Strength in numbers

Wednesday nights are my bible study night.

For several years I have attended this study group.

Some of the faces have changed,

some have moved home to be with God,

some have had to miss sessions,

but one thing remains true

we are connected by our faith and our hearts. 

They are so dear to me.

  These ladies build me up in faith and joy.

Emotional traumas wear us down.

Satan loves us to lose our joy.

Our joy is our strength 

and when we are weak we can't resist

the troubles he sets against us.

That is why we need each other.

God sends us these warriors to 

build us up in faith and to renew our joy.

Some days I am that person for them.

We are to encourage and pray for one another.

To lift each other and love each other.

For where two or three come together in my name,

there I am with them.

Matthew 18:20

Ollie's surgery is one week away.

I have been filled with hope, but also anxiety.

I am a bag of mixed emotions.

I am ready for her heart to be fixed.

I want her healthy so she can grow.

Yet, on the other hand I dread that incision.

I am filled with angst for my daughter.

I do not want to see her sadness, fear, and worry.

I do not want to worry and I fight it.

It is sin.

I DO trust God.

I KNOW all will be fine.

But, I am flesh.

I have my moments.

My stress is showing up in my waistband.

It is here in the middle of the night

when sleep eludes me.

Part of it is my "mom-ness"

and part of it is my history.

I am a great pretender.

I put on a happy face sometimes,

when all I really want to do is sob.

I don't want this to be my story.

But, it is.

I have a hero in my story though,

it is my Lord.

He gives power to the faint and the weary.

Wow, that is me.

On my own, I am faint

and I am weary.

But, through him, I am strong.

Last night I confessed all this to my group.

They rallied.

Man, they rallied.

I am prayed up now.

They gathered me up 

and they surrounded me with prayer

and their love.

I felt so much better.

I felt so light.

I told them I could have danced.

I told them I should because 

I am really a good dancer.

Probably not true, but I felt it.

Margie, Patsy, Jamie (2 of you),

Esther, Jacque, Becky,

Carla and Ramona...

thanks and I love you!

I know I am going to have lots of emotions

throughout these next several days.

That is where I know you, my readers

will come in.

You tell me you pray for Ollie.

I know it and I feel it.

I know you are praying for me also.

Thanks to you, too.

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles:

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 30: 28-31