I am sitting at Bradley International Airport, waiting for a flight to Florida where I will speak about social media and health care advocacy. I am exhausted. Last week has been a long hard week, and the week ahead looks just as challenging.

As I scanned through Facebook, I found an old college friend was talking about a prayer campaign for his church in contrast to a capital campaign. It made me think of the verse from the Psalms,

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat--for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Sleep has been fleeting this past week, as I tried to balance work with my campaign for State Representative and caring for my family. My daughter Fiona started the week throwing up and having abdominal pains. She ended up the week with an appendectomy. It has been particularly hard on my wife Kim, and it has certainly added to my own stress.

I posted about it online and spoke with various friends, and the outpouring of support has been great. It brought another quote from Scripture to mind,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

It has been a great week to feel the support of that great cloud of witnesses, and for them to help me persevere. It seems hard to believe that just two weeks ago, we were relaxing on Cape Cod.

As I drove up to the airport, I listened to some radio show on NPR talking about how the environment that an animal lives in affects the brain of the animal. It made me stop and think about how my time on the Cape and my time at works affects my own brain functioning.

Right now, I'm mostly on overload. I'll rest on the flight, and sleep, as well as I can, at the hotel. It will be good to see friends at the conference, and hopefully, I'll find some time for more campaign writing.