The Holy Spirit was in gear bright and early Friday morning which had the enemy on his toes. Early that morning I took a flight to New Orleans and had the first surprise of the weekend – getting to see my dear friend, Bob Lesnefsky (aka ‘Righteous B’), after praying diligently for him over the past 8 months. He had suffered a series of strokes and in the beginning it was a very scary reality. He looked amazing and I had no idea we were going to be on team together over the weekend.
On the hour drive to Houma as Bob and I were catching up I received a text from my mom that my uncle had suffered a stroke. It was crazy to be talking to my young friend about the details of recovery from a stroke and then to find out one of my favorite uncles was now going to be in the same predicament. When we made it to the convention center I received a text that Joseph (the young boy with the brain injury) had taken a sudden turn for the worse. I didn’t even have time to let all of this news scorch my emotions because we had to headed directly into team prayer.
Praise be to God that I was surrounded with an amazingly gifted team that could pray for those I love and for one another. I just have to say it again, PRAISE BE TO GOD! 🙂
To sum up the conference in one word: LOVE
Wow…I still can’t believe I have the opportunity to be a part of this great endeavor of God’s to reach out to His children and call them into His embrace, whether we were broken with personal struggles and sin or even if we were diligent in following Him and striving to live a life of holiness, we call came together young and old and WORSHIPED His majesty, reaching into our spirits and discarding the lies and false truths so that He could pour into us and fill us with His love. The 3000+ teens were just inspiring in their willingness to be His.
By Saturday afternoon I found out my uncle was doing OK, at least in the degree of the severity of the stroke. Please pray for him and his recovery. His name is Garnet. And as for Joseph…well…this is still a very precarious rode for him and his family. At one point they took him off the ventilator all together and accepted the will of God to take Joseph home, but then out of no where Joseph began to pick up again and the family has decided to put him back on the ventilator. So please continue to pray for Joseph and the Stanton family.
I can’t close this blog without sharing with you my new, all time, most embarrassing moment. It was Saturday afternoon, I was a bit loopy from a long, exhausting, but inspiring Friday night. I was getting ready to head into my breakout sessions and I needed to use the restroom. I walk in the door, see the brick wall and turn to the left to actually enter into the bathroom. However, standing before me at the sink and towel dispenser is Fr. Dave (one of the priests on team with me). He looks at me, I look at him (with eyes WIDE and mouth open in shock) and an odd squeal erupted from my throat. Thank GOD he was just drying his hands after already ‘using the facilities’ and I didn’t see anything at all…but when I turned to walk out of the MEN’S restroom I saw 5 guys and 2 girls walk by and they all turned their heads and looked at me as I quickly ran into the WOMEN’S room! 🙁
I was MORTIFIED!!!! I was laughing so hard I nearly had an accident before I made it into the correct bathroom stall. It didn’t help that Fr. Dave tends to be a natural practical joker and was waiting for me when I got out of the bathroom to tell everyone around what I had done. I didn’t live it down the ENTIRE weekend. It got to the point I told a priest to HUSH IT! 🙂
Like I said, this weekend was about LOVE all the way around.
Blessings
Shannon