May 30, 2012 Greetings My Friend, As we celebrated Memorial Day I have thought much about the sacrifice the military gives so we can have BBQ’s go to the beach or whatever. As a young person I believed that people who fought in wars were prone to violence. As I have been married to Junior I have learned the genuine love the military has for our country overall. I have been treated so well by this man and I marvel at how strong he is and how tender he can be. War does not mean the military comes home and is aggressive and violent. The longer I read my Bible I also realize that “wars will always be with us.” I wish humanity could get along with each other and let us live in freedom. We don’t and won’t till the rapture. So I believe that the military is important. As I read the Bible I see where God set up the guidelines for Israel as they became a nation. God had His people go to war over and over. God also had the people stoned to death. God taught that some people won’t learn and the community would be better with people put to death. This has been a huge struggle for me. I fear putting the innocent people to death and so for a good portion of my life I did not believe in the death sentence. The way I see it is that if we allow certain people to live then we can expect that their sin will grow within the community. If they were put to death that sin would not continue to grow and another generation may not repeat the sin. As I read I find that God wanted His people to eat bread at certain times without yeast. It took me a while but I learned the symbolism associated with yeast. Yeast makes the dough rise. Sin left unattended tends to rise within a community like it does in the dough. If the yeast is not allowed to rise in the dough then it won’t keep raising. The same with sin within the community and there are certain sins that wreaks havoc on the community. By getting rid of the dough or sinners then the sin can’t continue. It seems drastic and yet when I listen to God I find He does know what He is doing. Another confusing statement has been God will love the families that love Him for generations. God also will not love some generations to the fourth or fifth generation. I have learned through the years that when one generation sins the next one will go even further. I see that when the Israelite’s split up that the people in Israel worshiped false God’s. That community kept getting worse and worse and it took generations for the people to come back to God. My goal is to love God first and foremost. In God I learn what love truly looks like. I am an enabler by nature so I allow sin to continue on for much too long. I think I am being kind by overlooking problems. I have found the more I overlook the problem the worse it gets. When I address the problem straight on then the problem tends to go away. More often than not these days I tend to let God guide me in most of the relationships I have (well all of them). If I would have stopped the man from beating on me right from the start, I would not have lived with abuse for 20 some years. I tried to understand the struggle that went through this man’s mind. I believe as I look back if I would have walked away the first time, there would not have been a 2nd time. God had to teach me when to have compassion. I will always enable someone to stay in dysfunction. At this point when I struggle I begin to ask God what I should do. God is faithful and will guide me. I think that is why my marriage is working. I take my marriage to prayer pretty much daily. I read my Bible pretty much daily. In all that I find how to do life. As I take my life to God I find that God will teach me. I have learned to not allow abuse in my life. I did not know what a life without abuse looked like prior to my faith journey. God now shows me when I need to walk away from certain people. I find I need to be talking to God pretty much daily and reading my Bible. With each reading I also ask God to teach me the lessons I need to learn. I have to rid myself of the way I think in the flesh. I need to think God’s way. I even was uncomfortable with taking Prozac. I prayed a long time before I went on Prozac. We prayed and felt God told us to move to Virginia. It doesn’t make sense at times but when I open my heart and do what I hear God telling me, my life goes so much better. So I prayed and felt that I needed the Prozac. I felt that God gave me the Prozac by the way I feel now. I have had no problems with the drug. I often have reactions to drugs so I was l scared. I also feel more whole and able to move through life now. The same thing with our move to Virginia, it did not make sense in the natural. We prayed over and over and kept being told to move. We did. I believe we are where God wants us to be by the comfort I have here. Our home is the most comfortable house I have ever lived in. The people out here get us. I don’t have to explain Junior. They get Junior’s personality. I love that. So we are attempting to do and live how we feel led by God. Have you tried a faith journey? Is it time? May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 26, 2012 Greetings My Friend, As I write I’ve only been on Prozac a very short time and I am finding that I am not nodding off as easily as I had been. I also am starting to sleep through the night, once I get to sleep which tends to take me a while so far. This is exciting to me. My Dr. thinks that my focus may come back and that has been another struggle. I have loved to read my whole life and the past few years reading is a struggle. I can read quick reads like this blog but a book is difficult at best. I started listening to books on CD and that was nice but to sit down and read for a prolonged period of time was difficult. I was so excited when I attempted to play solitaire and I played a whole hand. It had been years since I could focus all the way through a whole hand. I