Sleepy's House

I chose this name in honor of Kelley who calls bedtime "going to Sleepy's House".  Last Tuesday morning at 8:26 I followed her into her room and kicked off my slippers and lay down on the her bedroom floor as she crawled back into bed. We stayed like that in silent disbelief for a moment until I began laughing like a crazy person at the irony of the preceeding events.

Sunday - I'll begin here. It was the last day for students to sign up to go to our National Conference (SEEK) in Orlando in January. This is a place where students can meet thousands of other Catholic students from around the country and learn about why we believe what we do, and be built up in the faith - all of them will be given an opportunity to encounter the person of Jesus Christ and the hand of God in their life. This is the day that we had about 15 more students finally sign up to go! One of these is a new friend of mine who hasn't been baptized and could count on one hand the number of times she's been in a church. I'm soooo excited she's coming!

On Monday, to celebrate registration closing, we went to dinner in Denver at our regional director's home. They cooked for us, let us play with their little boy, invited us to pray with the family after dinner, and PLAY MAFIA! This is a card game simulating a town. The "mafia" kill people and the townspeople have to try to figure out who they are before they kill the whole town. Hm - writing it down like that makes it sound kind of cruel and not holy... I promise it is a fun, not-awful game. He talked us into staying late and gave us permission to take the next morning off. We played until midnight and finally were home in bed about 1:30am. We NEVER move prayer - usually at 9 - and this was a big deal. like really. It felt weird, but nice, to not set an alarm.

These past two days have been soooo good!

Tuesday morning. Not quite 8. and there is pounding on the door. I'm the only one who can here it since my room is closest. I roll over, still half asleep and it stops. Once again, pounding. At this point, I'm a little annoyed wondering who could be so desperate to get in the chapel so early that doesn't know the code to the door?? In my annoyance I firmly decide not to answer it. Pounding - for the third time. At this point I angrily jump out of bed to peer out my window and see who it is: a group of middleaged men I've never seen before. I throw on my robe and try to blink my contacts back to normal while I answer the door. SURPRISE! The roofers are here to do our roof. They need us to move all of our cars. I wake up my roommates and step into my slippers before heading out to put my car on the street. Then I realize we live on campus. 8 am class had started now. There is nowhere to park. I finally find a place a few blocks down and walk back down the busy street to my house in my pajamas. While I'm still a couple houses away, another group of guys that arrived later scrambled up onto the roof. One had the nerve to whistle at me! I would have liked to see his face when he realized it was MY roof he was on.

Then, 8:26... staring at the ceiling in Kelley's room... and the pounding on our roof began.

I'd like to inform you that Kelley and I haven't been sleeping well for the last couple months as it is. I think it's a mini attack from satan. When we don't sleep well we are tired and more crabby and have headaches and are less charitable with those around us and less able to focus on our mission.

ie This morning's surprise awakening and pounding became a moment of unleashing over a month of pent-up anger and lack of virtue. I was so mad.

All week, little things kept going wrong and making things worse and worse. It was like I was stuck in this anger and couldn't let it go. The girls in my bible study a week later were also stressed with final tests and projects. We decided to do something called deliverance prayer. This is a form of prayer that has five key points:
1. repentence
2. forgiveness
3. renouncing spirits by name
4. taking authority in the name of Jesus
5. receiving the Father's blessing

In our baptism, we receive the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus Christ, can name spirits influencing us and cast them away from us to bind themselves to the foot of the cross. I wouldn't recommend doing this on your own until you've done it with someone who knows what they are doing. We were taught this at training this summer and so I led the group in this type of prayer for bible study. Afterward, we all felt lighter and joyful and peaceful...

AND I was able to sleep well for the first time in a long while!! Yay!
(That's right - Behind me, satan!)