September 1, 2012 Greetings My Friend, Thoughts at large: One of the struggles I have had is the chaos of a home that is being renovated. I don’t operate well in chaos and need order. I have wanted to let Junior be Junior and not fuss at him to have everything in order. He operates in dis-order very well and prefers dis-order. We have had to find house insurance again. We wind up not on insurance somehow. It is different here in Virginia and well we haven’t figured the insurance thing out. Anyway we have had to have the insurance people by. We have had to clean up so our insurance will be accepted. Now we are trying to consolidate our debt and refinance our house and well that means we need to get the house cleaned up inside and out so we can get a good appraisal. For me….I am thrilled because I don’t have to look at boards, ladders and tools wherever I go. I am seeing more of how the house will be post renovation. It is going to be so cute and I love this house even more. I marvel at the contentment I feel living here overall. Tomorrow the appraiser will be here and we are cleaning like there is no tomorrow. All renovating is on hold for right now and the house is starting to look like a home and this girl is about as thrilled as she can get. I am starting to have some more energy and I am helping Junior get things in order. That makes me happy as well. I am not ready run a marathon but I am doing more and more each day. When we are done I believe I will truly be able to keep house again and that is exciting to me. My cleaning these days is way different than in years past. I sweep a little sit down catch my breath and then I get up and do something else. I then sit down again and my day goes like this now. I have a tendency to turn on the TV and I work through commercials now. It works and I see progress and it makes the house clean. About the time I think my sleep is on some sort of schedule I have a tendency to sleep differently. After starting Prozac I slept 6 hours and then I’d wake up. I was up at 5:00 or so. I did not mind that and I was happier with 6 hours of sleep than three hours awake, fall asleep a few hours later and then up after 3 hours and then back down till I had my 8 hours all in. With the 6 hours I only needed two more hours. Now that I am on the CPAP machine for the most part when I get to sleep I stay asleep for 8 hours. Lately I can’t get to sleep till midnight and I am sleeping at least 8 hours and many days it may even be 9 or 10 hours. These days I don’t get upset because I am thrilled I am sleeping. I used to worry that I was losing brain cells and well I’d rather sleep anymore. I also find I am not the Janet of years past. I can no longer jump out of bed and run. Many days I will be sick to my stomach if I rush too much. I often fall back asleep when Junior calls me to wake me up. I have never been like this so it annoys me. I now have to give myself some time to wake up and move slowly in the morning if I need to be up. If I don’t I can’t function. I have been asking God to change me and frankly He hasn’t. At this point I am accepting that this is my “new normal” and I live with the changes in me. Prior to Prozac I would get very upset with myself and these days I tell myself, “it is what it is.” I find a freedom in accepting these changes now. So if I don’t wake up till 10:00 or 11:00 that is ok. If I can work like crazy one day and the next I am wore out well that is ok too. I have quit giving myself all kinds of lectures and have started just doing what I can when I can. I am writing two days a week for my blog. I started a book on Polio and have stalled out. As we come to an end with the renovating I believe I will be able to focus on writing more. I like that idea a whole lot. I love that I will be able to move my computer around the house and outside more. Junior hooked me up so I can get the internet without being plugged into it. That is nice. I can see the day where I will take my computer and sit on the porch and look at the woods. It is so quiet and pleasing and well I love this new life a bunch. I again marvel at God. God directed us to move. We moved to Virginia and we love it here. We were going to rent and then discovered we weren’t good renters so when we found this house we prayed. We felt God said to buy this house and to be honest I have never felt so good in a home. This home is a good 80-100 years old. It had not been lived in for many years and for a while it was a place for people to crash after a party. It had fallen to a state of dis-repair. Slowly though we are bringing it back to its former beauty and improving on it. We truly love the new life we have been given. We love the views we have as we walk, sit on the porch and as we drive. I can’t even begin to tell how much peace I have. It is awesome. Are you content with where your life is going? Have you thought about Jesus? May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 29, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I have heard from a mother my age range and I believe that our children don’t realize that we don’t have the energy we once did. Todays 50’s woman is not the same 50’s type woman of our younger days. Women generally did not work outside the home. Today’s woman has raised her family, worked outside the home, gone to school and volunteered. I am finding more and more 50ish year old women who are totally worn out. If the woman did not have children