God to the Rescue!

It has been a very trying week since my main aide went on vacation.  Prayers were answered in that I have decent replacement help.  My weekday evening aide is doing shortened weekdays plus his evenings.  Last weekend was covered by an aide we employed 7 years ago for a short period; he turned out to be very strong in lifting up Vince and moving him around.

But the weekend was very difficult for many reasons:  lots of things were going wrong which didn't need to go wrong (like our stairlift being temperamental and needing me to tweak it constantly—it knew there was a different aide there, I guess).  Plus, I only had help till 4:00, and then did evenings on my own with Vince staying in bed.  It's always hard learning to work with someone new, and lots of extra work.  I was surprised that the weekend aide said he'd come back for two more weekends; when he left I was crying—not because of him, but because I was exhausted from the weekend's trials, and the stairlift on the way back up was the proverbial "breaking straw."

I sat down and prayed the half of a Rosary that I had the strength to pray; then I was up and on my way again.

This morning was the really cool miracle.  I am giving Vince bed baths every morning, because only our regular (vacationing) aide can get him in the shower without my involvement and without aggravating me.  So as hard as it sounds to wash all of Vince's body parts while he's lying in bed, it really is the better alternative for me.  And I feel so good when he's all cleaned up! By the time I finished most of the morning routine before the aide's arrival at 9:30, I was just totally wiped out.  Not the first time I felt like that, but I never know how long it will take me to recover.  I stood in front of my statue of Virgin Mary in the family room and recited the Angelus prayer that I do every morning, asking Mother Mary to pray for my strength and perseverance.  I could barely speak or move; everything seemed so dark and exhausting, and I was just looking for that little sliver of light that is always there—God's light.

I very slowly got my coffee and got back upstairs, and sat down with Vince to read aloud the morning prayers from the Magnificat prayerbook; every day the prayers and Scripture readings are different, and so often do they speak to me!  The first Bible verse this morning was the well-known John 3:16:  "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life."  When I read the words "eternal life," I burst out crying and said, "I don't want eternal life; life is too hard!"  Of course, not the right thing to say, but the crying cleansed and comforted me, as it often does when God manages to turn my stress to calming tears.

Then came Ps. 5: "To my words give ear, O Lord, / give heed to my groaning. / Attend to the sound of my cries, / my King and my God. / It is you whom I invoke, O Lord. / In the morning you hear me; / in the morning I offer you my prayer, / watching and waiting."  God was really hearing my pain and speaking words of comfort.  With all He has to do, He is always there for me.  I felt completely refreshed by then, which was a good thing, because there were many more trials to overcome, just before breakfast!  But I had the strength and the perseverance and have lived to write about it:)  These are the occasions which build my faith to the point that I always know God will come to the rescue . . . in His perfect timing.