Recently I’ve been praying for courage to get out of my comfort zone and for a way to prepare myself for trying so many new things while on this mission trip. As always, God delivered answers in a unique way.
First, I am suddenly able to take pills. Anyone that knows me at all has seen me crush pills and attempt not to gag as I swallow them down in some sort of flavored beverage. A few weeks ago I needed an acid reducer and my mom suggested I try hers. The problem is hers in time released. You can’t crush time release pills because well that defeats the purpose. I decided to try and get it down. I figured worst case scenario I end up taking my own. It went down with the first sip of my drink. I surprised even myself. The next day I had a headache so I tried it again, this time with Tylenol and again no trouble at all. It may seem like a very small thing but it means I can cut the weight of my pack by quite a bit because I no longer have to buy a year’s supply of gummy vitamins.
Secondly, my prayer for courage put me in some high stress scenarios that I’m sorry to say I did not handle well. I was sick the day before and then I was put in charge of things at work that I’ve never been in charge of before nor have I been trained to be in charge of ever. I handled it to the best of my ability at the time but the fear of failure terrified me and I stressed out over it for nearly 3 full days after wondering what I forgot and messed up. That put me in a terrible mood that I took out on everyone around me. They are all fantastic people for putting up with me while I snapped at them over every little thing. During this time I was also given a stressfully long workday that added to my sleep deprivation, which then added to my bad mood which added to how badly I treated everyone around me. Normally, when I start to feel stressed, I can hold it in enough to at least not take it out on my co-workers. It took a long drive, for work related things, on day 4 to finally calm me back down. Once I was back at work I thanked everyone I could for putting up with the last few days and told them how great they were, because they really were fantastic. I realized just today that what happened at work was most likely God’s test of my courage and ability to step up. I may have failed this one but I’m praying next time I’ll be up to the challenge.
I hope you are praying with me too. Just a couple minutes each day, can make a huge difference for me and the other people going with me on this trip. You all are my support team. I cannot do this alone.