have been so excited with the new hope I’ve been given in getting better. Instead of focusing on my fears I now have a stronger hope filling me. If I could I would do cartwheels all around the property. That makes me feel that finally I can also get on a regular exercise routine again too. I can’t shout the joy loud enough that is filling me. The medication I’m taking for my GERDS/hiatal hernia is nice as well. I still struggle with vomiting and upset stomach struggles but not nearly as often. With my appendix gone that also seems to have helped with the stomach distress I had been experiencing. The apostle Paul prayed and asked God to remove a thorn from his flesh. I think it was a health problem anyway God told Paul that ‘His grace was sufficient” Sometimes the struggles I go through open me up to others who struggle as I struggle. Sometimes I also have others step into my life who can share and help me through my struggle. J a friend I’ve gotten close to down here has adopted me. From the start of our relationship she has said that she understands me. J is a few years older and has health issues alongside of emotional struggles. J often has guided me along the path as I go through these struggles. I believe in my heart that a Christian community is so important. This community steps in and helps you or sometimes you are called to help others. In this community we are able to hold each other up and accountable. This community often helps me put a “face’ on my faith journey. Sometimes I am called to help out in activities and those activities often give me new skills. Sometimes I make food for the sick or grieving. Sometimes it is a hug. As I journey on in my faith I am finding that putting in time volunteering at church is not the only way to minister to others. As I give rides, an ear or even things that help others I am also ministering. I also find learning how to be Junior’s wife is a way to honor God. Learning how to love my children is a way to honor God. I have learned that the older women are to instruct the younger women. I believe this blog is a way for me to reach out with God’s love. If my struggle helps another in their struggle I am so grateful. When I write about depression I have people who write to me about their struggle. My cousin and I often will e-mail my blog or something else back and forth with our comments inserted in them. We are finding a “face” to our faith journey. A lot of people don’t mention that they are reading my blog and some part of me discerns that they read it by what they say. I am hoping that I am helping people and that is the goal. So I’ve been struggling with health and emotional issues. These issues have not gone away the second I prayed for them to go away. Along the way though I have been given a counselor, friends who let me explore my feelings, medication and I have also been able to help others in the same struggle. At times I think that God allows us to continue along in a struggle so we learn things. I have realized that I did not go through the steps I needed to early on after I left my abuse. In Single Point people would tell me their story, their pain and when I’d bring up my struggle they would not listen to me. Even Junior did not seem to understand that I needed to go through a process. I think I appear able to move along quicker than I am and so he was grooming me to counsel others right from the start. I am starting to think that I may need to back up and talk about the things I need to in order for me to move forward. I have started writing in my journal. I am asking my counselor to guide me through this process so I can more fully let go of my fears that continue to have a hold on me. I am hoping that in 6 months I will have worked through this process and will be able to go off of Prozac. I am hoping then I can move through life emotionally with a little more ease. I’d like to think I will only need this as a onetime assist. Time will tell. My hope has never left me. Somewhere in all my struggles I have felt God’s hand on me whether it was a hug or a direction I needed to take. This latest hope though is different. It is stronger and that feels ever so wonderful. As I have worked through these struggles God’s way continues to be the way I want to go. Here it is again “where is your hope?” May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 23, 2012 Greetings My Friend, Thoughts at large: I’ve been to the Dr. and we are starting the process of finding answers to my struggles. I am now on Prozac to help me work past the fears I have struggled with. I know the fears are irrational and yet I can’t let go of them so I am hoping an assist will do the trick. My goal is to try and get off in six months and see if I can move along without the aid. I was very disappointed to learn that vomiting maybe what I experience due to my hiatal hernia being so large even though I am on a medication to help with the GERDS issues. Some mornings flossing my teeth sets me off….a simple little act like that. Some days I have extreme sour stomach distress where I want to curl up and lay low all day….so I learn again do what I can when I can. I have had people tell me that I am chatting with them and I drop off to sleep. I often feel wide awake and then all of a sudden I find myself waking up from a nap. We are looking into narcolepsy and that makes sense. Since I struggle getting to sleep and staying asleep all night I have a sleep study in my future. My Dr. seems to be in tune with me and that feels nice. I feel like there are answers coming and to be honest that feels good. For the past several years I feel like I am fighting through life in a paper bag and my energy stinks and I did not think I’d feel this sluggish for many more years. The thought of doing life and not being sick or scared or just yucky a whole lot feels wonderful. I love being in Virginia, I love being Junior’s wife but the