Feeling pukey today, having made the apparent mistake of drinking a glass of lemonade on an almost empty stomach (damn you, acidic foods - you're all good and I can't enjoy any of you!). Getting better now though. Wearing my Sea Bands like a good girl, hoping to get some exercise tonight. I'm turning into an ocean of expanding blubber.
Had quite an experience at church yesterday – in the last part, during worship, I sat down and started praying (I was tired of standing). I sat during the pastor’s benediction with my hands out, palms up in a receiving gesture (something we do at the Vineyard rather than assuming the typical prayer stance). When I stood up, a young teenage boy who’d been sitting behind us caught my attention. A bit embarrassed at first, he told me that, as I had sat down and started praying that he had a vision of Jesus sitting in front of me holding my hands, and that he felt like God wanted to let me know that he was with me and was listening to me.
I’ve seen that sort of thing happen with others, but it has not happened with me before. It was a beautiful, special thing.
Also, the other day I was driving and thinking about how hard all of this is. That, because of my experiences, I don’t get to just assume things are going to work out. Instead, I freak out and have trouble focusing on positive aspects of all of this since we’re still three weeks away from the end of the “danger zone.”
Suddenly, as if the Spirit had planted the thought in me, I remembered the Transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1). I considered what a pivotal, powerful moment that was and compared it to when God delivered me from fear that one day in peer counseling. I noticed the parallel. Then I remembered how Jesus endured 40 days of temptation from the enemy with no food or water almost the moment the Transfiguration was over. Me? I got pregnant almost right after my own encounter with God. So, I suddenly realized that the timing of my experience and subsequent difficult time follows what Jesus endured pretty closely. I can see that experience now as part deliverance from the past, part preparation for what I’m going through now.
All that is to say, I’m okay. Pukey, tired and bitchy. But okay.
