God answers prayer

OK. So have you ever heard those stories where somebody is woken up in the middle of the night to pray for somebody else, and then found out, later, that God intervened at that exact moment in time? Well, I've been a little bit down, this month. July was absolutely incredible. I celebrated my second anniversary of coming to Paraguay, entered into my last year, here, on the field, hosted an amazing group from St. Mark, with Carol coming a week earlier and my mom and sister staying a week later, spent a wonderful week at a Spiritual Life Conference with the other missionaries, enjoyed (and stressed out over) a really successful "English Night" with my students at the school, and celebrated my 28th birthday. I think that's about all. August hasn't been quite so hot, for no circumstantial reasons at all. I think July was just so exciting that I crashed like an overstimulated baby. Besides going into the month on an emotional high, I started applying for grad school and setting ministry goals for these remaining months, here, so I think I became a little overwhelmed by the changes that are coming. Instead of trusting in the Lord's love and goodness, I'd spend a few days really struggling to get my thoughts under control and not spiral into a self-centered and faithless "the world is resting on Alyssa's shoulders and she's bound to screw it all up and who knows? maybe she's not even a Christian" realm of fear. I would try to take my thoughts captive, it was just taking a lot of effort. And when I say "crashed" let me clarify before you're tempted to send down a rescue squad- most people knew nothing about my quazi-crash. It wasn't obvious to others, but totally in my head. And it wasn't constant- just maybe 2 days/ week. Nothing serious, just discouraging.

Anyway, yesterday I admitted to my mom my frustration, and I knew she'd meant it when she promised to pray for me. Then this morning I forced myself to go on a 6 mile walk/run before church. One thing I've found is that when I'm spiraling into this kind of discouragement I've got to take care of my body. The physical and spiritual are SO closely linked! As a thinker, it's so much more natural to spend an extra hour in Bible study or prayer than to get my bootie out the door for a run. But the run is exactly what our brain chemistry needs to pull out of these tailspins. If anybody reading this is in a funk, as I like to call it, take care of your body! And this advice is not coming to you from a skinny "I love sports" exercize queen! I'm the poster child for "if I can do it anybody can do it." Get moving! Also, during my run I listened to worship music and forced myself to focus on God's goodness instead of my own limitations (again, not totally natural). Good move number two. Then church was just great. You can read about it in my other blog: http://www.paraguaydailyreflections.blogspot.com/.

But after church I discovered something that made the morning even more amazing (as if it could get any better). We took communion sometime between 10:30 and 11. Probably around 10:45, we were singing, and though I can't explain it, I knew that I was redeemed and loved by God, and that was all that mattered. God loved me. It wasn't anything crazy. It wasn't a huge aha. It was just a peace. It was as if something touched my forehead and said, "Be Still. You are loved." And somehow, I knew that it was true. This afternoon, I called my mom to tell her about all of the people who came to church, this morning, and at one point she mentioned that their Sunday School class had prayed that God would encourage my heart, this morning. Her best guess is that they were praying for me around 10:45.