August 29, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

I am in a reflective process again. August, I was born in August so I reflect as I celebrate another year of life. I started writing this blog one year ago in August. I want to start writing a book soon – As I write this it is July, my goal is start in August.

As I read scripture, I see consistently where God points to remembering. He teaches us to remember Him, what He has done in our lives etc. Many of the Psalms are a remembrance of how God approached Abraham, took the Israelites out of Egypt etc.

As a woman, I tend to get historical when I fight. It’s not fair. I remember what happened years ago like it was only yesterday. I don’t think God wants me to be historical though. The more I walk with Him, the more I believe I am called to remember how God has helped me.

After my divorce, I went to a Divorce Workshop. We were taught to forgive. That was a hard moment for me. I was angry, hurt, and felt justified in that anger. I met a woman though, shortly after I married Junior. She was his neighbor and she had been divorced for 7 years at the time of my marriage to Junior. She was VERY angry. She relived many scenes of what happened in her marriage. I had thought she was recently divorced – no it was seven years prior. At that point I did not want to be that angry for that long. This lady was held hostage by her anger and had a hard time moving on.

I asked God to teach me how to forgive. I learned in the process, that forgiveness doesn’t always happen in one fell swoop. It is often a process that needs to be gone through. If I allowed God to guide me through it though, I began to find peace.

As the years have passed, I have learned to look back at where I was and where I am now. In my other life, I cried a whole lot. Many times in frustration, I found myself striking back. I had a mean mouth, I threw things, and I even tried to hit my ex.

Today, I don’t have that anger anymore. I don’t slam doors, scream, strike out or cry. God has taught me how to “let go, let God.”

I am not as moody as I once was. That is a huge relief. I don’t give into drama anymore and to be honest, I am a more content woman. I have learned from the marriage seminars that people in general are, “good willed.” It may come out weird, but no harm was really meant. So now I automatically assume that what I might perceive as an affront generally is not meant to be one.

Through the act of remembering, I see God’s hand on me. I see where I once was and where I am today. I am at peace – most days. I can accept that my children are angry with me – I don’t like it, but I can accept it. I can deal with Junior being extremely tired from moving and short with me, this too shall pass.

As I go through my thoughts about remembering, I also find I get reflective throughout the year. January, that’s Mom and Dad’s anniversary, Mike’s birthday and Grandma’s birthday month. March is Irene’s birthday month, Mom and Dad died in April, and the remembrances come throughout the year. I find that as a familiar date hits I tend to think about the person for a season. As years go by, I tend to think about them at the anniversaries and not all year, every day. I dealt with my anger with my Dad before he died. It was wonderful to be able to hold him as he took his final breath and not be bitter. Mom, I am working through issues and it is harder when they are gone. Still, I find myself letting go more and more. My children’s anger, that still hurts – not as bad as at first, but it still hurts. In that I find that God holds me so tenderly and helps me to overcome.

God reminds me often of who I DO have in my life. My sister, she is a joy, my nieces, my longtime friends, my new friends down here and the list goes on. He reminds me to look out the window and I find myself drinking in the scenes. When I am hurting – God comforts me.

As I face new struggles, God reminds me of times past – where He has provided for me. As I remember – I find strength, courage to face life.

When I first found out that I had cancer, God gave me a saying and I believe it helped me move from despair to hope. “Today, I cry.” I believe God was telling me to go ahead and feel the grief, the emotional pain, but I will need to move on. He helped me face cancer. I knew from the start that I would not die. Still, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.

Again, I remember. I am learning to see where God has held me tenderly and He will help me face the struggles that I will face again. I keep learning that I need to look back in order to face today. As I learn to look back though, I find that I look to see where God has helped me. I have hope because I love Jesus and in it I find great comfort, strength.

It is a question I have asked a few times recently, but I believe it bears repeating, “Where is Your Hope?”

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

August 22, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

One of the first things I learned from the re-marriage workshops and Divorce Recovery sessions I attended was that “Divorce” is not a word to be used inside of marriage.

It is so freeing to know that Junior and I refuse to divorce. We have committed to this and I find that I can work through the struggles of marriage, even when I can’t see eye to eye with Junior.

When we were first dating and falling in love, we saw our similarities. I marveled at them, we both like dark chicken meat the most. We like to travel. Church – wow – we both want to be in church each week. We don’t even discuss church – we automatically get up and go. We have so many similarities – we love to dance, it is exciting to me.

We both don’t have a need to argue all the time. We share so many values that we don’t fight very often. I was so tired of fighting in my previous relationship that I did not want to argue all the time anymore. Junior did not have a need to argue either. I love it.

Still when you have two people come together there will be those moments where you can’t relate, each of you would handle a situation differently. I am a planner. I want an agenda and a time frame. I need it like I need air. Junior does not need an agenda; he can live off the cuff, moment to moment quite well.

We are excited to be in Virginia. We believe we are where God wants us to be. We both love our “small” home. We both love the wonderful scenery that surrounds us each and every day.