struggles have always been hard. I even love the new house and the progress we are making. Even the renovation process has begun to wear on me. I want a more finished home. I don’t want to move around with boards, ladders, tools and the like. The house continues to come together. The kitchen ceiling is in and looks wonderful. The old laundry room is turning into our 2nd bathroom. All the insulation is in and there are boards down in the attic so we can move more things up there and our front room is clear of more junk. Junior has kept saying that the kitchen is the last room he will renovate since he has to make decisions that will last years. I told him that we really have a good idea of where we want everything. We stood out there talking one day and we said things like “let’s put the sink on the back wall and then the washing machine and sink will be on the same wall back to back and the plumbing will be on an inside wall.” Next we figured out that the cupboards will go where the sink was. The island will have the stove dropped in it and Junior seemed to realize that we did indeed have the plan fairly much together. He has said he would do the kitchen sooner than later. We may soon get the house more functional and Junior may have his projects to work on. I’m thinking that he could then begin a yearly project and we’d have the house in order and looking more like a home. The wood floors all need to be finished. The front porch turned into a family room, paneling on the walls etc. To me to have the home looking like a home and more put together would be awesome. I’ve been praying for my marriage for 14 years now. I believe in my heart that God has guided me along the way. I have learned to not mention every detail that runs through my head. I believe Prozac will help me to quit talking about my past and Junior will get the break he needs from hearing me struggle through my fears. In the beginning of our marriage when Junior would scream at his computer I found myself petrified. I told Junior and he quit yelling at the computer when he had struggles. We have grown into a very satisfactory life together. When I was divorced I truly did not think men and women could be friends. I never felt my parents were real friends. They told everyone they were but to me they seemed like they existed together. One of the first things I learned as a newly married was that we need to put God first even before our spouse. That felt weird to me. As I have learned to go to God for everything I find that putting God first to be a wonderful way to do my life. God teaches me to be the wife I need to be to Junior. God also guides me as I talk with my children. That has become part of my prayers as well. “Dear Lord teach me to be the mother/grandmother my family needs me to be.” I prayed that early on and then for some reason I stopped. That is about the time I struggled and found it hard to deal with them and them with me. I don’t want to mess up again so I pray it daily now. Before I tried to pray as I picked up the phone or when I saw them pulling up. The daily prayer covers me for those unexpected moments. Junior and I have no regrets with our move to Virginia. We love the climate. We still get snow but not as much. It doesn’t get as cold as often either. The average winter temperature is 40 degrees. We both enjoy it when the temperatures are anywhere from 40 degrees to 80 degrees. Up on the mountain the summer temps are 5 to 7 degrees cooler, again not bad. We have made some good friends and that feels nice. When I go to the bank I stop in the office and chat with the loan officer. For some reason because she is a bank employee I feel a kindred spirit with her. She looks for me to stop in. I didn’t go in for a long time after I had my appendix out and we had a couple of trips etc. She commented she missed my chats. That felt real good. So I move along in life. I believe a daily talk with God is helping me do life and I find great enjoyment overall. I also don’t feel alone because God will guide me as to what He wants me to do and be. I like that a whole bunch. Even though I have been struggling, I have found that God has given me the strength to carry on. Yup I do love life. May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 19, 2012 Greetings My Friend, As I have struggled through this latest round of fear of what my ex has done to me I have heard that I need to forgive him. That is so right I do need to forgive him. Overall I believe I have forgiven him as well. I do find though that forgiveness is not a onetime process. It is an ongoing process. I tend to see forgiveness in layers. As I learn to forgive an area in my life I often find that God points out something else I need to forgive. I believe God gives my forgiveness process in layers because I need to comprehend the struggle and the dysfunction in my life. When I was younger I believed in God but I felt God’s ways were too hard so I decided to go off on my own. One day I woke up divorced, unhappy and realized I had been unhappy pretty much my whole life. At that low point I asked God back into my life and I began to find healing deep inside of me. I was an angry woman. In fact a counselor taught me that there were other ‘feeling’ words besides ‘that made me angry.” I was angry if I was scared, I was angry if you hurt my feelings, everything went through the filter of anger for me. In my faith journey I find that is exactly what it is a journey. For a long time I believed that if I said the sinner’s prayer, life would become a cake walk, money would flow and I would not know pain anymore. Well a faith journey is not a cake walk for sure again it is a journey. My life is way better than before as well. I love deeper, fuller and have peace now. I have joy in reaching out to others. I have joy in learning how to live a “clean’ life. For me taming my thought life, trusting people, accepting the