Burdened.

Tonight I feel burdened with the need to pray. So much has been going on in my own life and in the lives of those around me...it just breaks my heart to see the pain and suffering some of them have to go through.

Recently, my cousin and his wife suffered through their first miscarriage. I was slightly surprised at how much emotion it dredged up in me. Although I was slightly jealous of them for being pregnant with the first great-grandchild in the family, I would never ever wish a miscarriage on them. I wept when I found out....

Then, just a week ago, another dear friend of mine went through a miscarriage -- only 5 months after delivering a daughter still-born. Again...my heart felt like it was being wrenched out of my chest. I could do nothing but grieve and pray with and for them...

Youth group has been wearing on me emotionally as well. There have been several fights between some of the girls -- over very petty, superficial things. Things that they should know better than to fight about. I've had to have difficult discussions with some of them. I've been the big bad mean youth leader and had to enforce the rules. I've heard some horrible background stories from some of their lives. I've needed to be informed about awkward and shocking scenarios that happened in a Christian setting. Ugh. I wish I could just ground them all until they are ready to behave! But I can't. I can just pray.

There's been a cancer scare with one of my close friends. Tests will be happening soon to find out more information. It's unnerving...

I have a terribly irritating co-worker who I have to pray about constantly when I work with her. So that I don't yell. Or lock her in the vault at the bank. Or worse...

Baby Stellan, who I've mentioned before here, is going through some awful SVT times again. I can't imagine the struggle this must be for their family...

The Lord has really been impressing on me the importance of loving others -- truly loving them as Christ does. And, as it usually happens when the Lord convicts you of something, He has been showing me every way I have been failing in this area. Depressing. Discouraging.

My husband is laid off from his job, and has been since the beginning of May. There seems to be less and less of a chance of his company hiring him back at the end of the summer like we had originally hoped.

And, as always, my womb and my arms are empty. The ache of losing Hopie never goes away...and the wound is reopened every time another sweet friend gets pregnant or I start my cycle again. I'm still happy for them. It's just....hard.

However, as we've been studying in our Bible study recently, struggles are to be expected when you're a soldier for the Lord. I Peter 4:12 says:

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation."

And we are not without hope. All our hope is in the Lord. And He willingly carries all of our burdens, no matter how trivial or small. He alone can be trusted with them.

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh...Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

2 Corinthians 4:7-11, 16-18