The plates all fall!

I listened to this talk in the middle of the night on KBYU Sunday night called "Weaknesses can become Strengths". It wasn't what you are thinking, the guy didn't say God will change you and take away your weaknesses. He said that our weaknesses are spiritual gifts from God to help us stay close to him and rely on him. He quoted Paul in the New Testament saying how he "intreated the Lord thrice" to take his away, and it wasn't taken away. Then this guy shared his own personal failing and how it could get in the way of his church service, job, etc. He said he kept asking to have it taken away (it was a paralyzing fear of looking foolish). It wasn't taken away. BUT, he said, when he asked, and relied on God's help, the power of God always overcame it when it needed to be overcome. What struck me, is he was very clear on what was him, and what was the Lord, and grateful for the help when it came. At the time I was trying to self evaluate, and see what my weaknesses were, and came up with plenty (lack of patience --especially with Ari and her schoolwork, anger/irritability etc. etc.) but wasn't sure if one was a "God -given weakness" in the sense this guy was talking about. Maybe the obvious one has already occurred to you since I said "watching in the middle of the night", but it took me two days and a second almost completely sleepness night to see "Duh" the GRAVES.
I've got hyperthyroidism --or Graves disease. It seems like whenever I'm feeling really powerful, and take on all these extra projects, the stress kicks my Graves disease out of control again. Symptoms include a high resting heart rate (like sometimes 90-100 beats per minute --and can lead to fibrillation and death), insomnia, shaking hands, absentmindedness, anxiety (panic attacks), muscle deterioration (that's the weight loss you may have heard of), itching skin, diarrhea, the list goes on and on for many people, but those are my main ones. So yeah. Feeling pretty good about all my "look at me now" stuff, and I fall apart.
I slept about 3 hours last night, and when I did had a horrible nightmare that vampires were chasing me (yeah, thanks Stephanie Meyer) and I couldn't get away. We were in a church building, and I kept trying to run for an exit, and couldn't get to it fast enough (read in here stress about church callings), and because of that, the vampires were killing children including MY children (see my stress about being a crappy parent). I just kept thinking if I could run FASTER, it would all be OK. Some strong man (I think it was Jeff, but I didn't look, I was running too fast) took my arm to help me run faster, and I was so grateful, but then I looked to the side, and vampires were passing us. It still wasn't fast enough (read in here my husbands great support which sometimes is powerless in the face of my ridiculous expectations for myself). OK then? The whole time I'm running, I'm talking to someone about a catering job, and assuring them I could do it. I'm not making that up. I was a little worried about staying in the building for it with all the possible consequences, but I was STILL GOING TO DO IT.
I woke up about 6:30 and couldn't sleep anymore. Good solid 3 hours. I teach a Tae Bo class at 9:15. I totally broke down on poor Jeff, who took the day off work to keep me in bed. I'm sneaking now to write to you guys (he left the house to meet with this condo guy) because self expression is good right? Plus, maybe it will help me to remember not to do this to myself again. Right. Sure. But hey you know what? I prayed pretty hard, and I still taught my class which went really well. I know that was a gift from God. When I'm Gravy I can't remember what I want to do in a class, and I'm out of breath the whole time (heart rate issues). The exercise was good for stress relief too. I was getting pretty bad before the last catering job also, and everything went really smoothly. Contrasting that with a job I did last summer when I was so absentminded Audrey had to talk me through the set-up to get it out there, and I think I'm learning to rely on the Lord a little better. I've probably scared off anyone who thought they were going to read my blog regularly though. I've got some good garden pictures for tomorrow......

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