Encouraged

Have you ever had one of those Sundays where you went to church and God totally met you there, addressing so much of what you have been dealing with the previous week?  Well, that was my Sunday.  I came away from church sooooo encouraged!  Last week Pastor Doug talked about shooting up one word prayers.  My one word prayer was for encouragement.  Before I even put it in as a prayer request it was answered.  The first one was actually pretty funny.  We have the sweetest man in our church, he is mentally challenged (not sure the politically correct way to express this).  He gets there when the doors open, usually with his bowling score from Saturday in hand.  He always has a smile on his face and helps out in whatever way he can.  I came into church late and chose a seat in the back next to a woman named Kathie.  She showed me a bracelet on her arm and said that the man I just mentioned had given it to her.  It was one of those plastic bracelets and it was black and in pink said "Prayers for Tiffany" and then Jeremiah 29:11.  She said, "now I will remember to be praying for you."  I will be honest here, my first thought, warped though it was, was "Oh no, God is going to take one of my kids or my husband or something awful is going to happen and He's preparing me.  I will look back and remember that bracelet and know that He was taking care of me, etc. etc. etc."  I know I must totally stress God out if that is possible because this is always my thought when someone tells me they are praying for me.  As I was calming my ridiculous fears I decided to look up the verse Jeremiah 29:11.  I knew the gist of it but wanted to read it.  It was just what I needed to hear.  "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."  The "thoughts of peace" got me because I have not been feeling very peaceful.  This was God's special message and reminder for me.  I felt so loved that he would send me personally such encouragement.  Then the message really hit right at home about what I had just blogged about this week, being real and being a broken vessel.  I'm more of a cracked pot I think but you get the idea.  Then to top it off, after church one of the women sought me out to tell me how much one of my daughters has blessed her.  This was something I really needed to hear as well.  I've been pretty hard on my kids this week and myself for their behavior.  They really aren't so bad but they aren't perfect like I want them to be.  This is silly because I am far from perfect 


but my 
expectations are pretty high for them.  Thank you to my God for dealing with me so personally this week!