Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

 Many have read my husband's post earlier this week. He was admitted in the hospital due to pancreatitis. He is doing well and healing. This wasn't a sudden pain that came overnight. For the past few weeks, he was feeling pains in his back that were treated. Then came pain that mirrored acid reflux. They treated those symptoms. He was next treated for a slow colon. None of the treatments seemed to help . He finally went to the E.R. at 3 am. They looked at his treatment history of x-rays, ultrasounds, and medications and determined the next step was a CAT scan. Upon reading that scan, the source of weeks of pain was found and treatment was started. Healing could finally happen. Sometimes we feel emotional pain and try to relieve the symptoms to no avail. We work through our self-medications without ever getting to the source of our pain. When we look at the Samaritan woman at the well in the Bible (John 4), she had been abused, rejected by one man after another, and learned to...

  Have you noticed the latest trends in beauty are large, bold eyebrows and plump lips. I've never been able to fit that mold. I was blessed with thin eyebrows and thin lips. I'm not a good enough artist to draw them on without looking like a clown. I've come to grips with being out of fashion. However, this week has been a weird week. I'm probably not the only one suffering from dry lips. A mix of high heat in buildings, cold wind outside, and masks holding the heat next to my mouth has resulted in a goofy look for me. I have the five-year-old licking their top lip all day look. You know the look. You look like you have a Kool aid mustache. I have been applying Chapstick, lip balm, bees' wax gloss, or anything else that will make my red mustache disappear. I realized that I look like a little girl trying to put on her mother's lipstick. I've been forced to apply it in a wide ring around my mouth. It looks like I missed my mouth! This was bad enough. Last n...

I've spoken with a lot of people this week who've mentioned to me that they just can't get into Valentine's Day this year. Whether they are dealing with the loss of a loved one, anxiety, depression, or simply because they are alone, the idea of celebrating a holiday about flowers, food, and gifts given by a significant other just seems overwhelming. Maybe you fit into one of those areas today. I researched a little about Valentine's Day. Some say that the holiday encompasses the story of a priest named Valentine who was willing to give his life to marry couples when Emperor Claudius II banned marriages. He felt his soldiers would be stronger if they didn't have wives or children to worry about or distract. Valentine was beheaded for putting others lives and love for his brother above value for his own life. The Bible mentions that there is no greater love than if a man lays down his life for a brother. (John 15:13).  That's exactly what Jesus did on the cro...

  After being trapped inside for several days due to snow and ice, my husband and I discovered something. With little else to do, my family and I binged a lot of movies and television shows. I tend to lean toward action-adventure, rom-com, and murder-mystery genres, while my husband loves inspirational sports movies. After watching quite a few, I realized something. After all the joking from my husband about the predictability of my beloved Hallmark movies, I noticed that there is a version of men's Hallmark movies. Let me explain.  Hallmark movies are known for sticking to a pattern. A couple randomly meet. The main character might own a bakery, have something to do with dogs, be a decorator, or possibly a wedding planner. The guy is some type of clueless or ruthless business man. There may be a mistaken identity, conflict to destroy a business, or fight to save a quaint town. There is almost always a gazebo, cute village, dog park, ballroom, elevator, or snow globe. The po...

  I struggled this week with sinus/respiratory issues. Although it wasn't COVID, it still caused problems. Due to all the drainage in my throat, I have been perpetually thirsty.   At any point, I was drinking three beverages at one time. I drank hot coffee, but the caffeine made me hyper. No one wanted a chattering squirrel in the office. I started branching out into teas. I tried weird tumeric golden tea, peppermint ginger tea, and simple green tea- basically anything that would alleviate the dryness in my throat. I moved on to iced water and the lukewarm water . There was a desperation to quench this thirst. My daughter made sure to let me that I needed to stop saying thirsty so much because it has a different meaning now. I looked it up. According to Oxford language, thirsty means, "feeling a need to drink or having a strong desire for something." That definition covered how I felt. I had a strong desire to fill a need inside me. I thought about a chorus from about tw...

  There are two types of people- the cold-natured and warm-natured.  I am very much the former while my husband is the latter. It has been an issue our whole marriage because he can never get cool enough, and I struggle to get warm enough. With all the adjusting of the thermostat, we're lucky we haven't created a tornado in our living room. Our poor dog is either shivering or panting. My husband has always said, "You can always put more clothes on but I can't take more off!" So at any time, you may find me curled up on the floor in front of my heater like a lizard on a warming rock. I even bought myself a blanket hoodie. It has been amazing! I may look like someone from Alaska, but I was finally warm enough. However, there has been a crazy phenomenon happening in my house this week. My husband got a sinus infection. This led to a fever. He was shivering. I was suffering from hormonal fluctuations. I had a hot flash like you wouldn't believe. What did that me...

  I noticed ads popping up on different social platforms for jewelry from expensive jewelry stores for ridiculously cheap prices. I was thinking, "Who in their right mind would think they could get a 2 karat real diamond ring for $50?" Obviously, people are creating very ligitimate-looking sites with very fake goods. Even though these sites are easy to catch, I sometimes have trouble recognizing counterfeit goods. Is some purse really name brand or a fake? Unless it says "Couch" instead of "Coach", counterfeiters can make fakes look very authentic. So how can you recognize a fake? You can't recognize every fake. When trying to catch counterfeiters in money scams, investigators are trained to study the genuine. When you know everything about the real, the fakes stand out. Some say that God isn't real, and Jesus is a fake. First of all, there has to be a real before imitations exist. Throughout history, we read stories and hear myths that sound simil...