FIRST TRIP TO THE STORE

Wednesday last week after we finished up all our work at the house ( scraping down the outside of the house and then spakling it.) We all decided that a trip to the market would be cool. Little did I know it was not gonna be my fav thing to do but hey anything for some WiFi so I could contact my family and friends. So off to the market we went and literally as soon as we got out of the gate it was up hill straight away. For those of you who don’t know I messed my knee up playing basketball and my patella is no longer strong enough to hold it in place so yeah lol. Anyway we are going up for a little bit then everything is downhill and everyone is like oh my goodness this is so great but my brain started to work and I was like wait that just means that we have to walk back up all of this and suddenly that little part when we were going uphill wasn’t that bad anymore. We get to the market immediately everyone gets on their phones to call/text/talk to their family and friends. I got to call my momma and then let my friend use my phone to call her family. It was cool we had a good time bought some stuff. We were ready to rock and roll and walk everywhere. Then it suddenly hit me that we had to walk back up this ginormous mountain to get back to base. I was like you know what I think I’m gonna skip the trip around town and just head back there was already a group that was headed back to the house anyway so I was like yeah sorry guys I’m gonna go home. There was like nine of us in the group that was headed home. So the other ten stayed and walked around town and what not. We were walking home and it was immediately all uphill again. I questioned why in the world I offered him o take all these peoples stuff home because it started to get so so heavy my knee is now hurting so my hip is like over compensating for the weakness. I have this giant bag of stuff in my hand trying to lug it up this mountain. Everyone is asking if the can help me of course I say no. I’m a Stephens we don’t back down from a challenge. We serve others not the other way around. So here I am not even a quarter of the way there I’m exhausted I’m in pain and one of my team members comes over and just takes the bag out of my hand. Said to me Alex let me do this for you just for a little bit and honestly I was just too tired to say no so I let her have it and she carried it a good bit of the way for me. Of course I was pouting like. I’m not weak. I can do this myself. You know the good ole temper tantrum but like in my head because I was way too tired to actually pout lol then God showed me that this is what community is all about. When you are too tired mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually you have people that can come beside you and say hey I see you are struggling let me carry your burden just for a little bit and when you are strong enough I will give it back and we can work through it together. Like what!!! I’m telling y’all God is so so good he speaks to you if you listen. I was definitely praying the whole way back like Lord help me! He amazes me everyday though like how did he turn our trip to the supermarket into a lesson? Also the supermarket was only 1.4 miles away but it definitely took us 30 minutes each way lol anyway God is good and he can speak to you even through little trips to the supermarket. Thank you guys for continued prayers and thoughts love you all!