Juxtaposition

Last night Maggie (our 2-year-old lab) was having some kind of problem with licking. She was licking herself... loudly. I woke up to the sounds of Maggie having some sort of amplified slurp-fest. Ewww. (I so need to change my pet peeve to dogs who lick themselves loud enough to wake me up.) Every time I would doze off, I would wake to the icky licking doggie. The final straw was waking to grouse at her the last time only to have the poor critter crate herself in response to my irritation. I decided to just give up on sleep. (Don said she quit the licking as soon as I got up.)
At 2:00 a.m. I found myself in the kitchen with a nice bowl of cocoa crunchies sugar-pop cereal. I checked e-mail and read a couple of the blogs I like to follow while listening to the Casting Crowns tunes I down-loaded largely due to Shelley Adler's ShelleyinPoland blog. As the songs she had referenced began to play through, I prayed for the long-term team in Poland, for the short-term team they will shortly be welcoming in early March, for resolution of our support issues, and several specific non-believers. I prayed through "Slow Fade" for Evan becuse it's where he's at this week. Despite yesterday's post and the circumstances of this week, my health was not on the prayer list last night other than in praise for the level of recovery that came yesterday afternoon following the prayer requests that went out. (THANK YOU!!!)
The first message to show up in my inbox this morning was from Shelley. She was responding to an e-mail I sent last night thanking a group of prayer-warriors who were a blessing yesterday as the worst of my symptoms just went away. "Oh Holly, that's wonderful news!! I didn't sleep well last night- I kept waking up and tossing and turning. So I spent a lot of that time praying for you. I guess God has his reasons for waking us up sometimes! May He get the glory! Thank you for sharing this with all of us." Amen, Sister!