Amy's 'momentary trouble'

Amy’s folks surprised us by coming to visit a day early! It is always nice to have them come and visit and I love it that they are so very involved with our kids and are making memories that they’ll cherish for the rest of their lives. After supper tonight, we took them for a drive through our local state park (Devils Lake) and for a ride of the surrounding area. Amy had a pretty good day and is enjoying the time spent with her parents. The only thing is, we weren't prepared for them! The house still needed cleaning and straightened, dishes needed to be done and clothes needed to be put away! It's a good thing that they love us!

I haven’t been very consistent in posting lately and those that I have put out there…well, just don’t feel complete. Part of it has to do with time and there are just not enough hours in the day. Part of it has to do knowing what to relate…what to reveal. There are days where I know ahead of time what I’m going to say and the words come easy to me. Then there are days where nothing has changed or nothing has been laid on my heart and I have absolutely no idea what to say. These are the days I face the dilemma of writing nothing or try to force myself to come up with something. Considering the previous, I always feel like I’m letting Amy down and on the latter, it always feels contrived and I often feel uncomfortable with it. At first I wasn’t sure why this was happening, the more it occurred, the more pressure and guilt I felt and feeling the pressure and the guilt kept me from discovering the answer. The funny thing is, God kept supplying the answer but I wasn’t listening for one. In the past two weeks there must have been 20 or more people who have approached me asking how Amy’s been and then after telling them, almost as an afterthought, they ask how I’m doing. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I know none of these people think of me as an afterthought, I just bring it up because that is truly how I have thought of my own well being…an afterthought. Amy is the focus of my energies and my time, anything left over which isn’t absorbed by our children or other civic/religious commitments, is left for me. God has been speaking to me through these people because I not only have been neglecting my physical wellbeing, but my spiritual one as well. Feeling the crunch of time, I have been attempting to supply myself with spiritual nutrition by reading a short devotional rather than studying the Bible and spending time prayer. Through these people, God has said to me: ‘Hey, don’t neglect yourself, think on how you’ve been (or not been) taking care of yourself.’ No wonder I’ve been having difficulties figuring out what to write about, you can’t pen a thought when the ink well is dry! Timothy 4:2 tells us to be ready in season and out of season and in the midst of my daily spiritual battles, I have often found myself unready, undisciplined and lacking much of the armor needed to stand. To stand…isn’t that amazing? God doesn’t even expect us to do the battle. He wants us to be prepared in season and out of season and to put the full armor of God on, but after that, all He asks us to do is to STAND! The only way any of us can truly survive the battle is to be properly prepared…properly disciplined and fully outfitted…and the only way we can do that is through intense study and application of God’s Word.

There will be a battle today…whether it comes through a look, a thought or an action, it will come…it most likely will hit you when you least expect it…at a most opportunistic time…it will come, it always does.

Are you prepared?

This is Amy's story as seen and told by me - V