then she tended to have a career or two and was involved in all kinds of extra activity. We get to our 50’s and well the energy is a thing of the past now. I can’t always believe I don’t have the energy I once had. I want to get up tackle a major job in a few hours and frankly I can’t. It irritates me to no end to not be able to dig in and do as I have done for a good portion of my life. My low blood pressure seems to be the culprit. I can’t even walk as far as I have in the past. I saw a commercial that to me sums up how I feel. It is for COPD which I don’t have but the scene feels like the struggle I have. It is an elephant sitting on top of a person lying on the couch. That extra weight is what I feel like I keep trying to push through. Prozac has given me some of my energy back and depression definitely has depleted my energy but then I am still struggling. At present I think my energy struggles is my low blood pressure and I think that I have always lacked the stamina a lot of people have had but now I am experiencing even less energy. A retired lady who is her 80’s has taught me to do what I can when I can. She also has taught me 5 minutes of work is more than what was done prior to those 5 minutes and well that helps me do me in my late 50’s. My mother was the exception for her generation since she had to go to work to support our family after Dad had polio. Mom was worn out early on. She started missing work and was on medical leave for various reasons towards the end of her career. She was finally let go and that hurt her so much. I remember thinking that Mom burned the candle at both ends a whole lot. My mother-in-law was for the most part an at home mother, with 7 children. She was the type that seemed to truly enjoy keeping her house clean, cooking for her family and caring for them. It was a full time job and she did it well. It wasn’t till her heart gave out on her that her energy seemed to lag. She kept that home spotless well into her 60’s and even a bit into her 70’s. It was more her 70’s that she truly slowed down. The woman could cook and her food was awesome. We were always happy to take home a pot of soup or one of her famous pies. My mother-in-law is often the example I look to as I try to be a homemaker only again. Then I find I can’t do what she was doing and that makes me sad. My ex was more in the middle and when we had children my mother-in-law still had teenagers at home. She was too tired to watch the grandchildren any amount. They wore her out. She loved them but she did not have the energy anymore. I remember feeling she didn’t care. At this point though I realize that she could no longer do what she had done. After the last ones left home and started having children she regained some energy to watch their little ones. She could not do it like she had done for most of her life though. Her heart was getting worse and frankly she could not do what she had done. She had heart problems for years but then those problems became worse and worse. I became a grandmother in my 40’s. I loved having the kids spend the night. We baked cookies, we let them play with the hammer and nails on a saw horse. We let them dig in the yard. A loved to dress up our stuffed frog and put outfits on him and then show the frog off to Papa and I. I could only handle the kids for one night. When they left I was fast asleep quickly. There were even times where I had to lie down while Papa tended after them. One of the goals I have is not to be a grumpy old person. I would rather make people laugh. When I am at the store I tend to get silly sometimes and the cashier will giggle at my antics. I then tell them that my goal as an older person is to make people laugh and not be grumpy like so many I have encountered through the years. I have to accept that my body is older and can’t do what it once did. Part of getting older also means that my body begins to fall apart more and more. That means health struggles are part of the package and I can either accept them or be angry. Since being angry doesn’t mean that I will gain back my strength so I will try to be positive and accept my limitations. I find people don’t enjoy being around grumpy people. I would rather be pleasant than unpleasant so again I must accept my limitations and move on. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 25, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I have been thinking about romance within our marriage. When we were first married we loved doing the man wife thing and did it every opportunity we could find. As we have been married and life has happened well that intensity has slowed way down. We enjoy each other a whole lot but again life happens and the romantic interludes tend to not be as frequent. I have started wearing a CPAP machine at night. It is helping me sleep all night long and frankly after the last many years of such sporadic sleep it feels wonderful. I feel like a martin with this gadget on though. I definitely don’t feel attractive with it on. My Junior has a way of making me feel beautiful anyway. I am so grateful that he is not turned off and won’t come near. He says over and over that he wants my best and if I need it then that is what he wants for me. He still touches me like a woman and draws near. Our man/woman equipment isn’t what it used to be. We can’t do what we once did…the equipment doesn’t do like it used to. These days cuddling feels extra nice. Junior still touches