Perspective and Healing

4.25 x 5.5

The Perspective:
Today, I re-joined my Romans Bible Study(BSF). It is a very intense and effective study. I was in leadership when this year started, but I dropped out because I was hired full time at a physical therapist's new practice. Then, before I could start it, I had to give up my new full time job, when my husband was transfered. And then, there was the surgery and all the other stuff. So, now that things are trying to settle down in my life ( if you don't count the house being for sale and graduation preparation), I decided to go back and finish the tail end of the year. One of the ladies in the new small group I helped to start last fall was going thru Chemo at the time. I found out today, that her cancer has returned with a vengence.
And then, I just received an email "Immediate Request for Prayer" about a young lady ( I don't know her personally) whose due date was a week ago. The Dr. couldn't detect the heart beat and she was being rushed to the hospital. My heart goes out to both of them and my attention is focused on praying for them right now.
I have a card that I am going to send to the lady from my Bible study. I don't have words of comfort for her, I wish I could make it all better. But the scripture I used on this card comes with a promise. I know and am experiencing God's sustaining power in my life . The Bible verse stamp is Biblical Impressions and says "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee. Psalm 55:22"


5 x 7

As you can see I have two versions of it. The handmade paper was sent to me by The Rubber Stamper as part of a Design Team Challenge. I doubt if you can tell w/o clicking on the pictures that I stamped the trees image(SU) twice creating a subtle shadow effect.

The Healing
I promised to tell you about my healing over the weekend. First of all, I don't know what it is, but just being around my family made me feel better. But the 5 hour drive down was probably the first solid block of silent and still time I'd had in a week. You are probably wondering how in the world I can use words like silent and still with 4 kids in the car?? I have one word for that-- headphones! They were plugged into DVDs and Mp3s and DSs and I had my music. I love technology! So anyway, Friday was a tough day for me at first, because I was still and I had time to think about my baby. The stages of grief involves denial and bargaining. I thought I was done with that and accepting the loss, but I was overwhelmed with sadness during the drive down. At first, I was encouraged by the music I was listening to (Larnelle Harris, Yolanda Adams, and CeCe Winans) . But when I finally got to the hotel and tried to go to sleep, there was silence. In that silence, I felt a reminder from the Holy Spirit. Principles that I've learned a long time ago during another grieving process.
1. God doesn't make mistakes.
2. We each are given a God designed life span with a purpose. For some of us our life span is 7 weeks and for some it's 70 years. I don't fully know all of the purpose of this child's short life, just yet, but I can't feel like I was cheated out of something. I have a feeling I am learning and will learn a lot from this experience. I will be looking for those lessons.
I'm still sad sometimes, but God is sustaining me.

The Rubber Stamper Design Team Challenge

Of course the day I need to get my bills in the mail, the mailman comes at early! I was frantically trying to get everything ready that would need to be mailed when I saw the mailman at 9:30. His usual time anywhere from 11:30 -1:30, but usually closer to noon. Now I have to add Post Office to my list of today's errands.

But on a happy note, the mailman brought me a copy of the Rubber Stamper this morning. My last Design Team submission was published. Here are my pictures of the cards. Again, I obviously like the cards but they are not my favorites of the bunch. I'll give them a call next week to see if it's ok to show you pictures of the ones they didn't publish. I guess they could use them at a later day, but they probably won't...


The first one features a skeleton stamp by Eureka.


And this one features a stamp from a SU set called Lovely as a Tree.

I am almost finished my sister's BD card, but I probably won't blog about it until Monday. I need to make her two cards anyway. I'll let the kids sign the "nice" one and I'll sign the funny one. I bought a Limerink stamp from Hambo for the inside of the funny one. Click on Hambo and check out "Better Than Dead". I'm going to have to add the first Birthday stamp to my next order. That one is cute too!

I am running out of time! Have a blessed weekend!!