That Feeling in the Pit of Your Stomach

Have you ever woken up feeling sick to your stomach with sadness?  This has been happening to me a lot lately and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.  Most days the feeling goes away by noon.  You know, I remember this happening during very dark times in my life, but right now I really don’t know of anything in particular that is hurting me emotionally, spiritually, or physically.  Well, there is one thing, but I’ve just decided to live with that until the day I depart from this earth.  That certain something has been going on for many, many years and well, I just won’t go there…at least not now.

So anyway, I pulled out my iPad and went to one of the bible applications hoping that the word of God could help my heart to be free of this feeling of sadness.  To be truthful, reading God’s word usually does help me when I’m feeling like this.  I call it magic because to me it is magic.  This certain application pulls up a verse of the day and low and behold, this is what popped up, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour”.1 Peter 5:8. I’m glad I read this because it caused me to be on alert all day.  Had I not read this one verse, I might have been stuck in the “poor me” mode all day.  But instead, I shook off the sad feelings knowing that they weren’t from God.  I believe that overall sad feeling was a symptom of spiritual warfare.

As a matter of fact, quite a lot has been going on in my life that I believe is an attempt to derail my trip to Russia.  If you’re not a believer, this won’t make any sense, but if you are a believer it will…at least I think it will.

Recently, temptations have become more obvious in my life than they’ve been in a very long time.  One of my daughter’s entire life is falling apart before my eyes and there is nothing I can do about it.  What I mean is, I cannot help her with what’s happening and, to be honest, sometimes it feels better to be able to control things.  I know that the situation is in God’s hands and I’m okay with that, but what I’m not okay with is my role in all that is going on…because I don’t have one.  I’m of no use in this situation. 

I leave in six weeks on my 18-day trip to Russia and one of the things I’m thinking is, what else can happen between now and then to prevent me from going?  I’m not supposed to really think like this, but I am.

I need something from you.  I’ve asked before in different ways and I’ve gotten no overt response as of yet.  I need people to say they will pray for me during this time.  I really need prayer starting today.  Can you pray for me?  Will you pray for me from now until August 18^th?  If that is something you can do, will you drop me a note at cindiashbeck@gmail.com  I really hope to hear from you…all of you.