prayer requests

Don’t feel much like arguing today.  I was on the way home from the hospital visiting my grandpa. He’s stable and resting, they’re doing tests, he might have a staph infection.  So I decide to stop and get food at the drive thru, and this young man is there.  He wasn’t the typical guy with a cardboard sign, if fact he was startlingly honest. He told me that he had just got out prison a little while back and he was just hoping to get food and a room and maybe get high. I figured I could handle the food part since I was in the drive thru anyway.  I got the combo meal he said sounded good and talked a little with him.  I’ll be honest; part of my mind was still back at the emergency room and also with my grandmother at home.  That might be part of the reason it took a little while for the conversation to sink in, for me to process what had just been said.  He told me that he lost everything:  his job, his fiancé, her family’s support, everything he cared about.  He said that he wanted to feel anything but what he was feeling just then even if it was only for a few hours.  His despair hit me hard.  He was just done with it, ready to stop caring at all what happens next. Screw it, I quit.  There wasn’t a thing I could do for him but give him some food and a couple bucks.  I didn’t know anyone hiring, and I certainly didn’t know any drug dealers.  I remember saying a few words about things getting better with time, but it sounded lame in retrospect. I remember thinking that I need to pray for this guy, but I didn’t tell him. I remember when I’ve been in bad situations, I felt less alone knowing someone was praying for me.  I’ve been kicking myself for not telling him I would pray for him, or even offering to pray with him right then.  Sometimes it’s enough to know someone else is paying even a little attention. I am angry with myself for not thinking to offer that to him.  But I will be praying.  If you think of it, if you could pray for this guy too I’d appreciate it. I’m ashamed to admit I don’t even know his name.

  Also my grandpa could use your prayers. He is comfortable and resting, but they are still doing tests and they may need to operate.

Nothing more than...

It’s underwhelmingly amazing how my feelings will accurately tell me what’s going on in my life. I’ve been feeling disconnected and apathetic in my faith and upon examining said life, I find that this is exactly how I’ve been acting. I have been skipping church and prayer and quiet time, and I feel it. As soon as I pray to invite God into my day and start back up where I left off in the bible (Hezekiah’s revival) I start to feel better. It’s not the long-term, everything-is-where-it-should-be kind of better, but it’s a start.

It’s like my diet. That has been off track as well. Regardless of what I know intellectually, the junk food still looked good and working out sounded like work. But I started back at the gym this week and I feel less like a slug, even though I haven’t started losing weight again, the feeling better is back already, except for my sore legs and butt). Like what Paul said, whenever he seeks to do good, evil is right there with him. I know this is a petty comparison, but it’s accurate. Whenever I seek to eat well, the junk food cravings are right there with me. Whenever I seek to get fit, laziness is right there with me. It’s true in the small things that dog us as much as it is the big things.