me like I’m a girl with girl parts and well frankly that feels wonderful to me. It is part of the aging process and we accept it. I still love Junior and I sense his love for me. Our love these days is more of a companionship type of love and that is ok. We enjoy running around and doing together. We love going to church together. We do a whole lot more things together these days. It costs too much for each of us to run our separate directions so we run together and frankly I find that to be rather nice. At this point I can’t drive yet due to the black outs so Junior has to run me when I need to do things. Again, I love being with him more. I guess that love in our older years is changing from that intense romance to a more companionship type of love and again that is wonderful. I love making out these days. I love that he wants to touch me and his touches are always so sweet. In a prior life touch hurt too much and now well I love being touched. As I read the Bible I tend to think that this life is in preparation for life after death. We can choose the type of life. If we accept Jesus as our Savior then I believe heaven is waiting for us and if we don’t we have hell waiting for us. Jesus tells us that in heaven we won’t be marrying so the need for procreation won’t be necessary. My thoughts of late are that the last part of our lives is less romantic because it will not be necessary in heaven and we begin to change for that time frame. I don’t know if I am right or not but this is the sense I get. As we are married now for 14 years I marvel that my feelings for Junior are deeper and stronger than when we were first together. I did not feel that way in a previous life. I never felt closer to the man the longer I was married in fact I tended to keep pulling further and further away. So this is a marvel to be deeper in love now. I believe in my heart that God is teaching me to be the wife Junior needs. I ask God daily pretty much to teach me to be what Junior needs. One of the prayers I am grateful for learning is asking God to open my eyes and heart to Junior. As he was in the midst of his curbside shopping phase I started praying that. I knew that if I kept seeing Junior with “human” eyes I would resent him and become very uninterested in him. God opened my eyes to see Junior’s very tender heart and that has been a most wonderful thing to love. Junior has a heart for the poor. We don’t generally give money to the poor. In my thinking that many times the poor tend to take advantage of money and feel that if you have then you owe them. When we help the poor we know we try have them help us and pay them, we give them of our belongings, we may even give them food but we generally won’t give money. We soon learn if they are in the need they tell us they are or if all they want is money. We have both known deep poorness in our lives. There were times that food was scarce and money hard to come by. We tend to want to reach back and help when we can. We also have worked hard to be where we are today so giving all our money away isn’t something we want to do. For me marriage to Junior is sweet and wonderful. He is someone who shares the ups and downs of life with. He is someone who enjoys me for being me. We can’t be what we once were and well that is ok. He is the one who is with me as we try to find out what is going on in my body. I am not alone in all the scary moments and that is sweet. I don’t know how many nights I am thanking God for Junior who is beside me. I love hearing him chatter in his sleep about how he loves me. I love his arm draped over me and I feel that I am His woman. Junior has always been a leg man. My legs are ok, not bad. With me though Junior loves another body part, not the female thing either and he constantly comments on it. That always touches my heart. I am finding that the romance is nice and we enjoyed it but now well the companionship is just as nice these days. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 22, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I am in my comfy chair in the midst of my morning routines of prayer, Bible reading, FBing and journaling. I love my routine and it gives my day a sense of direction. I look out the window at the trees and the blue sky and my heart feels ever so content. I realize that I have not shut the blinds at night for a long time now. I am comfortable with the blinds open. For most of my life the minute it got dark out I closed up the house by shutting doors and closing curtains or blinds so no one can look in as they walk or drive by. I can generally conjure up a picture of something ready to attack my house and I don’t want anyone to see in. As I have gone through these past few years of being awake late into the night I am learning that there is nothing waiting outside to hurt me. It is a fear I have had for a good portion of my life and finally this one is starting to lay to rest. Prozac I believe is helping me be more comfortable with this fear. Junior has also helped. Until I met Junior even night time was a fearful time for me. As a child I remember hearing my Dad walk around in the night in my bedroom. It scared me real bad. In my first marriage I never felt safe….anger could arise at any moment even in the middle of the night. With Junior though I am learning that night time does not need to be fearful and I wake up many mornings to sounds of Junior working around the house. It has gotten to be