A Normal Post!

So I thought I would take this morning and write a normal post to talk about all the craziness that's been going on.

First, I hope you're all enjoying the Christmas posts and that they're proving to be useful for you all.  Remember that if you really want to show me some love, you can buy from the Amazon links provided in the posts and I'll get a small commission.  It doesn't cost you anything extra, Amazon just cuts me in to say thanks for the advertising.

So it's been a wild week full of ups and downs.  Last Friday I entered Garrett into a radio contest to win two tickets to a worship conference in Mobile.  I got a call late Saturday that we had won.  So on Monday and Tuesday Garrett and I were in Mobile soaking up all kinds of good information on how to better lead worship and tips and tricks for worship bands and all kinds of good stuff.  Probably better than all the information though is that we spent a lot of time in worship.  By the time Tuesday was done, I felt more full spiritually than I have in a long time.  It was really a great blessing to be able to get away from everything and be able to focus on the Lord and just be able to worship for two solid days.

That's not to say that the devil didn't try to interrupt.  I think I got more email in those two days than I have in the last month.  On Monday I told myself I was going to only check my BlackBerry if it was an actual phone call or just in between sessions.  On Tuesday though, Satan upped the ante.  My Mom called early Tuesday morning to say that my step-father, Sid, had had a stroke during the night.  He was in ICU and at the time they didn't know much.  My first thought was to leave Mobile and the conference and head to Montgomery.  At the end of her message though, Mom asked for prayer.  I figured if she was asking for prayer, what better place to pray than at a worship conference surrounded by God's people lifting up praise.  So we stayed and went to the second day and I prayed.  A lot.

Sid's doing better.  We came home from the conference Tuesday and after talking with Mom, we decided that we would work Wednesday and then since DeAnne was off on Thursday for Veteran's Day, we would go Thursday and see Mom and Sid.  So yesterday we headed up to Montgomery and in the end it proved to be the perfect time for us to go.  I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago that my Mom's house had flooded while they were gone on vacation.  They're still not done with the work so they had just gotten an apartment for a month when Sid had his stroke.  Unfortunately, it was on the third floor of the complex.  Mom called the manager and found out that a ground floor apartment had just opened up so yesterday she was set to move their stuff down to the new apartment.  So it worked out that we were able to help her move and it went pretty quick.

As for Sid, he was moved out of ICU and to a regular room yesterday.  He's beginning to get a little more feeling and movement back in his right side which was the side that was affected.  So that's a good sign.  He's been approved for rehab so when they release him from the hospital, he's going to be going to HealthSouth for a month.  I haven't talked to Mom this morning, but yesterday they were talking like they might be able to get him out of the hospital as early as tomorrow.

So that's been the crazy kind of week I've had.  To top it all off, while we were on our way to Montgomery yesterday, DeAnne got a speeding ticket in Georgiana.  We're not even sure how it happened but I think we just drew the short straw since there were a couple of vehicles in front and behind us and we were all going about the same speed.

I've sent messages to a lot of people asking for prayer for Sid.  If I missed you or you haven't heard from someone else already, I'm sorry.  Continue to pray for him and my Mom.  Hopefully, Sid will make a full recovery and in a month they'll be back in their house and have things back to the way they were.

We've got Liam this weekend!  We're going to pick him up tonight, so that'll be pretty much our weekend.  Hope you have a good one.

--Paul