Friday, May 29, 2009

A May to Forget

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging for a while. Well, there are a number of good reasons for that.

First and foremost are the 4 ER visits and 3 hospital stays my wife (and I) endured this month. We even had to resort to having my mother coming out from Arizona (God bless her) to help out for a week so I could actually go to work. You see, I had used up ALL my sick time taking care of her and the kids since January.

I have also been solely responsible for launch a huge project at work which called me to work 13-hour days - all while my wife was in enormous pain. We've had to call on friends to take shifts in watching the kids, picking up my oldest daughter from Kindergarten, bringing us food and just keeping our heads above water.

Our faith community has been a literal God-send. But that doesn't make the stress any less. It was during this time that we also decided to have our daughter go to a different Catholic school for the 1st Grade next year. It's much closer, but not a place we have been too involved in... and not a place where we have a community (yet).

Oh, and don't forget I'm also in the final weeks of planning the men's conference - and ticket sales have been WAY down.

I can barely bring myself to pray...and when I do, it seems to come out as simple begging for the stress and strain to stop. I just want it to end.

Why?

Because I have not spiritually armed myself well enough to handle such periods with grace and fortitude. I really thought that this was the time I was going to crack under the pressure and make a reservation in a little padded room.

There's other stuff too, but I won't go into it here.

The devil is trying to get me down. And he's done a pretty good job of it so far. I need help. We all need help.

My scripture reading and prayer time has vanished. I just want to sleep. I just want the kids to be quiet. I just want to go away.

But I know I have been called. And I cannot turn away. Because it was the Master who called His servant.

"Speak, O Lord. Your servant is listening."

Unfortunately, I'm too busy begging for it all to stop to listen.