Follow Up to "Empty Jars" Post

Here is the message. Enjoy :)

Empty Jar

This Sunday, my pastor preached a great message. I've heard many ((mmmaaaannnyyy)) "faith" messages in my life. This one was probably one of the freshest ones I've heard in a really long time. He introduced a scripture that I've never seen before. I've probably read it a few times but never really thought anything about it. It was a simple...yet eye opening message. As soon as it's available, I'll post the link to the podcast. It's only like 30 minutes long. Boy did it touch me.

2 Kings 4 (NIV)

The Widow’s Olive Oil

 ¹ The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”  ² Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
   “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”
 ³ Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. ⁴ Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”
 ⁵ She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. ⁶ When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
   But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
 ⁷ She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

This woman was desperate for a miracle. Her husband died and she owed money and the creditors were going to take her sons. AS SLAVES! She tells Elisha that she has nothing...except a little olive oil.

The thing that touched me in this message is that God will use what you will give to him. This message could be used in many different scenarios...obviously for me it was infertility. I may not have the perfect fertile reproductive system. I may not have all the answers. I may not be am not a saint, I may wrestle with God and my beliefs and faith every. single. day. I may cry most nights and wish it would all disappear the next morning. But what I do have and what I am willing to give God is my hope.

My hope is anchored in Him. My trust is ingrained in His truth. My future is in the palm of His hand. I believe it is wise to be well educated and understand what is going on with my body. But....above it all, His truth does triumph the facts. One day I will have my victory dance.

Oh and look who wanted to drop in and say a sleepy hello...Lukers

Again, as soon as the podcast is available I'll post it. I hope you will listen, it's refreshing.

VLOG!!!

I'm so excited to present my very first vlog :)

Before you watch, I want to apologize for the delay in picture/voice. This was my first time after all and I'm not sure what happened. We just got a new laptop and it has a built in camera but I don't think the camera is awesome. I did get a really nice camera for Christmas from Josh so I can skype (which I never do *sad*) so next vlog I'll use that one and hopefully the quality is better.

Enjoy xoxo

Last Tea

Well I'm almost finished with my tea and acupuncture experience. It's bitter sweet. I'm ready for it to be over with for the sake of $ and I'm kind of tired of being poked. But I love it too because it is relaxing and therapeutic.I had such high hopes for it all. Now I sit and scratch my head. Pray. And wait.

So this is the last actual tea (I'm on week 3 of tea) and the last week (week 4) will be herbs in the pill form **praise the Lord** The idea of this tea is that *if* I had ovulated (and my chart is not indicating that I ovulated...big surprise there right) this tea would strengthen the egg and promote very rich blood flow.

So here are some photos of the tea before I brewed it. Unlike the other teas, this one didn't have any leaves.

 Guess what that is...go ahead guess it....Yep that would be Mule Glue. I'll repeat that b/c you probably 

  thought you heard me wrong. That is GLUE made from MULE.

 
Oh and those are my toes that I painted for the first time in TWO years! I had an ouchie that wouldn't go away and it prevented me from painting my left big toe. It's finally almost all better so I painted a light coat :)

 

Ok back to the tea. I had to let it soak in room temp water for 15 minutes before I heated it up. After that I simmered it for 30 minutes while keeping the pot covered.

While my tea simmered, I was to melt the mule glue //gags//. My acupuncturist made this seam easy peasy and it was not. It wasn't melting. He said it should melt like chocolate. But they were bubbling up and were actually looking like honey roasted peanuts...not creamy chocolate!

Mr. Muffin and I were baffled. I couldn't call my acupuncturist either because it was late and he was in the preparation stage of getting a colonoscopy and said he wouldn't be able to answer his phone. I don't blame him. So I eventually just dumped the stuff in my tea and let it melt in there. I figured it couldn't realllllly make that big of a difference. I guess we'll see if I'm still alive in a couple of days ;)

So here is what I strained from my tea. Yep I get to drink this lovely concoction. Lucky me.

He swore to me that there wasn't crap in my tea...I'm beginning to wonder if I should've specified the word "crap"

There ya go boys and girls. I will drink 1 cup twice a day for 7 days and then I'll start my herbal pills to try to end this cycle naturally. I would love for it to work but I'm not getting my hopes up. I've enjoyed my natural remedies and trying to get my body to cooperate on its own. But so far she aint doing a daaaaaang thing. So I'll take September off from everything and probably start Clomid in October...maybe November. It's a hard step so it just depends on how I feel at the time. J and I have been trying for almost a year now for a baby, it's depressing to think I haven't O'd or cycled on my own. Not once. I'm angry and confused and maybe a little annoyed too. 

Hope you've enjoyed reading and looking at my pictures from my herbal tea experience. Let me know if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer. Because you've been such a good follower I'll share one of my favorite photos from our Yellowstone vacation. These are the Grand Tetons in Jackson, WY. This is where J and I want to retire :)

Never Underestimate My Jesus-Relient K

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