Today, as I prepared to attend this event, my emotions got the best of me! I had to phone my friend Cassie! For one, y’all, I got to put something on my schedule!! That was insanely exciting! Secondly, I knew I was going to see lots of my friends (6 feet a part!) AND get to worship and pray with them over the hospital staff and patients!!

This past Sunday during our online service, pastor Russ, spoke about how when Paul was in prison he was STILL praising his Savior! He was in the worst place ever and had a death sentence on his head. Yet, Paul CHOSE not to be anxious but pray, sharing how thankful he was to the Lord. Paul tells us in Philippians 4:4,

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.”

Is that speaking to you right now in this moment of time? We have a choice! We can choose to be miserable where we are OR we can choose to praise God even in this storm, finding whatever is lovely and PRAISE Him and THANK Him for it!

This is hard! Yes, it is. But, Paul did it and he was in a much worse place than we are. We can do this y’all!

CONFESSION TIME: Even tonight I found myself grumbling about the number of people that showed up to pray over the hospital. My focus was on the negative. Thankfully a friend of mine shared something so exciting. She texted me to let me know, during our prayer and worship night, her and her husband prayed TOGETHER. That was something very exciting for them to experience together! I know her heart was filled with so much joy! Also, I got to see so many of my friends, one of which was having a really bad day. With tears in our eyes she was able to share some of her burdens, giving us the opportunity to carry some of the weight for her! If we wouldn’t have met tonight, NONE of this would have happened!! And, we don’t even know what was happening inside that hospital! I have no doubt God was doing something even more magnificent.

I’m so thankful my gracious Father intervened and redirected my thoughts. I then asked for His forgiveness, CHOSE to see the joy and praise HIM for it - all of it!! He is so good and He is moving even when we don’t see His good works right away.

Let’s choose joy!