some things that make me go...hmmmm

I love the book of Isaiah. I've been reading in it a lot and am committing parts to memory as part of my current Bible study. I love the last line... "with His stripes we are healed". Not healing... past tense... healed. It's my inheritance. It's already there. I'm healed.

There is a friend I've recently reconnected with on Facebook. She was in my youth group growing up. She asked what I'd been up to lately... loaded question, right? And as usual, I was honest and transparent with her. It is never my intention to glorify the hurt but to glorify the Healer. It's a risk... I don't want to be seen as a "head case" or have people feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for who I was! Rejoice with me for who I am now! Life is good!

At any rate... she wrote back and told me that her husband of twenty years just left her for another woman. Can you imagine the hurt? I can't even pretend to understand what that would be like. My heartache is not so much in what I actually lost as it is the loss of a dream... that never materialized. To have been married her entire adult life and had three children with a man who just... walked away... I don't know that I have the wisdom to guide her. I just said, "please find someone who is trained to deal with these things and talk to them as much as you can." And I said, "please come up here and spend a Sunday with me at First Baptist of Helen and let us love you." That's the key. Surround yourself with Godly people who will love you, encourage you, admonish you when you stray down an ill-advised path. And, of course, I told her I would pray. I mean that too! My favorite picture of my "big boys". Ryan and Cody - sharing the same bed as they have for years - and sharing their bed with Cody's cat, Tommy, who thinks that Cody is his own personal posturepedic.

This picture of my Jamie gurl just makes me laugh. She is Aunt Heather's baby drama princess! So girlie-girl, so feminine, sooooo sweet! I love that little girl!

posted for Dean... which would you choose? Girls... he could use a pick-me-up... let him know that you think he is - in Kelly's words - "hot, hot"... and please, avoid the use of f bombs! Dean has had an eventful visit with his kids this time... and he's sick (he says he feels fine but he sounds awful)... and spent six hours on a plane yesterday waiting to be de-iced so he could get from Louisville to Jacksonville.

I went to sleep early last night and slept well but woke up early - before 4am. I've been watching for symptoms that I was told would indicate that there are complications from this mastoiditis... this morning I have a little tingling and numbness around my right eye, some dizziness, and horrible ulcers in my mouth from the antibioTic. I'll call the doctor as soon as they open this morning. I've been studying this stuff on the internet and it usually requires a 2-3 day course of IV antibioTics in the hospital... a CT scan to determine the severity of the infection... and sometimes the mastoid bone has to be surgically removed. The problem with the surgery is that it causes hearing loss. I just haven't got time for the pain. This is a picture that shows the "mastoid process". It's a bone that is porous - like swiss cheese - and infection can fill it. One thing they can do to drain the infection is put tubes in your ear... just like they do with little kids!

I feel bad for the timing of this thing. Kevin (who works with me) has a horrible infection in his eye. He's been toughing it out at work but he looks just miserable. Between his eye, my ear and Ginger's slipped disc in her back, the front part of the office is barely limping along.

Pain won't keep me home but the dizziness... I don't know how to work around that.

But I have lunch plans today! With a nice man! We're not saying it's a date... it's a meet and greet. Mary, I'll facebook message you to let you know who it is. You won't remember him, I don't think. But then again, you remember a lot more about our school years than I do, so you might.

Hope you all have a beautiful day! Love and hugs!