All About Attitude

As some of you know we had quite a busy week last week. My parents were visiting from Sunday - Tuesday afternoon and then Matt's parents came Tuesday evening until Friday morning. A couple of things I must say first. 1. This was the first time Matt's parents met their granddaughter, Alyssum (they currently live in Kansas). 2. We love our parents very much and have amazing relationships all around...me with his parents, him with mine, and even my parents with his parents! We all love the Lord and His presence is evident through these relationships. We always feel super blessed when we think about this, especially after hearing horror stories from friends regarding in-law relationships and even more so when grandkids are involved.

So on that note, this must have seemed like a wonderful opportunity for the enemy to come in and try and ruin what potentially could have been an awesome week to bring glory to the Lord. And I must say he was relentless. He knew obvious, outright tactics would be easily shielded or fought off so he had to go another route; an underlying route. So what better way than to attack me in my sleep. He would attack me as I drifted off to sleep. He would attack me in my dreams. He would attack me right before I woke up for the day. And knowing how God speaks to me through dreams, he knew to keep these attacks camouflaged through feelings. They seemed more like suggestions of feelings so when I would wake up in the morning my whole attitude was already negative, bitter, sour, doubtful, untrusting of others, etc... And because I was the hostess and the primary caregiver to their precious granddaughter, he knew that if he could take me down, even just a little, then he could do a lot more damage.

Well, I was just taking the punches at first. But then after the third or fourth day of this, the pattern started to emerge. The Lord opened my eyes to what was going on and then gave me the strength, through His Word and singing praises to Him while in the shower, to defend against him. Praise God for it! He changed my attitude to align with His. So although it was busy, we all had the best week! It could not have gone any better. Alyssum loved all of her grandparents and was on cloud nine all week long. Also, I had some of the best conversations with both of our parents. We were encouraged by them and I believe they were encouraged by us.

Thank you Lord for protecting us and giving us your grace and strength to get through!