a precious sound. Sometimes I hear him playing with one of the animals and again it is a precious sound to me. Junior is the first person I have felt completely safe with. He has never tried to hurt me and for that I am grateful. As I have gone through my appendix and now these blackouts and what have you I find Junior truly wants to be my friend, lover and companion. I no longer feel that when I don’t measure up in his mind that he wants to get rid of me. He meant “for better or for worse” as we married. I love that feeling beyond belief. As I struggle with my falls, my lack of remembering and lack of energy I feel Junior at my side working with me and again that feels awesome. I am learning that my low blood pressure seems to be playing havoc with my energy levels and as we continue to go through the tests I pray that I will have a sense of energy again. Junior takes me for my walks these days. I am still scared of blacking out so he goes with me and he sets the pace for the walk, the length of the walk. He seems to get that I am out of breath easier lately and won’t push me. If I were in charge of setting the pace, I would keep setting it to high and Junior seems to know what I can handle….I love him even more for understanding my limits. I love feeling like I matter to Junior. He watches after me like I matter too. I love it. For the first time in my life I am feeling like a wanted person and again that feels wonderful. As I feel God’s love, through Junior, through friends and even my kids well, I find life to be about as sweet as it can be, even in the hard times. Junior is able to let go of relationships rather easy. Due to his upbringing he had to learn to let go and in many ways it has helped him. At times he has helped me let go when I needed to let go and didn’t want to. He always turns to God and in that I learn that God is near helping do life in a day to day way. Somewhere in all of this I also hear God telling me that He cares and that is why I have Junior, my friends, my kids etc. So I may not be close with my siblings, aunts and uncles but God seems to say that He loves me by the way I have precious friends who love on me. I am finally starting to let go of people who seem to not want me and I don’t grieve as I once did. I now am cherishing the ones that want me in their life instead. For me to know that I matter has meant a lot. As I see how much I am loved…..I tend to want to reach out and love even more. I don’t have to go looking for love anymore. God will bring me the love I need to survive so I love Junior in ways I never knew how to love before. It is a precious feeling of freedom I now have. My goal in life is not seek love but to love others and that feels wonderful. In all of this I find that God wants me and that is enough now. In this freedom I also find a purpose and a direction for life. I am no longer the lost girl looking for love. I am the loved girl reaching out and loving as God loves me. It too is precious. I find my whole attitude is of love and frankly it feels wonderful. I spent the first half of my life looking for love. I am spending the last portion of my life trying to give love away and again that feels wonderful. The more I learn to Agape love, the more love I seem to have. I love seeking another’s highest good and somewhere in all of that I find life to be sweet. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 18, 2012 Greetings My Friend, I have anger in my spirit and I don’t want it there. It is not going to do any good to be angry and it won’t make the situation go away. I feel my finger pointing and wanting to scream it is all “Your fault.” Right away I see that the pointing and blaming won’t make the situation any better and I will still have to go through what I am facing so I am in prayer asking God to help me accept the diagnosis that is yet to be given to me. I am stumbling and falling down much too much. I have always been an agile person so this puzzles me. When Junior and I were talking to a lawyer about me getting on SS early because I can’t work I start to realize I have more wrong with me than emotional struggles. I begin to see me stumbling more and my cognitive abilities have gone down the tubes and frankly again I realize I can’t work if I wanted to. It is a very sobering moment and I am grappling with the fact that I can’t work. I had thought a part time job would be fun in retirement. It would get me out and with people and I could earn a little bit of spending money. The reality is I can’t even keep up with my volunteer activities. I go weeks before I am back to my volunteer activities because I am sick, weak unable to get out and help. I am struggling to do daily tasks at home and Junior has had to pick up my slack. This makes me feel worse because he is working hard at renovating the house and now he is picking up my slack. I want to make our home comfortable for him while he works hard at fixing our house turning it into a home. I am able to keep up with making meals sort of. Junior does not mind left overs so I am grateful. I make soup often and when I bake meat I tend to make enough for 2 meals. Junior tends to make his own breakfast since he is up several hours before I get up. When I can I do whatever I have the energy for. I keep trying to add to my day only I seem to have something else go wrong with me. Last fall it was my appendix acting up on me for a few months prior to having surgery. Then I fell and