lord, surround Shannon with peace and rest,” she wrote…nice :). And another sends an email of a blog she receives and this one made her think of me…this woman is brilliant and I must share at least a segment:
“I don’t know when or how this crazy dream will be fulfilled, but I look forward to it. Like Joseph, I was very young when it was birthed, and a lot of life, trial, pain, and grit have happened in the in between times. I’m grateful the dream didn’t instantly come my way. I’m sure Joseph was thankful too. His pride, my pride, would’ve gotten in the way of God’s redemptive plan. God needs humbled, settled, broken folks to carry out His God-sized dreams.
So don’t despair if decades pass between the dream and its fulfillment. This is God’s economy, and it’s perfect. I’ll wait alongside you and cheer.” Holley Gerth
To see the ENTIRE post go to Waiting For Your Dream by Holley Gerth
Interesting enough a third message I received today was a friend giving me someone else’s Facebook status that read: “God always allows a major test before a major blessing. The greater He intends to bless, the bigger the test will be.” (Did I ever mention how bad at tests I was in school? I mean test anxiety like no other! 😉 )
There are times in our life where we’ll get shaken, rattled and even rolled around a bit in the pit of despair and frustration but out of our labor in persevering for God’s will in our lives comes the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)
We are equipped…we must trust.
Blessings
Shannon