hard things that crop up and I live life so much fuller now. As I look back at my former life I see that I struggled for many years with anger, abuse and a whole host of other not fun things. The long time spent in that life has meant that it will take me more than a minute to process and move beyond the pain. One of the first things God had me work on was my thought life. Shower time was a very unhappy point in my day. I took my thoughts to all the pain, anger and unpleasant moments in my life. Getting out of the shower meant I was depressed more often than not. God taught me to start singing in the shower. I learned hymns and praise songs. Soon I found myself being joyful. The day went along better. When I married Junior he taught me to pray for my ex. I also could not complain about him. I had to ask for my ex’s highest good. I did cry a few times at the pain I felt but overall I began to want his best. In fact I still want his best. I just don’t want to be his best friend anymore. The more I gave my ex to God the more peace I felt. A versus in the Bible says “Revenge is mine says the Lord.” The more I gave my ex to God, the less fear and pain I began to live with. I was learning that God was dealing with my ex. I was also learning that God was dealing with me. I had my moments of not being a “nice” person as well. I was learning to let go let God. The nightmares went away. The anger went away. Life continued to move along and again peace was what was settling in my heart. Family sided with my ex, I learned that God would love me through the pain. God was pointing me to ministry work. I helped out with the re-marriage workshops, with a newsletter, with a friend who was ministering to the Muslims and began writing this blog and a book. Retirement came along and I fell apart. I had health issues, a fight with a loved one and a move less than a year after I retired. I found myself trying desperately to keep my head above water. A year and a half after we moved to VA we moved again. As we settle I find myself coming back to a more comfortable level again. In this for some reason though the ex has surfaced in my fears and I need to deal with him again. I believe that God is working more layers of forgiveness in me. Early on after the divorce I realized there would be no more physical hurting me. Junior would not allow him to hurt me. My new fear seemed to be that my ex was going to steal anyone and everyone I loved. First Mom insisted that my ex be one of the caregivers for her as she ended her life. Then the kids found that Dad seemed a whole lot more fun than me. Next my brother allowed my ex to be good friends with him and his family. I kept feeling alone and unwanted. My ex’s family closed off all ties with me but my family did not close off ties with him. This layer of forgiveness tends to be to trust that my ex cannot steal who God gives me. My children are both back in my life and I am extremely happy about that. Most of my friends have never met my ex and more than likely will never meet him. When I decided to re-enter into my children’s life my grandson was being baptized. As usual the party had to be at my ex’s place a place of unpleasantness for me. So I asked a group of friends to attend with Junior and I. They came along and held me tenderly as I struggled through that moment. Whenever I needed to move about the house to get food or whatever a friend would tag along and I was comforted. So again I am learning to trust God, to let go of fear and in the process I am forgiving yet again. I pray my ex meets Jesus if he hasn’t already. I need to believe that my ex cannot take away what God has given me. If I can wrap my thoughts around that then I am sure peace will come again. May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 16, 2012 Greetings My Friend, “You reap what you sow” is playing around in my thoughts again. As I have gone on in life I have seen where this is so true. If I am mean then I invite meanness into my life. If I steal then I can expect that things I cherish will come up missing. I also believe that on occasion I won’t ask for the hurt that I get due to a poor attitude. When that moment does come though because I have a loving attitude I believe that yes it hurts but I will be able to move through the situation by being a loving person. I believe that as a child my Dad telling me that since I was the oldest I had to set the example also plays into my “reap what you sow” thoughts. From the beginning I learned that other people are watching me and I need to be careful of what I do and say. Another part of this may be that I also learned to make people happy so I would not get beat. Whatever it is I still think treating others how you want to be treated is not a bad way to go. I love to be treated with tenderness. I love the gentle touch of a hand on my back when I’ve done something right. It is a pleasure beyond words. I also love when I’ve cheered someone up, that moment when the smile grows by leaps and bounds. I have met people who aren’t happy until they have snarled at someone. It was a common scene in my childhood home. I even remember when I was starting my faith journey and my conversation I had with God. I told God that I wanted to love people even if that love hurt. That is why I love my faith journey so much, I get to love people and if it hurts I have the love of God holding me which to me is about as awesome as life gets for me. As I was coming to terms with my explosive nature when I was younger I started to believe in the “you reap what you sow” teaching. I found that the angrier I got with people the more I met angrier people than I was. I think this lesson was driven home for me when Dad was in the hospital for cancer. His bed side toilet did not work properly. Mom would march out to the front desk and scream at the staff. I finally went out there one morning before Mom showed up and explained