Current State: Emotional Wreck

the month of April flew by and i did not post. shame on me. but nobody seems to be commenting (reading?) these days anyway. i think everybody's facebooking.

anyway... back to the topic.

amy feels like an emotional wreck lately -- like she's going through extreme ups & downs much much much too much.
you know, i was talking to a pastor yesterday and he said to me, "Sometimes in ministry, when things are going really
really well, you start to worry because you know it's almost too good to stay that way." I think it's so true.

we've enjoyed such an awesome, God-filled mission in so many ways this tour. In so many ways, this unit was such an ideal
unit for me. And then something happened. My focus got off. My emotional wants and needs started to take a huge priority.
and i was left feeling so frustrated, so fragile, so unhappy. i was seeing division happening in little ways on a daily basis.
unit life was not so perfect after all. because i am so imperfect and i have so many issues that never seem to end.

sunday was such a great day for us. we had an incredibly powerful playdate at a very alive Baptist church in Katowice, Poland
with a very alive Pastor (Dan Hash) who was so supportive of us and of our ministry. It was an incredible victory for us, too,
as God helped us get these huge, intense, Polish plays together for three evangelistic programs. i should have been really
happy at the end of the day... and then it hit. something snapped in me, triggered by the smallest of things. a small hurt became a huge hurt and i was in such an overwhelmingly dark place.

i made peace w/God and the next morning we had an incredible devotional time. at least it was for me. God had alot to say
to me and i felt new hope and encouragement. but then something happened again. and i can't even pinpoint exactly what
this time. i just got so upset and frustrated and i snapped at Rae for something little and i actually let out a cuss word --
which completely shocked her because in her two missions of touring with me, never has she ever heard that come out of
my mouth. and it's like once that came out, something flipped in me and i was a horrible horrible person. i felt so out of
control and i just felt like "where did Amy go? where did the good Amy go? because i really don't like this one."

the last few weeks have been so hard for me. i've made life pretty difficult for my unit. i told leo he had every reason to not
want to come back with me next tour. and i told them i realize i've been very hard to live with these last few weeks and not to tell me differently because i know it's true. it's very difficult to explain. i just know that i need to pulled out of this spiritual mire. and it needs to be lasting. i can't handle these extremes. we had such an intensely intimate spiritual retreat with the Lord a week a go and since then, i've been left so vulnerable and susceptible.

so yesterday i was bawling in the car while they were at the post office and they just started the car right back up when they
returned and i yelled "Stop! Can't you see I need prayer?!?" I guess if I could have one thing more on this unit it would be
prayer from my unit members as their unit leader. i really spilled all my weakness out and said "i am not in a good place right
now. i need you to be a lifeline to me. i cannot pray myself out of this one." i really believe that when Paul wrote about
"Praying for all the saints on all occasions" he purposefully wrote it in the section on the Spiritual Armor of God because we
need each other so much in this spiritual fight. when a soldier is injured, he needs other soldiers there to minister to him. he
can't just pick himself back up if he's injured seriously. the worse the attack, the harder the blow. the harder the blow, the
harder it is to get up. the harder it is to get up, the more he needs the help of others.

i realize i'm out on the front lines. i realize i'm very sensitive and susceptible to spiritual attack of all kinds. so i guess i'm
asking all the saints for prayers.