Hey there,
Just popping in to share a sneak peek with you, of my newest Raspberry Suite stamp set -- this is the next in the Birthday Classics series!
The official Papertrey countdown starts on May 10 and for 5 days, you'll get to see peeks of this set and all the other new products from this month, leading up to Release Day on May 15. All of this month's new releases will be available for purchase beginning at 10pm EST on May 15 at Papertrey Ink.
I hope you'll join me for the Countdown -- I can't wait for you to see Birthday Classics: May in action!
In other news, I wanted to give you all a tiny update.....you've all been so sweet to continue to check on me. Thank you! I'm sorry I haven't shared anything before now, but everything just takes so long. You make an appointment with the doctor and then you wait for the appointment. Then at the appointment, if the dr. wants to do any testing, you wait to get the test scheduled. Then you do the test and you wait for the results. Then you wait for a follow up with the dr. and on and on it goes.
Anyway, I finally heard back from the allergist and it looks like I don't have any actual food allergies, although I may still have some food intolerances. So the allergist has me on an elimination diet for 6 weeks to see if that will give us any clues as to whether this is a food issue and if so, which foods are the problems. I do believe I have some food sensitivities, it's just a matter of figuring out which ones are causing the problems and if there is anything else (besides food) that may be contributing as well.
All of that is just to say that we still don't know what exactly is the problem, but we've ruled one more thing out. Sort of. Haha. I see the gastroenterologist again in a few weeks to follow up and see how I'm feeling after eliminating a whole list of specific foods for several weeks and then we go from there.
In the meantime, I was doing my Bible study homework one morning and it occurred to me that I often pray many times throughout the day, simply begging God to help me to feel better. And it got me to thinking that I ASK a lot but I don't PRAISE Him nearly enough. And that got me to wondering what it would look like for my day, if instead of begging Him for help all the time, if I praised Him instead. Or at least, in addition to asking for help. So I've been making a concerted effort to do just that. I end up spending a lot more time praising Him each day, which is the way it should be! Granted, it can be hard to praise God in the midst of feeling awful, but it's been such a good exercise for me. I will praise Him in this storm.
I was also discussing all of this with the ladies at Bible Study last week and said that I just wish I could SEE that God was working in this situation. I KNOW that He is but when you can't see it and you feel miserable a lot of the time, it's tough to trust sometimes, that He's helping, even though in your heart, you know He is. A dear friend suggested that perhaps it was time that I asked God to show me ways in which He's working in this situation. Obviously, He's not going to show me the whole big picture, but maybe He could allow me to see His hand at work even in small ways in all of this, so that's what I did. And you know what? I had 3 days in a row where I felt a LOT better. Basically, for about the last month, it'd gotten to the point where every single evening, I spent it on the couch (laying flat) because it hurt too much to sit up. And then, BLAMMO. Three days in a row of sitting UP in the evening! I was dancing in the kitchen at 8:30pm one night! I can't tell you how wonderful that felt (regardless of how crazy I surely looked!)!
Granted, the next day, I felt AWFUL again (I think coffee was the culprit that time). But I KNOW that God allowed me those three days in a row, to SEE that He's helping me....to see that perhaps this elimination diet is working and we're starting to see the results with me feeling a little better. He's working behind the scenes to comfort me and to bring us to a place where we finally know what's going on. We may not be there yet, but I'm so grateful that He allowed me those three days, to truly see His hand at work. It's been there all along, but sometimes it's just nice to SEE it, you know? And the thing is, He didn't have to show me anything....I've said it before, that my job is simply to trust Him, hard as that may be from time to time. But I love that He is so gracious to show me a little bit of how He's working, when I asked. He didn't have to but He did. I love that about Him.
I don't know what the outcome of all this will be, but I know that God will carry us through this. He's BEEN carrying us through this and I'm so grateful. We're praying that with each passing day, I'll feel better and better, and that we'll be able to figure out which food items that I'm not eating now, have been causing problems.
Thanks so much for your continued thoughts and well wishes and for praying for us. I appreciate it more than you know. I also want to thank those of you that have sent cards and gifts in the mail.....you are the sweetest ever! To each of you, a huge thank you! And for those of you that have been asking for an address to mail to, it's located under "contact" at the top of my blog.
xo,
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