in the quietest way possible the struggle and embarrassment my Dad had with the broken chair. Within minutes the staff came in and replaced the chair. As I deal with Junior I try very hard to treat him the way I want to be treated. I want to be treated with tenderness, with understanding and not screamed at. I also don’t want to be right at Junior’s expense. When we were first married we both discussed our disdain for jokes at another person’s expense. We try hard to not put each other down just to get a laugh as well. When we have caught ourselves using humor at the other’s expense we’ve both apologized and then have worked at keeping the “joke” of humor out of our lives. It may be funny but it gets old real fast. I find more hurt feelings using this type of humor. Junior lets me tell him when my feelings are hurt. That helps and I appreciate that he lets me be honest. He has had to tell me a few times to stop as well. I am ever grateful that we can be honest with each other. Junior can also be brutally honest at times. That is who Junior is. He can be honest to a fault. He does not do it to be mean, he is being honest. Once in a while I have to ask Junior to refrain from such frankness. When I had my appendix out Junior commented in a joking way that I finally had a “real” illness. Junior thinks I am a hypochondriac. I am consistently telling him I am trying as hard as I can and frankly Junior knows pain in a deeper way than I do. He has no patience with me and my illness The problem is that my appendix problem was several months before we found out. I was having major rolling stomach distress along with vomiting. To me these were real symptoms and to Junior they were a way for me to get attention. I have a tendency to tell him I don’t feel good. Then I tend to go lay down. Junior hears me complaining and not reporting. I can’t control how he “hears” me. I am also finding out that junior thinks I am repeating myself for attention. I am repeating myself because I don’t think he hears me. To me I am trying to tell him something important in a “different” format and he hears it as repeating. As I am learning “how” Junior hears me, I am attempting to tell him I am not looking for attention. I want to convey what is going on with me. In another life when I told my ex I was sick that would be the time he wanted to play. So it is important to me to convey what is going on without a lot of drama. I want people to know I don’t feel good end of story. I want to be able to be sick and be sick in peace. I also know if others don’t know what is going on with you then you snap at them that can cause hard feelings so I ‘report’ so others understand. When I am out in public I want to be nice. When I am home I want to be nice. Long gone are the days of being cranky at home and attempting niceness in public. Now I want to be nice wherever I am. I want to reap what I sow. I like sowing niceness. May God bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 12, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I am struggling again with worry that my ex still wants to hurt me in some form or another. I know this is irrational and yet I still struggle. People in general tend to have the reaction of “that was 15 years ago, come on now!” The problem is that what I feel is very real. I have a hard time letting go and at times I feel paralyzed. My ex is my family’s good friend. He goes over to their house and they talk and are friends. He has a right to do that I know. His family has stayed away from me. They align themselves with their brother and defend him. My sister-in-law kept telling me that he is her hero when I had called to tell her I missed their mother. My family states I am weird and my fears are irrational. Not one person in my family has stood beside me. I have felt so very alone all these years. In Jesus I have found a way to move through life. I now have good friends who will take my side when I need the encouragement. Family though….. My kids, I have left the struggle alone with them. I don’t want them to hate their father because he is their father and a constant barrage of complaints won’t make them side with me. I am on FB and recently his picture showed up as a possible friend request. I have pulled the picture up and studied it over and over. I see our granddaughter hugging him. As I look I begin to remember not so pleasant things and depression is trying to swallow me up. We went away with my niece and as we stopped in her house she was able to block his picture and request from my page. I am ever grateful for her help in getting him out of my life again. I have decided to add more time at the counselor’s for a while. I am talking with my doctor about taking some type of medication to help me through these slumps. I don’t want a maintance type drug at this point but would rather take an as needed type of medication. Journaling definitely helps along with my counseling. I write on FB each visit that I have given my struggle over to J so that I have permission to let go and to quit carrying my fear around with me. I do know the steps I need to take, it gets hard though. I am guessing the reason I am looking at a medical assist to help me is because I continue to struggle with fear even though we have been divorced for 15 years. It took me a while to understand that I lived with fear for 24 years and two years I dated him. I lived with the fear so long and it is hard for me to feel safe after all this time. That is the PTSD that I struggle through. Junior has not fought in Viet Nam for a good 40 years now and he still struggles with fear. For him as a man he tends to get angry. He had a job that allowed him the release of anger. The guys often would get into fights where he worked. He fit in. Since retirement Junior has started taking Paxil to help him control his anger. Junior has never ever tried to hurt me. He struggles though with