well frankly I am struggling to come back to a sense of energy. I am gaining a bit more energy but then we have a day of running to Doctor appointments and such and then I am wore out to no end and the next day is a day for me to sit all day. After the fall I realize that I have been blacking out for a few years now. At this point I believe it is my low blood pressure and I am working on dealing with that. Then I notice I am stumbling more and more. We were at Best Buy the other day and I fell flat on my face. Nothing tripped me I just fell down. I begin to look back and see how unstable I have become. I get uneasy when the dogs greet us in the yard and they want to greet me and sometimes in their excitement they jump on me. I am uneasy and find myself trying to balance myself. When Junior and I walk I have a tendency to walk into him. So I begin to wonder why I am not balanced anymore. I have always been agile and this puzzles me. Then I begin to remember a lifetime of abuse. I want to point fingers and blame. Frankly though what good would that do, I would still have to deal with the issue of my lack of coordination. Just because I point my finger does not mean that the problem will go away. So blaming is not what I need to focus my attention on at present. I also realize I could have other problems due to my irresponsible behavior. My family and currently my sister is dealing with a lifetime of smoking. She is struggling with emphysema. I could have taken up smoking. I did do drugs for a few years. I have a cousin who played around with heron and he lost his mental abilities. I could have had problems with the drugs in my system. So I am trying not to point my finger and blame. Again what good what it do to blame someone for my struggle? I will still have the struggle and it won’t go away. I would have anger and frankly none of that will make the situation go away. I have a Doctor’s appointment this afternoon and of course I will mention to her about my current findings of blacking out and stumbling. My guess is I will begin a new journey as we look into what is going on inside of me. I will have anxious moments and I will have answers that have been plaguing me. This Doctor has been wonderful so far. She has me on Prozac and the CPAP machine. For the first time in years I am sleeping through the night. It feels wonderful. Not only is Prozac helping my emotions it is helping me sleep and it has helped me with my bathroom struggles. I am more stable and able to eat more fruits and vegetables and not have embarrassing moments now. That makes me happy. So I am attempting to move out of the blame attitude. I have mentioned my thoughts to a couple of friends and frankly as I mentioned these thoughts I have found that the blaming is useless. It won’t take away the problem. It may not have been the abuse that is causing my problems. I am taking my fear and my struggle to God. That is where my comfort and strength is coming from. The blame game only makes the problem worse. Here is my question yet again, where is your hope? May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 15, 2012 Greetings My Friend, As I was praying today I found myself repeating requests. I heard a Minister on the radio one time state that God heard the request the first time. I have pondered for some time my repeating requests. I have decided that I repeat myself not because I don’t think God hears me but because I need to keep focused on the problem. Each day when I get to the confession part of my prayers I often say the same sins. I ask God to keep me from role playing, pride, arrogance, impatience, intolerance, lust, greed, envy, bitterness, jealousy, anger, un-forgiveness, fear and anxiety. These are problems God has helped me with and continues to help me stay away from. As I repeat them I am reminded that they have been a huge burden in my life and I’d like to not go there anymore. Day after Day I also ask God to help me love those that I find difficult to love. In doing this I find I don’t hold anger in my heart and I think I deal with them better when I see them. If I don’t see them again well, I don’t have anger inside of me. It helps me so much not to hold anger. I am learning that I may be right in my anger but I need to let it go. If I let the anger go then my heart is calmer. The saying “Let go, let God” comes to mind. I also pray through the cross most days. For me seeing Jesus go through his last hours reminds me of the gift I have been given. As I think on this I also remember that God seemed to teach the Israelites to remember. In remembering they knew God would be their God. So I repeat myself and at this point I feel good with the repetition. It is what I need to do to stay focused. As I read the Bible I see where God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross over on. I see God knocking down the walls at Jericho and I also see God providing manna for the people to eat. Then I see a few chapters later that the Israelites forgot the wonderful things God did. It is amazing and I often feel critical until I realize I’ve done the same things. Part of my prayers is remembering and being thankful. I try to thank God for what He has done for me in my life, that day. I have not always been tuned into God and how He is working in my life. I have gone years without understanding God’s presence in my life. Many times as I am praying I see God has always been there. As a young person I was