First off-I thank God and know that he is in control of each situation.  I can see His hand in all things. 

First of all, my back.  I had surgery for a ruptured disc exactly 7 years ago.  About 3 weeks ago I re-injured it.  Went to the doctor, had an MRI.  In the meantime he started me on prednisone to lessen the inflamation.  The pain went away.  It has been a week since I have been off of the steroids..  The pain has not returned!  I went to the neurosurgeon a few days ago and we looked at my MRI.  You can clearly see the disc is ruptured and compressing my sciatic nerve,  I don't know why I am not in excrutiating pain anymore...well, yes I do!  God is good!  My parents have me on 2 prayer lists at their church (if you knew my parents and my childhood you would know the fact that they are in church is a miracle in itself!) Plus friends at church have been praying for me. Yet it never occured to me that I would be pain free without surgery!  I don't know if the pain will return or not. If it does I will probably need surgery.  But either way I thank God for every pain free day he gives me.  For anyone who suffers from sciatica, you know what a big deal this is.  Only thing is...now I need to do all those things I vowed I would do as soon as my back felt better.

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Secondly...our foster baby.  We have had her since she was 4 weeks old.  She came to us 2 days before Christmas.  She is now 8 months.  Her birth mom saw her once but is no longer in the picture, at least at this point.  Rick and I have always been like minded in wanting to foster only since we started, not adopt.  I love this baby whole-heartedly.  She is not mine however, I know the Lord has forever parents for her.  Sometimes I feel guilty for this...wanting to love her and keep her for her parents to be...especially when people keep asking me "Why don't YOU just adopt her?"  I would do that if I felt a clear call from the Lord.  But I haven't heard that from Him.  Meanwhile, a single lady has had 3 visits with baby.  Last one was an overnighter.  I could tell when I picked baby up that prospective mom was overwhelmed.  Later I called her and we had a nice long talk.  She still wants to visit to see what will develop, but in the meantime was struggling with feeling overwhelmed, unsure and some pressure from friends and family to keep baby.  I told her NOT to be pressured by ANYONE to adopt this child! I told her to take time to get to know baby and realize that babies are overwhelming, at least initially to adoptive and birth parents alike.  In parallel to encouraging this young woman I am more feverently praying that God will clearly lead baby into the right home of His choice for her.  I know he will.  I thought she would be gone within a couple of weeks but now it seems she will be her at least thru August or longer.

Finally, our finances.  We just read The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey and are starting to implement the strategies.  At this moment we have never been closer to broke than we are now.  I am used to having money in checking and money in savings to fall back on and altogether right now we have less that $100 in both.  That has never been before.  In times past this would have thrown me into a worry fest and I would be obsessing over it.  But I am not.  We have food, our mortgage is paid and payday is next Friday.  I am actually excited to see what will happen next, what God will do or what he will teach us.  Perhaps I had too much trust in having a few K's in the bank to fall back on. I still want that.  But I know God can and will provide all of our needs.  We have been tithing pretty regularly and He has blessed us in unconventional ways such as $50 worth of meat for $5 several times.

This stuff is probably not that interesting to anyone but me, but it does me so much good to write it all out and acknowledge His hand and provision and protection in our lives.  I am a firm believer in Christ, although I aspire to be more so. It is a goal of mine to mature in my Christian walk.  These things in my life are just reminders that we do not walk alone.  Lord, increase my faith!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!