She's Done It Again

My friend Francine that is. She's gone and written another book that I've had so much trouble putting down to to do anything else including cleaning, taking care of my kids, sleeping, even eating. Yep, I'm still talking about "Her Mother's Hope".

This is the first day of Spring Break. Well, not the first day, but you know what I mean, right? I guess Saturday with the fundraiser and Sunday with church and another fundraiser didn't feel like the start of a break. Now I can breathe...and read:)

This morning I woke to the sounds of my children rising, the turning on of cartoons and the pouring of cereal and milk. It sounded like the bigger ones were taking care of the little ones so I decided to wait on my coffee and quickly read the end of the chapter that I hadn't finished last night because I had fallen asleep.

"Her Mother's Hope" is about mother-daughter relationships. Great, just what I needed. Well, seriously, couldn't all women use some healing when it comes to this area of our earthly lives???

The other thing that I love about all of her books are that they seem to come to me at the right time. The second part of the story (don't worry, no spoilers here) is about Hildemara who grows up to be a nurse around the time of the start of World War II. Her character is a compassionate person who empathizes with everyone. When she starts nursing she learns, at the advice of an older wiser nurse, to give her patients to Jesus in prayer as soon as she leaves their hospital room.

What a message for me! I find myself so easily burdened by other people's stuff, sometimes to the point of being kept up at night, losing my appetite and falling into depression.

Today I have had a few different urgent issues come to my attention and honestly they've already threatened to consume me with worry, fear and all sorts of internal dialog while I rehearse how I can "fix things".

So, today I'm asking for prayer. For me because in a little while I do have something to do. I've invited my younger brother over for a "chat" (confrontation). After feeling helpless this morning about a family situation that's growing in urgency (the details of that will have to wait) I prayed and without wording it asked God to show me what I could do. Right after I looked at my phone and realized my brother had texted me asking to come over. I replied that he could but he'd be having a talk with me, not coming over to play with his nieces and nephew. He agreed to come anyway.

Also pray for all these other prayer needs I've seen and heard. I don't want to give too many details to protect the privacy of family and friends, but if you could pray anyway I'd really appreciate it. These are people I love and lives that are desperately in need of God's loving grace.

So here I am, waiting for him. I know that I need to lay my own feelings aside, as well as my expectations of how this is going to go. I need to just let God show up here and do His thing. I know he's faithful and wants to rush in healing like a hurricane.

Lord help me.