a tattle tale kind of kid. I told every secrete I knew. In general this is not good. As I look back though I realize that this behavior saved me from sexual abuse. I see that God gave me this behavior and I no longer hate myself for being that type of kid. It is not good overall don’t get me wrong but in this instance it is what saved me. I see times where God placed a program on the radio and I listened and began doing what I heard and it helped me move out of abuse. I still see the hugs I’ve been given by God and as I struggle with health issues and depression I know that God has not left me. I know I will be able to face the current struggle. I now remember Mother’s Day weekend a year ago and again I see where God was talking to me, holding me and helping me. I prayed and the more I prayed I felt God putting things on my heart. I saw how people were using me and I also saw God telling me He saw what went on behind closed doors. For me the repeating helps and I truly don’t think God minds. The Minister also stated our tendency to say “Lord, God” etc. over and over. As I have pondered that I find that I don’t think God minds. Sometimes our words are repeated as we grapple with what is on our heart and the repeating is a way for us to form words as we struggle to bring the deepness of our heart out to the open. At this point I think of the time a sinner and a Pharisee are in the temple praying. The sinner is repentant and feels unworthy and tells God that. The Pharisee is arrogant and brags to God about how wonderful he is compared to the sinner. Jesus teaches that God is happier with the sinner’s prayer. I need to give God my true heart, even if it hurts to admit my fault. In that moment I find that God hears me and helps me. The more I am honest with God then the more I am able to move out of the dysfunctions in my life. As a Christian I often don’t want people to know those dark places I have in my heart. I don’t want people to think badly of me. Well for me, I’m the type that would tell the world as well. Still I don’t want people to think that I struggle with “that” type of problem. Well, guess what I do. So I take my struggles to God over and over. In the repeating I am learning that this struggle is part of who I am and I learn that God will take it away. I have stayed away from most of the sins I mentioned for years now and I will continue to repeat myself. I also ask God pretty much daily to teach me to be the wife Junior needs and again the repeating helps me to not be so self - focused that I forget that Junior also has needs. I am finding that when I am seeking Junior’s highest then God is also training Junior to be the husband I need. Junior is finally realizing that I am not a wimp and is more sensitive to his comments about me being lazy. Yup, I am not going to give up repeating myself. I think God understands and don’t mind. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 15, 2012 Greetings My Friend, As I was praying today I found myself repeating requests. I heard a Minister on the radio one time state that God heard the request the first time. I have pondered for some time my repeating requests. I have decided that I repeat myself not because I don’t think God hears me but because I need to keep focused on the problem. Each day when I get to the confession part of my prayers I often say the same sins. I ask God to keep me from role playing, pride, arrogance, impatience, intolerance, lust, greed, envy, bitterness, jealousy, anger, un-forgiveness, fear and anxiety. These are problems God has helped me with and continues to help me stay away from. As I repeat them I am reminded that they have been a huge burden in my life and I’d like to not go there anymore. Day after Day I also ask God to help me love those that I find difficult to love. In doing this I find I don’t hold anger in my heart and I think I deal with them better when I see them. If I don’t see them again well, I don’t have anger inside of me. It helps me so much not to hold anger. I am learning that I may be right in my anger but I need to let it go. If I let the anger go then my heart is calmer. The saying “Let go, let God” comes to mind. I also pray through the cross most days. For me seeing Jesus go through his last hours reminds me of the gift I have been given. As I think on this I also remember that God seemed to teach the Israelites to remember. In remembering they knew God would be their God. So I repeat myself and at this point I feel good with the repetition. It is what I need to do to stay focused. As I read the Bible I see where God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross over on. I see God knocking down the walls at Jericho and I also see God providing manna for the people to eat. Then I see a few chapters later that the Israelites forgot the wonderful things God did. It is amazing and I often feel critical until I realize I’ve done the same things. Part of my prayers is remembering and being thankful. I try to thank God for what He has done for me in my life, that day. I have not always been tuned into God and how He is working in my life. I have gone years without understanding God’s presence in my life. Many times as I am praying I see God has always been there. As a young person I was a tattle tale kind of kid. I told every secrete I knew. In general this is not good. As I look back though I realize that this behavior saved me from sexual abuse. I see that God gave