When it rains, it definitely pours. But with the rain comes rainbows.

Earlier this week I mentioned how my husband is out of town on business and how things inevitably go wrong when he's gone.  We had the leaky washer that still isn't fixed (and, consequently, a laundry room floor with standing water and a yummy mold smell) and the fence that I rigged up with some string until he can get back home and fix it.

In comparison, I don't know why I even complained about those things because what we got hit with next was so much worse.

First Adalyn came down with a tummy bug on Monday.  It wasn't anything too bad.  She threw up quite a few times but never ran a fever and never seemed to feel too badly.  I thought she got off pretty much unscathed.

Then Tuesday morning rolled around.  Ben started complaining about not feeling well.  His complaints got more and more persistent until he was in hysterics in a ball on the couch screaming about how much his tummy hurt.  A few hours later, the lovely vomiting started and we were in full-on tummy virus mode.

That poor kiddo was so sick.  So, so sick.  I've never seen him like that.  He's normally the biggest trooper alive when it comes to illness.  Even his previous stomach bugs never seemed to phase him.  This virus, whatever it is, knocked him out for days.  He laid on the couch, moaning, puking, flailing around.  It was so sad to watch.  He ran a high fever the whole time, despite dosing him with Tylenol.  He's still sick, in fact, though now it has transitioned to a cold and Adalyn has it, too, and they are snot FACTORIES.

As I've mentioned here before, I have a serious vomit phobia.  Two days of caring for puking kids all by myself left me drained.  I ate almost nothing for two days straight because I was so wrapped up in taking care of them, particularly Ben.  To give you an idea, I lost five pounds between Monday morning and Wednesday morning. I was totally dehydrated but oblivious to it.

I had tons of contractions all day Tuesday.  I chalked them up to the stress and anxiety of the kids' stomach bugs and just kept shrugging them off, despite having a few other semi-scary experiences earlier in the week.  But then the spotting picked up and I knew it was time to call my midwife.

So there I was, late Tuesday afternoon, with a trashed house, a puking toddler and a fussy little gal and I was supposed to go to the hospital to get checked out.

Thank God for my angel friends.  One of my friends rushed right over to take care of my kiddos with her little daughter in tow.  Angel, I'm telling you.  Not only did she deal with my pukey guy and not complain about my messy house...she cleaned it.  Yep, dishes, laundry, even scrubbing down my bathroom.  ANGEL.

I sat hooked up to monitors for a few hours which tracked my contractions. I had a lot of them, but none of them were too painful so I never got extremely concerned.  Turns out I was pretty severely dehydrated.  I guess I should have figured that out on my own, but I didn't.  Hours of chugging water later and the contractions had lessened and the bleeding had stopped, so they sent me home with instructions to keep drinking as much as I can, come back in with any more contractions or bleeding and take a Benadryl so I could sleep through the night.  Ha!  Yeah, I'll just knock myself out with a Benadryl while I have a child who is puking.

Needless to say, I did not get to sleep through the night or anything even closely resembling it, nor have I gotten to since.

And then I got hit with the stomach bug.  With a sick boy, a clingy girl and a husband out of town, I had the lovely experience of somehow trying to run a functional home despite not being able to stand up for longer than 15 seconds.  And having spent the evening before in L&D because of dehydration, you can imagine why a stomach bug was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

But...for all the complaining, I have a whole lot more thanking and praising to do.  First was my friend who came to take care of Ben in his vomit-glory while I sat in the hospital.  Then another friend ran out to the store and brought Ben popsicles when he refused to eat or drink anything for days and I was starting to get worried.  Then our sweet neighbor came over and watched the kids so I could take a shower.  In peace.  Because it had been four days since I'd been able to take a shower.  Ew.  And then my thoughtful friend brought us dinner so I didn't have to think about cooking.  Do you know how many people offered to do my laundry?  God was definitely showing me this week that despite bad days (or, uh, weeks), I have so much more to be thankful for than I have to whine about.

It's amazing what some really sucky times can teach you in the long run.  I am strong.  I am capable.  I survived all of that and I'll be better for it.

I read this scripture a few weeks ago and it impacted me so much that it was literally the first thing I thought of this week.  Someday, I hope to actually be able to delight in my weaknesses, but I'm a far cry from that today.  At the very least, I've kept my mind on this verse all week long and I think it kept me from falling apart completely.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

It's so easy to get sucked into self pity.  I think I'm the queen of it.  It's something I want to work on the rest of 2012 because not only does it seem totally unflattering to feel sorry for yourself, but imagine how much easier life would be if we could actually delight in our hardships!

In 1 Peter 1, he reminds us that we are supposed to rejoice always, even in hardships.  We're supposed to rejoice because our joy and happiness shouldn't come from earthly experiences.  Our joy should come from the promise of the riches awaiting us in heaven.