That being said, we are struggling with the actual “move” process. As I stated earlier, I like an agenda, a time frame. Junior does not care for agendas. My energy level is not where I want it to be. I am frustrated because I tend to need several days to regroup with each trip back and forth. Junior is patient with me, he accepts my limitations. I am impatient because I know at one point I could do the back and forth better. Junior likes to travel late in the afternoon. I would prefer to get up and leave early. Since Junior is doing the brunt of the driving, I believe we need to operate on his preferences.

So far we have made at least 6 trips back to Michigan. Our trip is at least 10 hours one way and longer if we pull over and go to sleep. We are tired – extremely tired. We are ready to live in Virginia, to stay there and become part of the community.

We are starting to be short with each other. We want the other to understand our personal needs for traveling – me, I want a clear cut agenda, Junior wants to go and come as he wants too.

The comforting thing is we are committed to making our marriage work. We are not going to give up on each other, call it quits because some of the glow is gone right now. I know, that I know, that I know that we will be best friends again. We are going to enjoy each other and our lives. So for a season, we struggle. Soon, though, we will love the life we will have, our friendship and of course loving Jesus as if He was our Savior.

As I write this, we have at least one more trip. Thank God! We are starting to see an end to all the traveling. I am excited because soon, we will start putting our home in final order – the mess will soon be gone. Yeah! Next we will truly begin living in our new community. We both feel that the true new life is about to begin. Our friendship will come back and I am grateful. Life with Junior and true friendship – well, that’s icing on the cake for me and I am looking forward to being more settled.

I am grateful to know that Junior won’t give up on me or our marriage. In another life, I did not know this sense of security or love.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

August 15, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

I keep thinking about love. I have been able to move out of emotional pain and despair when I know I have been loved. I have so much more courage and I can face day to day life when I know that I am loved. Love has set me free in so many wonderful ways. When I am loved, I have courage and I can face the hard parts of life.

When my children were small, I wanted to run from life. I wanted to sleep all day, every day. I remember having a fight with a friend and afterward, I wanted to never leave my house. My house felt like a big warm fuzzy blanket and I wanted to wrap myself up in my house.

As I went through divorce, I felt unwanted and unloved again. This time though, I began to pray. When I met Junior, he taught me to turn to God. I had always believed that God existed, I had not figured out how to talk to God. Junior showed me how to talk to God, to trust God.

Junior was not a nice person at one point in his life. He was a scary man. When I met Junior, he had been walking with the Lord for many years. Even today, Junior can appear to be a gruff kind of guy and he is able to shut doors when people won’t accept him. The Junior I love, the Junior I know – loves God unashamedly. He has no problem telling people that they are headed for hell if they won’t accept Jesus.

I have seen this rough guy be so tender. He has a very compassionate heart. He can be so tender with me. I am amazed at Junior’s tenderness. I can also see Junior be straight forward in his comments. Junior to me is a wonderful mix of a man.

I look to Junior to lead me. I feel safe with Junior’s leadership in my life. I trust Junior as I have never trusted anyone else.

As I prayed after my divorce, I began to ask God to put me in a good relationship, to be with a man who took his faith “seriously.” Junior takes his faith seriously and I love it.

As I began to open my heart to God, I was finding love. I was riding the stationary bike one time. I was reading my Bible and praying. I was so sad, my daughter was rejecting me. She was angry at me and I did not know why. I hurt SO badly! I felt God tell me to lift my eyes. It was like He was telling me, “Look up.” As I did I almost felt God’s hand on my chin. He was holding me tenderly and telling me that He loved me. Wow! I had never felt that kind of love before.

The more I allowed myself to “feel” God’s love, the more I wanted to love others – even when it hurt.

Junior and I made a commitment to attend as many marriage seminars as possible. We grew up in dysfunction. We both had not married well the first time. We did not want a repeat of our first marriage. Even though we were not happy, divorce did not feel good either. We wanted to allow God to be the center of our marriage of our lives.

As I came to accept Junior’s love, I learned that men were alike in many ways. I also learned that “men” did have feelings. Men did feel pain. My experience was that “men” were tough – and they are, I learned that they did not feel emotional pain or physical pain. Junior taught me that they indeed felt both.

I began to marvel at God’s creation of a man. Men have muscles. They are able to lift heavy objects and it is not a real problem. Men can do physical labor and they don’t tire as quickly as I do – a woman. Men are able to talk to each other in what a woman would consider mean ways. They call each other “ugly.”

God blessed me with two children. I raised a daughter and a son. When my son came along, I began to see that boys ARE different than girls. They come out of the womb ready to tackle the world. They are fearless. My daughter wanted to jump out of her crib. She was cautious. She threw out her pillow and stuffed animals first. Then she jumped out of the crib – onto a soft padding. When my son was able to jump out of the crib – he just hopped out – no soft landing.

My son made loud noises. My daughter played quietly. My son loved to pull me in the wagon. My daughter liked being pulled. I had learned through the years that boys like to be rough and girls liked to be tender.

As I go along in my marriage, I am finding that I feel loved when Junior is tender. I love to be held, talked to softly. I find that Junior feels loved when I notice what a hard worker he is. He loves it when I enjoy his muscles. Junior loves it when I watch him work. I love it when Junior will go shopping with me – the department store type of shopping. Junior likes to go to Home Depot and he likes when I go with him.