keeping his anger in check and the medication he is now taking helps him not get angry. For the longest time I felt Junior’s PTSD was worse than mine. As we go along though I realize his is different not worse. I lived my abuse for 26 years and it has been hard for me to let go and move on. Again people have little understanding of my struggle and are often impatient with me. My family has not stood beside me and that hasn’t helped. They tend to react like I am a problem and I may have deserved his wrath. It has taken me years to realize no matter how annoying I am I don’t deserve to be abused. Parts of my annoying ways are “learned” responses to life. I am constantly watching people faces to change my words if need be. It is something I have done since I was a child. I often will tell people what they want to hear because I would get beat if what I said did not agree with what they wanted me to say. So my annoying ways are a learned response to life. When we were first married I know Junior would get annoyed when I constantly asked him “why his face was all scrounged up.” It took me a few years to truly not fret every time I saw a crease in his forehead. We have been married for 14 years and I now feel very safe with Junior. I know down deep he won’t hit me. I know he will forgive me. I feel safe, safer than I have ever felt in my life. I also feel safe when I wake up and hear Junior moving around the house. It is about the most beautiful sound now. He has never been loud and in his gentle way I find comfort and safety. When I get up we talk and have coffee and I totally love this new life. We lead very unassuming lives. I like that a ton. We travel, we go to church, we have friends and to be honest this life has been awesome. Junior gets impatient with my fears. I can understand in a way. He is tired of hearing these fears over and over and over again. As a woman….I need to talk about my fear. I don’t get mad and beat people up like a man may. I talk because that is what women do talk. So I go to a counselor, I journal and I talk to girlfriends. I am consistently working out my fear, some days are better than others. May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 9, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I remember as a young girl all of a sudden I wanted the attention of a boy…any boy for a while till one came along. I wanted to wear blue jeans, a bikini and the older I got more form fitting clothing. At first I was not aware of why I wanted to dress differently. Some of it was the commercials and then later as I began to understand the man/woman dynamics I began to want to be pleasing to the males in my life. The same feeling came back as I found myself single again after 24 years of marriage. I had always wanted to be pretty but I did not want to attract the attention of men while I was married. When I was single I felt the old high school urge to be a little more suggestive in my choice of clothes. I met a young man when I was 16. He was the first guy I dated for more than a minute. We began a fairly serious relationship early on. Dad had always taught me that we needed to leave something to a man’s imagination and I bought that philosophy. I did like wearing hip huggers but not overly suggestive types of clothing. I remember on a date one night the young man tore my bra off of me. He wanted me to run around bra-less. I was horrified but to be pleasing I began doing that for him. I also found each time I tried to wear a bra he started tearing it off of me. I later married this young man. He then wanted me to wear short shorts. He would get very angry if I protested. I started wearing the short shorts. Dad’s advice about leaving something to the imagination was not what he thought I should do. For me to feel like a woman, I like to wear a bra. The overly frilly bras irritate my skin. At present I have found a sports bra that won’t bother my skin. After radiation my skin was even more sensitive and it took me a while to find something that would not leave deep welts on my skin. The bra’s I am wearing these days aren’t overly pretty but to be honest I am thrilled to wear that piece of female equipment. I am thrilled that I still have my female equipment. Junior has done a wonderful job of appreciating me as I am and for what I have. In the past I was made to feel like I was constantly lacking and highly unattractive. Junior has a way of making me feel like a woman and I enjoy being a woman. I never feel like a piece of property to him but truly his lover. Junior likes that I keep myself private just for him. He has no clue how much that means to me. He does not want others to know that private part of who I am. I also don’t want others to know those private parts/things of Junior. Our love is for each other and no one else. Personally as I read the Bible I begin to think that God created man and woman, not man and man or woman and woman. He often states his disdain for same sex attractions both in the OT and the NT. I also notice in the Bible that the relationships where there was more than one wife there was also a lot of strife between them. In my way of thinking I believe God set the pattern for man/woman relationships right from the start by creating Adam and Eve was created from Adam’s rib. I believe God wanted us to be man/woman. I also know that when Abraham and Sara were traveling through Canaan that there were times where Abraham was concerned for his life so he had Sara tell the rulers that she was his sister and she was…at that time family members inter married until the Law of Moses came into effect several hundred years later. When a ruler tried to take Sara into his chambers, God would give the ruler a nasty dream and they knew they should not sleep with her. When Sara at 90 some years old finally had her son Isaac Abraham was the father of him and no other man had violated Sara. Again this says to