The emblem pictures that I have been using for each week as the feature picture for our bible study has a misprint for week 3  as you can see below… it still has week Truth Two: “See It Like It Really Is” written on it.

This could just be God reminding us to keep seeing it like it really is as He also reminds us of Truth Three: “You Don’t Always Have To Be Okay.”

The verse for the week was 1 John 5:14
“And this is the confidence that we have in him,
that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.”

This was truly representative of my week, and the the whole study so far. Between so many tests, procedures, and therapies (all for my good), I am exhausted. And can you believe that I kept forgetting that I was fighting a sinus infection?? The good thing was it wasn’t one of those sinus infections where I was miserable in my sinuses and blowing like crazy, or being stuffed miserably. It was just a lot of continuous blood, scabbing inside, and occasionally very stuffed (as during one of my procedures.) I could not do an antibiotic during some procedures or they would be cancelled. I needed them too much to risk that. When I got the green light, I was put on a 10 day prescription. It took about 5 days for the scabbing to finally heal. Sometimes I still have blood, but I really believe it’s the scabbing coming off from using the vaseline inside.

I only tell you this because following God’s lead in these studies helped me to deal with them so much better, and they were very rough days. Some more mentally, emotionally, and spiritually challenging than anything. I think of you my dear friends who struggle in many of your own chronic illnesses and nightmare procedures. Our dear Caz was so unfortunate to experience her visit she shared with us in her Mini Me Update: A&E Emergency Surgery. I hated having to see her suffer in her picture, but that was such a raw and honest cry of someone in pain and it seemed like the world didn’t care, was even cruel in their own way, or at least could do nothing to help her as much as they were trying.

I would think of her when my pain was so unbearable the tears I was trying to withhold in front of the techs doing my testing failed to stay inside. It helped me to remain silent despite the intense pain when I realized the techs WANTED my screams and cries. How cruel, yet I had to be appreciative, or at least still until they were through. I mean I was hooked up to their fun in causing torture. When they finally realized I was crying and quiet, they actually tried to cheer me (to comfort me) by telling me (with enthusiasm and great delight) how they had a young man curled up in the corner of the bed, afraid to let them touch him…. joyfully calling him a coward. I looked at her with great disgust and told her “How horrible! That must have been so painful for him!” I admit my tone was not as fitting as it should have been with the clear disgust intended, but it was filled with the devastation for that young man. And it will be voiced clear and properly on my feedback to the hospital!

I also thought of my dear friends Wendi of Simply Chronically Ill, Tasha of Pain Warrior Code, Caralyn of Beauty Beyond Bones, and so many more. I talk of a lot of you, and my precious blogging community as a whole. How blessed I am that God led me to such wonderful dear friends… family… around the world! And all from trusting His lead to start blogging… first to Him… then in trusting Him to open my settings to public. My reward… a world of love… literally. So I openly share with you that I am not okay lately... and that’s okay! My God says it is! And it’s okay to share it with you because He reminds me you may need it. I don’t worry about likes, views, and numbers. If you only knew how many of your posts I read without getting a chance to like, or comment. And I AM the one who was blessed by them.

Oh my.. I need to finish this post to make it to night 4 of 6… tonight! LOL

I forgot to mention a very important factor… Keitha was not there this week 😦 As many of you know she leads the bible study… with a huge heart for God, and her own lovely personality God gave her. She was speaking at a weekend convention. While I missed her hug, I was so glad for her and praying for her!!

She had Beth fill in, and one of the most amazing thing Beth did to make a point about comparison was a magazine she had in front of us. She counted how many pages were for ads compared to how many total pages were in the magazine. There were well OVER half the magazine…. most of them being skin care or something to do with catering to (or pushing the notion of) changing something about ourselves, implying we weren’t acceptable. I counted magazines everywhere I had an appointment this week… the same result!

1. Picture one above is my poor badge after I accidentally left with it on week 2 and put it in my jacket pocket so I would not forget it. I smoothed it out a LITTLE bit, but the damage is done. Oh well. See Like It Really Is.. right?? To my poor badge, “You Don’t Always Have To Be Okay.” 😉
2. Picture two was my prayer card to write my new prayer request on, and my ticket for door prizes. Let me tell you, God touched me so! I wrote my prayer request after thinking all week that Truth 3 was the same See It Like It Really Is,” and feeling like God just wanted me to accept that I wasn’t ok. That I was tired, to be honest and make others accept the same. So my prayer request was to help my spirit listen to the Holy Spirit’s whisper to rest and accept that I am not okay! Then I got to the room for the video and heard her talking about us accepting that we are not ok! How clear is God!! And so loving!!
3. Picture 3 are all the prayer requests I have received so far. I pray for them each time I study. We are praying for a 39 yr old who was a part of our class but suddenly found she had stage 4 metastatic breast cancer… ironically her name is Nikki too. (not the author of the study, and I hope I spelled her name correctly.)

Here are more personal daily prayers we write for God. Again, there are 5 days, but for some reason only 3 of my pictures survived. Sorry. I’ll just thank God I have the 3! 🙂

I loved this quote below.
Faith does not mean that everything is going to turn out okay.
Faith means we trust God even when things aren’t going okay.

I thank God for the study, the ladies, my doctors, therapists, family, friends, church families, blogging family, and everything that God gives.

Dear friend, God loves you! He wants you to know too:
“You Don’t Always Have To Be Okay.”

“And this is the confidence that we have in him, that,
if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.”
– 1 John 5:14