Home from Texas

Actually not yet. We are on our way home from Texas now. It has been a long and difficult week, but I feel soooooo blessed to have been able to be with our hurting family during this time. We stayed a little longer than we had anticipated, but I'm so glad we did. It all felt like the RIGHT thing, and I pray that somehow it was a help. Please continue to pray for my aunt, my cousin, and my cousin's daughter. They will have a rough road ahead of them and will need to rely on the strength and grace of God to see them through.

We were able to visit with my Great-Uncle Hobert in the hospital in Abilene today. I'm sooooo glad we had that opportunity. He's always been my favorite and I was blessed by his faith and confidence in God and the "rest" I could feel in his soul. It's been a long week of heaviness--though God has certainly been good through it all--and it was just so refreshing to hear all of the good things he had to say. We stopped to visit and pray with him, but when we left I felt like I had been the one who was blessed and encouraged! Do pray for him. He's not a young man and is battling health issues.

So now we're on our way home. I'm thankful but I'm sad. I'm ready to be home, but it was very, very hard to leave today. God knows all things. He will work everything out for our good if we continue to be "the called" and obey Him.

I've been able to totally remove myself from thinking or worrying about all of the things to do back home while we've been away, but now that we're headed back I'm starting to feel the pressure. I was supposed to have done some transcribing for HQ this past week, so I'm already late on that. The deadline for the state paper was the 20th so I feel late on that, though I'm really not. Our goal is to have it finished, printed, mailed, and received by the 1st of the month and that's still very doable. I've actually worked on it for a few minutes at a time here and there over the past few days, so I'll have a little bit of a headstart when I get home. The biggest thing is the upcoming Ladies' Retreat. It's less than two weeks away and I feel sooooo unprepared. That's one of those things that I'm probably not supposed to admit publicly. Ha! Actually, I feel very much at peace over it--simply because I know that it's in God's hands. Even before this family situation arose I had been struggling to settle on some things with the Retreat and finally accepted the fact that God was going to do things a little bit differently this year and I probably wouldn't have all of the answers I wanted way ahead of time. I certainly expected to have them by now (!), but I know that God wasn't surprised or taken off guard by any of the things that have happened or by the timing. I will keep praying and trusting that God will bless and work His will in this Retreat in spite of it all. I would truly appreciate any additional prayers, however. The more the merrier. ;-)

We got a late start today and didn't make it far at all. We're in some suburb of Dallas, on the southeastern edge. We're hoping we're far enough out of town that we'll miss most of the morning traffic. According to Google we've got about 600 miles and 10 hours to go, so tomorrow won't be too bad. I think we figured that we will have spent 42+ hours in the van this past week by the time it's all said and done. In spite of the horrible reason for this trip, we have truly enjoyed the trip itself and seeing so many familiar things that are so sweet in our memories. We love West Texas and have nothing but fond memories of our years here. It's definitely been a hard and bitter trip, but God's been so good to sweeten it in so many ways. We are blessed beyond measure. No doubt about that.

Again, please keep our family in your prayers. They will need lots and lots of prayer in the coming weeks and months. And do pray for Ladies' Retreat. God surely has something very special in store for us there this year. I'm so ready for it. :-)