me that God wants us to be faithful to our spouses. Now as far as divorce goes….that is up for speculation. For a long time I believed God frowned on divorce. I think God does actually but I also believe God divorced His people by sending them into exile. God doesn’t want divorce but in our fallen state….it happens. I don’t think God is angry with me or with Junior because we are divorced. We also have made a vow to God to make this marriage work and for me I pray for our marriage all the time. As I read about Abraham and Sara, Mary and Joseph and Boaz and Ruth I tend to see that the couples tended to have “eyes” only for each other. There was no other wife or reports of affairs. This to me says again that is what God cherishes the most, a relationship between husband and wife and the couple in relationship with God. One of my favorite scriptures in the OT is “A cord of three strands is not easily broken.’ As I ponder that Scripture I begin to see that our relationship in the Lord is the best place to be. God often guides Junior and I and I believe God has taught us to be what the other needs. In that loving embrace I find again that I want my husband’s eye only on me and I no longer want the male attention of other men. I have no problem talking to men in a generic way. I don’t want to “come on to” them anymore. Where is your heart? With your spouse? On other people for a better catch? May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 5, 2012 Greetings My Friend, There is that thought again….I keep pondering and then thinking how in the world can I write and explore this thought. It is embarrassing really. Anyway it is nakedness. My thought is about being naked and yet most of us are not willing to let others see us naked….emotionally or physically. My first thoughts tend to go to the cross. Through the years I have learned that Jesus was hung up naked on the cross. Many artists have a piece of cloth over Jesus’ private parts but in reality when people were hung up on the cross they were hung up naked. As I pray through the cross I tend to think of Jesus being naked and the humiliation he must have had. Shortly after that initial thought I tend to think of God’s love and the nakedness factor is there. God loves us enough to be naked for us, for us to know Him that intimately. It is a moment of amazement to me. My mind goes off from that point. Naked…Jesus was naked on the cross. That again is a marvel. For me….I hate showing off my body. I have had a few incidents in my life that embarrass me even now. There was the time when I was a child and we had a small pool outside and I went in to change into a bathing suit and there were some boys around. At that point in my life I felt we were the same that was before I began to change into a woman. Boys were flat chested and so was I. The boys were hankering to see me naked and I finally ran outside with no clothes on. Years later when the same boys saw me and mentioned that incident I remember I wanted to die. Then there was the time when my ex and I took the kids to the beach. I was watching them in the water and I was on the beach. My ex wanted me to go in to the water and I didn’t want to go in. my ex then drug me into the water. He dunked me under the water and as I came up and cleared the water from my eyes I saw people pointing at me. I looked down and my bathing suit top was around my waist. I was so embarrassed. I dunked down lifted my top and then got out of the water. It took me years to go into the water at the beach again. If I did put on a bathing suit I generally put a shirt or a towel over me. I was tiny for most of my life. People still tell me I am small although I am a good 20lbs heavier than I have been. I generally tell people that I now weigh more than when I gave birth to my children. For me I am real heavy. Being naked for me is uncomfortable. It means people may truly see the fat layers I have. Clothes can also hide a lot of the imperfections my body has. I can enhance my body by the different clothes I wear. I love small breasted women who push up their breasts with various products and then wear a top that makes them look big busted. We try to present ourselves the way we want others to know us. To be honest for most of my life I truly did not want to be big busted. In my way of thinking that meant those breasts would get in the way when I ran and I would rather run than have a lot of cleavage. My Dad was always making fun of my small breasts. He would tell me I needed to put hostess cupcakes in my bra because I was so tiny. After I had children I managed to have a little more cleavage. I still saw myself as the woman with hardly anything to offer. Junior was very happy with my breast size when I married him. To him I was a big breasted woman. I guess comparatively I was. Junior has made me feel good about my body even though I weigh more. He continues to look at me like I was the 110 woman he married. I love that. He does make me feel like a woman. With Junior I find myself more open and honest about who and what I am. I am not afraid to let him know that frightened woman I can be at times. One night we were snuggling in bed and Junior reached over and hugged me. He said I made him feel safe. I usually am befuddled when I hear that. I am about the weakest woman physically. I usually translate his feeling safe with him feeling he can be who he is and not worry. I feel that way with Junior. He loves me warts and all. I love Junior warts and all. So that means when he went through his curb side shopping days, I loved him even though I did not appreciate it. Right now I love Junior for fixing on our house. I often wished he would work in a more organized way. I want to see finished products, rooms. He does a project and then moves to a different room. He works outside the box so he feels he is organized. As I entered into my relationship with God I found myself being naked with Him. He knows all so to me pretending was not going to work. As I learned to name my sin I found God did not want to beat me up. I found God showing me how to move away from that sin. I also found more peace entering my life. I am continuing to learn how to be honest with God. I am amazed when I name my struggle and then God holds me so tenderly. Again I learn that God doesn’t want to beat me up but wants my highest good. Junior does not want to beat me up, he wants my best. I like this type of nakedness. May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet

May 2, 2012 Greetings My Friend, “Sometimes you are the only Bible a person may ever read.” That statement is to me very sobering. I try to read my Bible daily. I try live what I read and sometimes I mess up big time. About now I think of King David and how he messed up and later confessed his sin and went on to live with God again. So I want to live for God and I realize that sometimes I will mess up and that is ok….well as long as I repent with a sincere heart. I am reading in the New Testament at present. The New Testament has a whole lot of great teachings. As I think on this I feel that the Old Testament lessons are mostly personal lessons and the New Testament seems to be more teaching lessons. Anyway Paul is coming to mind and his teachings. There is the 1Corithians 13 lesson on love. I really find it helpful. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Right after that it states “Love never fails.” Then shortly after that it states “these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” That section teaches me how to love. It gives me a good groundwork to begin to love my husband, my family and those I am in relationship with. For me on my own I tend to want to put the people I love on a pedestal and when they let me down I am so disappointed. When I start learning how to love as I see God love by how the Bible teaches me I then am able to enter into more healthy relationships. By nature I am an enabler as well. If I look at my relationship with God, God will enable me to do things but He won’t enable me to stay in dysfunction. I have had this discussion many times in my life. It goes something like this. “You had a good job and a lot of responsibility at work. Why did you not leave your abusive life?” That is true. I did have a job that required a lot of thinking and responsibility. The struggle for me was I was so insecure in my day to day life. I believed the lies that I would not be able to take care of a house and the repairs or the car repairs. I knew how to handle money. I wasn’t sure how to handle the day to day things of keeping life in order. As my children grew older I was not always sure how I would be able to discipline them. I felt I needed the firmness a father would give them. I did not want him to abuse the children but I also knew that a man’s stern voice often would turn a child around. I left my former marriage two times. The first time I left for a few weeks and went back to that marriage. I went home to my parent’s house. Dad asked for money the whole time I stayed there. The problem in that the ex would not give me money and I did not know how to make him give me any. I had no job and no car. I was scared and my parents barely kept enough food for my baby to eat. I went back to feed my baby. Eventually I went to college and I went to work. At work I learned how to do more and more. By the time the divorce came along I had begun to learn how to manage on my own. Now I know that God will guide me. If Junior was to die and I pray he won’t for a very long time, I will be able to take my fear to God. Back in the day I went to church but I did not know God intimately. I did not know how to listen to God. The other lesson I am thinking on is Titus 2. As I began my faith journey I struggled with what a woman is. Mom was a woman for sure but she adopted a more masculine approach to life as she went to work to support the family. I remember Mom being proud one time when she was on her CB radio and a guy commented that she drove live a man. She often repeated that comment. Mom had to be the bread winner and I guess she felt she needed to be tough in dealing with life. I was never able to be a tough as nails type of woman. I liked frilly things. I liked the idea of staying home and raising my children. I wanted to bake cookies and make the house smell good. I liked taking the kids for walks and doing art projects with them. So I was confused as to what a woman looked like. Dad stayed home with us kids. Dad cleaned and did laundry. Back in the late 50’s and early 60’s women generally stayed home and the men worked. As I read Titus 2 I began to learn how to be a woman. “Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind and to be subject to their husbands.” Part of my desire in this blog is to teach women. It is something I have longed for in my life. My Mother-in-law comes to mind. She sat me down and began teaching me how to be a wife right from the start. She taught me to make meals for people who help us on the house fixing things. She taught me to help my husband. She even taught me that I need to write thank-you notes. My mother-in-law comes to mind often as I settle into retirement and am once again more homemaker than breadwinner. I often visualize myself being busy cleaning as I remember seeing her in her own home. I also visualize myself cooking like I remember her doing. I think times have changed as well and what she did is not what will work today. We have many more modern conveniences to keep a home clean and thus don’t need to spend as much time cleaning. At this point I see me being a home-maker and a writer. So again I am trying to learn and then hopefully as I learn I am able to pass on what I know to help the next generation along. May God bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you. Love Janet