What I find is an act of love – Junior does not find it as exciting as I do. He does things because he knows that I like them. With Junior, going to Home Depot has become fun. I catch him playing with power tools. He gets excited over guns. I don’t. I have come to love going “man” shopping because, Junior will “girl” shop with me.

I find that men feel loved in a different way than women. When Junior is working, he loves for me to come and sit and watch him work. I just talk to him. He also loves it when I notice his “work.” He likes me to comment positively on it.

As I learn how to blend into Junior, I find again the one fleshness. We are different. When we come together, we become one. I compliment Junior. I am his helpmate and you know what? It feels good.

How are you making the men in your life feel loved? Dose love always have to be what you want? Do you try to find ways to love your husband, son, brother, man in your life in ways that feel good to him?

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

August 8, 2009

Greetings My Friend,

Love has been on my mind. I’ve been thinking about love a whole lot lately. Sometimes I marvel at how powerful love really is. “For God so loved the world that gave his only son, that whoever should believe in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

I still find myself having a “talk” with my mother, even though she has been dead for years now. We were talking about our faith. For some reason, I have always been intrigued with the Crucifix. It is a Catholics symbol to remember Jesus. I was raised Presbyterian. My mother rolled her shoulders, sat up rigidly straight and in her “Gertrude” way she said, “Janet, we worship the risen Christ!”

To be honest, I began to understand my faith and grow in it when I started to look at the cross. When I looked, I saw so much. I also learned how Jesus truly suffered before he died. Many times as I prayed, I felt God directing me to the cross. I felt God saying “look.”

At first I focused on the nails. I could not imagine how it would feel to have nails pounded into my flesh. I wanted to cry when I thought about it. God kept teaching me about Jesus’ death though. I began to learn that those nails were hard but before the nails, Jesus dealt with so much pain.

Jesus’ friends ran off on him leaving Him to face the final hours alone. Jesus was whipped. Back then the whip had pieces of bone and glass tied to the ends. I learned recently that more than likely when they finished with the “scourging” Jesus’ backbone might have been showing – the bones! Mocked, I always thought that the soldiers just said mean things. No, not only did they say the mean things, they also beat Jesus. His face was disfigured. Next I think about the crown of thorns. Jesus was given a crown of thorns or rather the crown was thrust on his head and again he was made fun of. The thorns dug into his flesh and he was bleeding.

Jesus was hung up naked. Many times when I think about this I marvel that God loved us so much that He was willing to be naked about His love for us. Of course I think this After I feel repulsed about the thought of being naked for all to see.

Sometimes God takes me further. There Jesus is, dying on the cross. He loves His mother so much; he gives her to John, so that she will be provided for after He is gone. I also hear Jesus in all that pain say, “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” Around here, I begin to realize that sin is ugly to God. Even what I call a “little” sin is ugly. My white lies, my unkind words etc.

As I have walked through the scenes of the cross, I begin to see “love.” I begin to grasp that God loves me. ME! He loves me, the one whose children don’t like her. He loves me, the one who often talks too loudly. He loves, me, even though I am overweight. He loves me with my imperfections. His son, Jesus has now become the veil through which God sees me.

As I have grasped that I am loved….I find new strength. When I know that I matter, I can face so much more in life. God doesn’t take struggles away from me; He takes me through the struggle. When I get to the other side of struggles, I often look back and I am amazed at what I was able to come through. It wasn’t me though, it was God!

As I read through the Bible each year, I begin to see that God wants us. He truly wants us. He loves us. In the Garden, after Adam and Eve sinned, God kicked them out. A few years ago I realized that God not only kicked them out of the garden, He provided for them. He slaughtered an animal – a sheep I think. He provided clothes for Adam and Eve. God provided for them even though they sinned.

Again, I think, wow – God loves me, ME! Again I see me growing. So much of my pain has been released from me. God has taught me to forgive. God has taught me to give, to serve. When I do these things, with a genuine heart, I find peace.

I am able to love Junior. I am able to love my children – even though they don’t want me. I am able to love – because God first loved me. I have so much more courage because when I am loved, I just do.

Now that I know that I am loved, I am able to face life, the hard parts and the fun parts. I am learning to see God’s hand on me more often as well. As I struggled to overcome this past year and all my health issues, I learned to see God’s hand on me. There was Alex my cat loving on me. We felt called to move to Virginia, here I see God too. It’s the baby rabbit in the yard as I write or the crane standing majestically on the bank of the river. It is Emma our landlord loving me. Again I marvel that we are in a readymade community – friends from Michigan, my sister.

Again, I see that God has taught me to be thankful for what I do have. Being thankful has been so healing to. When I am thankful, I see what I do have and don’t focus on what I don’t have. Being thankful is another way I have felt loved by God.

God is teaching me to love, to not enable, or be a co-dependent, but to love in a healthy way.

May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you.

Love

Janet

P S – This love is available to anyone and that’s what I find amazing about God. He can make each one of us feel so precious and special. He loves us in the ways we need to feel loved. All you have to do is ask Jesus to be the Lord and Savior in your heart.