Praising God.....

At church on Sunday, Lazarus, who was speaking to us from Acts gave us all a challenge. A challenge to always praise God, no matter what.......he asked us to stand if we wanted our world turned upside down this week just so we could praise God because "in all things God works for the good of those who love Him" (Romans 8:28). So up I stood and we were prayed for, then Lazarus told us to think about a bullfight - the target for the bull is a red flag, but this really is just a distraction, the real target is the matador waving the red flag, so he asked us all to be aware of not getting distracted by red flags. Never did I think I would be tested so quickly, by that evening my sister had phoned to say my nan (she's nearly 91) wasn't very well and although my sister had put her to bed, she wanted me to go to my nans first thing in the morning.......my sister was quite upset and was worried that my nan didn't have long left (none of the rest of my family are christians).......as we came to the end of the conversation, her mobile started ringing and she went to take the call.........she called my back after a few minutes to say that my nan had got out of bed and had a fall, an ambulance was on it's way and she was going over to help my grandad.........I told her I'd meet her there and shot out of the door.........in the car I started to pray, then Lazarus's words came back to me and I stopped asking for help and praised God, I praised Him virtually all the way there and I felt so much better and just knew everything would be ok.......after a few minutes I started worrying about silly things like, do I get my daughter home from her skiing trip, do I cancel my flight to Vegas next week, do I send my husband & daughter to Vegas and follow on later, etc., then I realised this was my red flag........this was just trying to distract me and I wouldn't let it.......keep my focus on God and forget what isn't important..........to cut a long story short, it was a blessing that nan had had a fall - she was hypoglycemic - which none of us realised and the paramedic said she would have probably slipped into a coma within a couple of hours..........she has a chest infection and needs a pacemaker and is staying in hospital for a few weeks, but is nowhere near as bad as we all first feared.............Praise God, for giving me another opportunity to be a witness to my family, they all look to me to take their lead.............should they panic, should they be calm.........I'm so glad that I can shine God's light into their lives, they may not realise it's there some of the time, but they will look for it more and more and more.