It's a Sunday evening...

It's a Sunday evening and I sit here not really knowing what it is I'm going to write.  My mind and heart are stretched so many directions.  Life is never dull and that's a great thing!  It can be an overwhelming thing too and I'm so grateful for God's presence in my life through each day.

This past week was one of improvement in the health department.  Praise the Lord!  Tuesday I found out that all the blood tests came back fine/negative!  That was such a relief.  The remaining barium in my appendix should work itself out over time and my doctor said not to worry about.  Praise God, praise God, praise God!  The gut pain has been much less this week as well.  Praise God again!  There is still so much to figure out and so much of my future is very unknown.  But I am so grateful for each step towards getting this particular flare up under control.  It has been five long months.  Sleep continues to be a struggle.  I was hoping that as I lowered my daily Prednisone dosage it would get better but I'm still waiting for that to fully happen.  I'm down to ten milligrams a day and need to stay on that at least until my appointment with the specialist on March fifth (a week from tomorrow!).

I was able to go back to work on Monday and work my normal three-day work week.  Another praise God!  Monday was very long and I came home and collapsed in bed.  Tuesday (one of my days off) was spent in bed but Wednesday and Thursday I was able to go back to work and not feel like I was going to die.  So thankful for the strength God gives for each day.

God's been showing me that I need to take the time and money to make improvements to my diet.  It keeps coming up in conversation with people and He keeps bringing it to my mind and attention.  My dad was encouraging me earlier today to start juicing again, a habit I had for awhile and then stopped.  So within the week, I intend to start that.  (I can eat very few raw vegetables due to the fiber and "roughage" being way too much for the inflammation in my intestines.)  I'll also be making kefir again and trying to lower the amount of grain and gluten I consume.  A dear friend is making me good bone broth and I'll continue to drink that with coconut oil in it.  Aloe juice is another thing I'm hoping to add in soon as well.  Those who know me know what a struggle balancing my diet is for me.  It is truly something I can't do without God's help.  Look at my food page.  You'll understand what I mean.

The more time I spend in God's Word, in prayer, and in reading books written by those who follow Him, the more I want to spend each day in a way that counts.  I want to spend time each day getting to know Him better; getting to know His heart; being drowned in His presence, love, and grace.  When I'm sick, it's easy to just lay in bed and watch movies or browse the internet.  And that is fine in moderation; in fact, when the pain is super intense, a movie or TV show is perfect.  But in general, I don't want to "exchange" a day of my life for entertainment.  I don't want to "exchange" a day of my life for anything besides knowing, loving, and serving God more.  Is it a sin to watch TV shows all day? No.  Does it help me keep my heart in the right spot?  Not really. 

The future is on my mind a lot right now.  What's going to happen with my job after April?  How am I going to pay the medical bills?  Where does God want me to go?  What does He want me to do?  How does He want to use these health challenges for His glory?  What does He want me to do for long term treatment?  How can I help people with similar struggles?  What is He going to do with my doula certification?  How is He going to work in difficult relationships?  How am I going to handle the attacks from the devil, the doubts in my mind, the hurt in my heart?

It's okay to ask these questions, to have these wonderings.  But He's teaching me to not stress over them, to take one day at a time, trusting Him each and every step of the way.  There is tremendous peace, joy, and gratitude when I let Him take the wheel in each area of life; when I trust His directions even when they don't match my plans (which is pretty much all the time lately).  It's a continual, daily process.  If there's one thing God's shown me the past couple months, it's that I can make all the plans I want, but He will direct my steps.  And no matter how incredibly painful those steps may be, they're always better.  Always.

And because I'm continually looking for humor in life and I'm thinking about getting up for work tomorrow morning and I'm thinking about tiredness and insomnia and that I'm just not a morning person and that I hate getting out of bed and how I'm trying to work on this but that I also need to sleep when I can right now and that I'm trying to make this sentence ramble on as long as possible, here's something that cracks me up.  Have a great week!