me this behavior and I no longer hate myself for being that type of kid. It is not good overall don’t get me wrong but in this instance it is what saved me. I see times where God placed a program on the radio and I listened and began doing what I heard and it helped me move out of abuse. I still see the hugs I’ve been given by God and as I struggle with health issues and depression I know that God has not left me. I know I will be able to face the current struggle. I now remember Mother’s Day weekend a year ago and again I see where God was talking to me, holding me and helping me. I prayed and the more I prayed I felt God putting things on my heart. I saw how people were using me and I also saw God telling me He saw what went on behind closed doors. For me the repeating helps and I truly don’t think God minds. The Minister also stated our tendency to say “Lord, God” etc. over and over. As I have pondered that I find that I don’t think God minds. Sometimes our words are repeated as we grapple with what is on our heart and the repeating is a way for us to form words as we struggle to bring the deepness of our heart out to the open. At this point I think of the time a sinner and a Pharisee are in the temple praying. The sinner is repentant and feels unworthy and tells God that. The Pharisee is arrogant and brags to God about how wonderful he is compared to the sinner. Jesus teaches that God is happier with the sinner’s prayer. I need to give God my true heart, even if it hurts to admit my fault. In that moment I find that God hears me and helps me. The more I am honest with God then the more I am able to move out of the dysfunctions in my life. As a Christian I often don’t want people to know those dark places I have in my heart. I don’t want people to think badly of me. Well for me, I’m the type that would tell the world as well. Still I don’t want people to think that I struggle with “that” type of problem. Well, guess what I do. So I take my struggles to God over and over. In the repeating I am learning that this struggle is part of who I am and I learn that God will take it away. I have stayed away from most of the sins I mentioned for years now and I will continue to repeat myself. I also ask God pretty much daily to teach me to be the wife Junior needs and again the repeating helps me to not be so self - focused that I forget that Junior also has needs. I am finding that when I am seeking Junior’s highest then God is also training Junior to be the husband I need. Junior is finally realizing that I am not a wimp and is more sensitive to his comments about me being lazy. Yup, I am not going to give up repeating myself. I think God understands and don’t mind. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 11, 2012 Greetings My Friend, “Into each life some rain must fall,” is rolling around my brain right now. I am still recovering from the fall a few weeks ago. I want to clean, to walk, to do life and here I sit. I got up this morning got ready to go to church and even made it to my classroom for Sunday school and then……I felt weak and unable to deal with my morning so I found Junior and we went home. Sometimes I’d like to raise my fist and scream “Lord, enough already!” Of course right away I see Job and all his struggles. Job loved God with all he had and then Job fell on hard times. His children all died in one day all 10 of them. He lost all his cattle, his lively hood and then his body broke out in big sores that were all over his body and hurt real bad. Job’s wife was not nice and said why don’t you curse God and die…. Job replied that we often love God when life is good should we not love God when life is bad? (Paraphrased) Yup, I think that Job was right. I can see those moments when God gave me, comforted me and loved me. I have learned that God gives us only what we can handle and well at present I am dealing with the effects of a fall. I am tired of retirement and being ill and overcoming. I am real tired of all of the junk. I am on the young side and feel I should be able to go and do life without a lot of struggle. In the last few years, everything is a struggle. Through that time God has held me, gave to me. We have moved to a new state and love it here. This house we’ve been given is awesome, a lot of work but in the end it will be so wonderful. Both of my children are talking to me again….I’ve been given a new life and a lot of wonderful things. So I struggle with my health and am frustrated beyond words. I am tired of overcoming, of working through another round of issues. Then it occurs to me that maybe I am doing exactly what God wants me to do and be. In this struggle I may have the opportunity to share to “hope” I have. How many times has God sent me to the porch to watch His magnificent creation run around in front of me on the front porch of my house? How about Junior? I’ve been given a husband who loves me, adores me and cherishes me. That is so awesome to be a wife who is loved so dearly. Until I asked Jesus with a sincere heart to live with me, I only knew the painful side of life. In Jesus I have found life to be sweet and I am not alone so I deal with each set back and hope for the day things will turn around. I called my daughter recently and we talked and talked. She has low blood pressure and has blacked out several times. I started blacking out a few years ago only I did not realize it. As a young person I learned to live with dizziness, to not