Strength through Christ

Today was definitely one of those days where I am so incredibly happy to have God in my life. Being home by itself is fairly stressful. I am from New York City and get jumpy in crowds and around heights...the perfect New Yorker. Anyway, add to that the fact that my family and I don't usually get along well for longer than an average of four days....you certainly get a party. My family and I have different attitudes on a few things...and today my dad and I clashed on one of those. Sadly, he doesn't view it as a problem, so I will never mention it to him...but coming on the heels of a bad week, it was really poor timing. Basically the major problem was that I am bringing my beloved guinea pig back to Ames with me tomorrow. That is partially annoying since it costs as much to fly him to IA as it does me. However, the airline also says that his cage is to big for him to travel in. So, I bought him a carry case. Next I had to figure out how to get his cage to IA. My mom had told me she had a box big enough for it...not true, which isn't too bad except for the fact that I had a perfectly fine box in IA that would have been simple enough to bring back. So, instead I spend all morning chopping up different size boxes, my toe, and my hands to create a make shift box. Of course at this point my inbred incompitence rears its ugly head and the box ends up looking like...um...I have no idea how to describe it. So my dad shows up two hours ahead of schedule...the box is ready, but the cage is not clean yet, and expects me to put away the groceries and bring the boxes down. I tell him to cool it, by body decides it's under enough stress and goes into massive hot flash attacks, which it does on average three times a week in New York. I manage to get done it decent time and get the boxes downstairs and loaded in his car. We drive to the post office, I unload the huge box, plus a book box. End up paying $84 to send the boxes since of course the cage is oversized. All in all it would have been a lot cheaper and a lot easier to check the cage on the airplane, but now I realize hindsight is 20-20. So I came home, read a passage in the OneYear, talked to God a bit, and feel a lot calmer now. I am so thankful that God is always available to be my rock. I need His strength so much...particularly now, but in general. He is always there for me...there is one human who so far has done the same, but I feel certain that will end soon. After days like today I appreciate God so much more. I really encourage you to try talking to Him if you haven't before. Comparing my mood now to how it would be under my own power, I can't understand why anyone would try and go it on their own. I don't know if you can pray online...but God, I really pray that you would be with whomever is reading this. Lord, help them through their trials. Father, speak to their hearts, help them to desire to know You.