A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.—PROVERBS 11:25 (NIV)
Since my diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, I’ve tried to keep up with speaking engagements and other activities
critical to my self-esteem. My husband, Jean-Claude, does everything he can to encourage and support me in my
endeavors.
On the day of my presentation at a writers’ festival, my husband woke up early. He made coffee, prepared breakfast and lined up my medications for me. After I ate, he began preparing steamed vegetables to pack in a handheld cooler along with other food I could eat. He knows that hunger can increase my anxiety and wanted to have plenty of snacks available.
“Do you have emergency medication?” he asked, along with a checklist of other questions. Jean-Claude has learned from years of experience to anticipate all the things that can go wrong and plan for those things so we can avoid my needing to cancel at the last minute.
My events are successful with the help of my husband. I could not do these things by myself. I know how much effort he puts in to help me do what I love, and only God and I know how much work it is.
Please God, refresh and bless me in the ways that only you can. Please help me experience the peace that surpasses all understanding and your gift of joy.
So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.—Genesis 1:21 (NIV)
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.—Colossians 3:23 (ESV)
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.—Romans 12:2 (ESV)
