Ugh!

Today has been a day of warfare ... of struggle ... of hope ... and dispair for me.

Last night I got another letter from one of the troops we are supporting overseas. Another 19 year old Marine who seems to be a Christian. His letter was short but I was moved to tears. He noted that he thinks that God is the only thing getting him through this right now. He asked for our prayers that he would be sustained and for prayers for others trying to navigate being in Iraq with many personal issues and conflicts taking place at home.

I decided after reading his letter to have a time of prayer this morning ... and to open it up to anyone else on campus (staff) who wanted to come. I called each cottage and issued a very casual invitation. I figured that at least putting it out there would hold Rich and I accountable for keeping the prayer time we had agreed upon.

So dawn comes and I'm of course so exhausted that I can barely get out of bed. I am tired and RJ gets up to get the kids off to school even though I had planned on it. I finally got up about 8 am because we had to take our van to have the tires rotated and the oil changed. I got the van dropped off and RJ came to pick me up to come home and put away groceries. (Wed. is grocery delivery day every week.) ... I was so exhausted all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

We set our time of prayer for the 11am to noon hour and about 10 mins to 11 am I was dying my stomach hurt so badly. I could barely stand up ... but we pushed ahead. At 11am we put on the worship tape we had decided on and starting praying. A few moments later one other couple (a young couple who are new to campus) came. We don't know them very well but it really -felt- like they were supposed to be there. No one else came and I was kind of glad. I made the invitation very informal and with no pressure because I felt like God would draw who He wished to come.

We prayed and worshipped together for the whole hour and it was great. Boy did time fly and my stomach didn't hurt at all and I don't feel the least bit sleepy. It has been longer than I can recall since I've been able to spend an hour in prayer and worship. Just an hour. As we were praying I realized that I don't even know where my bible is. I haven't gotten a new bible since RJ and I got married and it's been so long since I've opened one I don't even know where mine is. If I have needed one I've used a student bible or RJ's.

So after prayer, I talked to RJ and decided to go and get a new bible. The first Christian bookstore I went to is closing and had NO bibles in stock any longer. I came home and looked for other Christian bookstores. The closest I could find initially was over an hour away. I couldn't find a single bookstore in High Point so I ended up deciding to go to another little town where the parent store to the one that is closing here, is located. I got directions online after calling the bookstore and getting no help direction wise from them. I took off with my directions from online only to follow them to the letter and find myself on a country deadend road. I called RJ completely frustrated to re-mapquest the directions and to call the store again but only ended up totally confused and more frustrated. I finally just hung up and set off to back track and try to find it based on the scant information I had pieced together.

I finally found the bookstore and it was much nicer than I had expected. I looked and looked at the selection of bibles ... I wanted a navy blue one like I had in college ... I loved that bible so much. Of course I couldn't find one that I liked that was blue with silver pages so ... I ended up getting a burgandy and black one that was pretty neat. The engraver arrived just in time to put my name on it so that was pretty cool.

So I have a new bible and we spent an hour in prayer and worship this morning. All good stuff but none without some resistence so to speak. I am strongly at war right now within myself and I hate it. I want to hate those things that war within me more ... I want to dispise them ... I am not there yet but I am trying ... step by step by step ...

I wish this were all easier ... but it's not ... nothing about this fight is easy for me right now ...