Hives, Acts, Spiritual Disciplines

I'm doing pretty good right now! It's been 4 weeks since surgery. I'm just taking it slow. A week and a half ago, I developed hives all over my stomach and incisions. Ever since they started, I've taken Benedryl as often as I can, and I've put cream on them. Nothing is helping! I wake up in the middle of the night to find them bleeding because I scratch them in my sleep. I have tried epson salt baths. I even took steroids for a couple of days to see if that would clear it up, but it didn't. I've gotten bad hives after another one of my surgeries before, but they only lasted a few days and they were right after surgery. We have no idea why the hives would pop up 3 weeks after surgery and last this long with no signs of improving. It's crazy! If anyone has any ideas for us, we would love to hear them! They are so miserable and make my stomach hurt. Hopefully they will get better soon.
We've had problems with my home health group for a while now. They charge us for things that we didn't even order. It's a huge mess. Now, they decided that our contract is over so they showed up last week and took my IV pole away. I was kinda freaking out because I've had that IV pole for almost 2 years. And I still need it! With my port, you have to access it and flush it out at least every 6 weeks so that it doesn't get a blood clot. The only way we can do this is if the home health brings the supplies. My mom is the one who actually accesses it. So now we are trying to find a new home health group who will accept me. We need to find one fast!
I've gotten to get out of the house a couple of times in the past week! On New Years Eve, we went to our friends house with a couple families. They live a mile from us so we didn't have to go far. We had a great time!
I also got to go to church on Sunday morning. I'm so glad I was there! It was such a great time of worship. This year as a church, we are striving to practice more spiritual disciplines. One of my youth ministers preached on Sunday and it was fantastic! It was about training. He started out with this verse.
"Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." 1 Corinthians 9:25
When you sign up to run a marathon, what do you automatically know you have to do? You have to train. There is no one who would EVER run a marathon without training. That would just be stupid.
When you have a test, you can not perform at your highest unless you study.
So why do we think that as Christians, that we are going to be able to do anything for God without training? Why do we think that we can just go out and do everything without going under strict training?
On Sunday we looked at the miracles in the book of Acts done by the disciples. They performed so many miracles! They did so much for God! We always look at the big things that happen in the Bible. As Phil showed us on Sunday, we fail to look at what happened right before each of the miracles.
Before the disciples performed each miracle, they spent time praying and seeking. Before God used them to do something great, they prayed.
What does that mean to us? We look around wondering why we aren't being used, but we haven't done anything to prepare us to be used. We think that we can go run a marathon for God, but we don't want to train.
On Sunday, we were all given a book for this year. Each month at church, we are going to focus on a different spiritual discipline. Each month we will add to our book. We need to start training so that we can really be ready to be used by God. We need to start training.
We were encouraged to sit in silence before God and just listen. You can learn so much from simply just being quiet before God.
When God told Elijah to go wait for Him on the mountain, He came in a whisper. God didn't come in the earthquake, wind, or fire. He came in a whisper. (1 King 19:10-18)
I pray that we will seek God and get a little bit closer to Him each day.
I'm still sleeping downstairs because climbing stairs is still painful. It's been almost 5 weeks since I've slept in my room. I'm also still wearing sweats all the time since other pants still rub my incisions. I did wear a dress and leggings to church though! That was exciting!
Tomorrow I have a follow up appointment with my surgeon. Hopefully he'll have a plan to help my hives!
I hope you all are having a great week!!