Ahhhhhh!

Can I just cry for a moment here? Scream maybe? Throw a little mini-pity party?

No, I'm not losing it, I'm just stressed beyond belief. Some of you may have noticed that while my site did get a teeny tiny update to the template recently, I haven't been very on the ball with updating the rest of the site. I've been sick. Not just the kind of sick that you get over in a week or so, but the kind that you have to go to specialists for.

And it seems like every time I manage to get back up on my feet, something weird happens to complicate matters worse! For instance, in the past two months I have had mastitis twice, I have had three colds (working on a fourth now), seven migraines that had me bed-ridden for at least a day each, and I'm just now getting over a case of food poisoning that was so bad I actually passed out last night!

Combine that with the fact that I'm still dealing with a serious concern about my liver (the thing I have to go to the specialist for) and you have a pretty good recipe for disaster. I've spent more of the past two months in bed than I have in my computer chair (or anywhere else for that matter).

I wish that was the least of my problems, but in addition to that I also have to worry about parents who both have some serious health issues of their own, I just found out that my grandpa has stage 4 bladder cancer, my husband is still looking for full-time work (meaning our budget is in the negative now), and my dear sister is going through her rebellious stage (like we all do) and giving us all a few gray hairs.

I have laundry that is piled up above the hamper, the dining room is a disaster, and I have over 700 emails in my account that I'm just not sure where to begin on. Whew. I know that I am not alone in my life of stress, we all have our ups and downs and this is just one of my downs. Praise God that I have Him to lean on. And Praise Him for coffee as well. I don't think I could get by without coffee!

For anyone out there who is going through a similarly stressful time in life, I'd like to offer you a favorite story, one that almost everyone has heard, but is nice to hear now and again:

Footprints in the Sand (Paraphrased)

One night a man had a dream that he was walking along the beach with the Lord. The beach signified his life and all the things he had been through. As he looked back along the sand, he realized that at the hardest points in his life, there were only one set of footprints visible. Stunned, he turned to Jesus and said, "Lord, why is it that when I needed You the most, I can see only one set of footprints?" Jesus smiled at the man and said, "My precious child. I love you and would never leave you. Wherever you see one set of footprints, that was where I carried you."