Thanks

Thanks for your prayers and encouraging words on the restless nights.  What great friends!  Things are a little better – thanks to Tylenol PM, some conversations and some extra work time.   I’m resorting temporarily to drugs for help.  I can just take so many sleepless nights until lack of rest makes me unable to function.  I also was able to work late Friday night and spent several hours at the office today which has helped.  I am very overwhelmed right now at work and this weekend I was able to chip away at some of the bigger things while no one was around.  I need the time without distractions to work on some things.  I have a lot with the children’s ministry that is coming up along with another sermon to prepare for next Sunday and a wedding message to write.   I can smell the changing of the church seasons and I’m a little leery.  With the end of summer comes the craziness of the regular church routine and I have so much to do before that happens.  So –  just a lot of things that are on my mind when my head hits the pillow at night.  Sorry to be whiney again.  I do love my ministry and working in the church for the most part.  There are some things I truly dislike about it and always have – like the lose of privacy and anonymity. In fact, the thing that I cried about the most before finally surrending to the ministry was this very thing. I’m a private person and need to have some areas of my life off-limits and protected from the public. People mean well for the most part (a few are just busy-bodies) but church family can suffocate without realizing it.  I try to explain that to people but it is hard to understand sometimes unless you personally experience it.  It is a fishbowl life and some days I hate it enough that I’m tempted to quit and run away to where people don’t know me or care what I do or where I go or who I date.  But most days I love the ministry more than I hate the loss of privacy and I recognize that the same people that meddle with good intentions are the same people who would help me in a heartbeat (and have).  I guess church families aren’t really too different from a lot of biological families, are they? 

My aunt and uncle from Tennesse will be in this coming week to visit and to take care of some family things. I see them maybe once a year so it will be good to visit with them.  They will be meeting Blake for the first time so I know that will thrill them to no end.  Who wouldn’t be thrilled to meet my handsome and charming nephew.