botox shmotox and patience.

You may know already what I'm going to say about my recent botox injection, given the title of my entry today. :) Let's just say that I'm not horribly impressed with my recent botox procedure. I think that my pain is less overall, but I'm still managing to vomit like nobody's business. They injected the botox into several different sites in my stomach and small intestine, but it doesn't seem to have done much. Shoot. One piece of good news in my life is that I successfully made a pumpkin roll for Thanksgiving. This is a phenomenally delicious dessert that my grandma, Sarah, made each year for the holidays. However, she has recently become too tired to attempt this, so I'm doing my best to carry the torch--since my mom is too chicken to try. :) Above is a picture of my pumpkin roll. It was delicious, and the picture doesn't fully do it justice.

Also, we recently got our Christmas tree, and since it's arrival at our house it looks like Christmas exploded. We literally hiked for like 3 miles, stomping around the tree farm to make sure that we got the perfect tree. I think we managed to get it this year....it looks great in our house. Below is Marcus doing the heavy lifting. He's so funny!

And a ridiculous story from my life today to show how amazing God is.

This morning at church, we discussed "signs from God"--and what we can do about them. Ironically, I was not feeling good--tired, in pain, nauseated, and really wishing that I was at home, still in bed. However, I had gone to church anyway, thinking that it might be the right thing to do. I half-heartedly listened to the sermon on Luke, spending most of my time passing notes with Marcus about how I'm sick of being patient. I quote from my note at church this morning: "I hate being patient. I have to be patient about my health--and how I puke every freaking day. I have to be patient while I wait for healing. I have to be patient about our housing situation, and now I have to be patient about waiting to have kids. Hmph."

Fast forward to after church....where Marcus and I are waiting in line at Starbucks to order our drink, discussing our drink orders with one another. An adorable old lady (she was wearing a teal coat, walking with a cane, and had to have been at least 85) turned around and looked me square in the face. She said boldly, "You have to be patient today." I looked back at her, and I'm sure that my mouth dropped wide open. There was an awkward silence while she collected the rest of her thought, and she said, "You have to be patient waiting in line today."

Internally, my mind was racing 100 miles an hour. How did she know I needed to be patient?! We weren't talking about patience, or health, or anything...we were talking about the merits of peppermint hot chocolate... Once she turned back around to order her drink from the barista, I laughed out loud in amazement at God's sense of humor. Clearly, it was a sign about my need for patience, and I'm certain that this little old woman was a messenger from God to remind me.

Dear God,

I get it. Thanks for the sign; I'm not sure you could've spelled it out more clearly for me today. And I'll try harder to be patient even though I don't want to. :)

Love, Brelin