shower in real hot water etc. The last few years I find myself waking up bewildered. I fell asleep and had no signs of being sleepy or anything. After the fall I realized I have probably been blacking out for a few years now. Due to the depression I did not realize I was blacking out. The Doctor’s at the hospital felt I blacked out due to low blood sugar. That did not make sense since learning I had hypoglycemia I have been vigilant about eating every 4-6 hours so I would not get the headaches and vomit. I had just had lunch before we went to the park. It did not make sense and then I remembered about my low blood pressure. I have run low my whole life and it is part of what I have dealt with. The black outs began to make sense. I don’t have any warning right before I black out. I was also told about how important sleep is. That is another struggle I have dealt with my sleep. I have struggled to get to sleep and stay asleep for many years now and my lack of sleep may be a problem with my health. The light bulb is going off a mile a minute now. My head says when I figure all this out I will finally be able to deal with my struggles. My goal at present is to have a good decade in my 60’s since my 50’s are almost gone now. That would be awesome! I have had my appendix out, my gallbladder. I have had cancer and dealt with problems from my cancer medicine. The 50’s have been hard decade for me. The 60’s are starting to be my goal now. I will finally turn the corner and live life….that hope drives me. So I talked to my daughter and learned some new stuff to deal with my health issues. I have been sick and had to sit still. I have talked to God a ton and heard Him a whole lot. I have learned to lean on God, on my husband. My counselor taught me that way back when and for the first time in my life I feel loved and wanted. So I deal with my struggle and pray there will be a day when I feel good more than I feel bad. God has given me Prozac and I don’t live in fear like I had been. In all my struggles God has always guided me, directed me and I love God even more. Job’s comment comes back to me. “Do we worship God only when things go well?” (Paraphrased big time.) So God has stepped beside me held me when life hurt. God has given me precious people to love and be loved by. God has brought my children back to me. Yup I still want God to be God in my life, even if life is hard at times. May God bless you and keep you, make His life shine upon you. Love Janet

August 8, 2012 Greetings My Friend, Men! I love my husband and at times he drives me nuts! I love his manly ways and sometimes he is about as foreign as they get. In my relationship classes I have learned and have begun to understand the differences between men and women. They have helped me understand that foreign person I reside with. Through the years I have learned that women tend to have a need to talk. I sure do. I do a lot of my figuring out life with my mouth. I talk about relationships with friends, I talk about health issues, I talk about my fears and a whole host of things to be honest. I talk, I am a woman and words move me. When I drop a letter off to a mailbox while we are out I often run back to the car if the weather is bad, I run like a girl. I have my wrist limp and to the side. Junior finds it funny and adorable and always has a silly grin on his face when he sees me run. I am a girl. I run like a girl. He likes me because I am a girl. When we were first married I found myself waking up early. I would wait 8hrs and then ask Junior if he would wake up so I could talk. For the first time in my life I had someone interested in all the thoughts that rattle around my brain. We spent many Saturday mornings in bed chatting, laughing and me talking the morning away. As I grew more comfortable in the marriage I did not need to chat so much. As I struggle through all my health issues I talk. When I learned I needed to eat every 4 hours with my hypoglycemia I talked about it until it became my habit. As I struggled with neck pain due to arthritis I talked about it until I knew the symptoms and then I dealt with it sooner. Unfortunately I struggled with fear from a life time of abuse and yes I also talked a whole lot about my fear. Mr. Wonderful understood and he didn’t. For a man when they face struggles they do something about them. As a woman, I talk about my struggle and then do something. Mr. Wonderful did not understand my fear. He did not understand how helpless I felt and frankly grew tired of hearing about my fear. I was waiting for Him to show up and hurt me. As I learned he would never hit me I felt he tried to attack me through my family so I talked about that. He became everyone’s best friend in my family. His family never even tried to contact me. He was their brother and they stuck up for their brother. I felt so alone at times and did not know how to cope with no family that seemed to claim me. It was hard and I quit going to people’s homes for fear of him showing up there. For my whole life I wanted to be loved, to be wanted by family. I understood our children’s confusion to some extent and tried to not taint them with my thoughts. I left them alone a lot. I did not want to run their Dad down, he is their Dad. Still that alone feeling overwhelmed me beyond words. Mr. Wonderful due to his crazy growing up years learned to let go of relationships. As a woman, relationships drive me. I want to nurture, to care, to give and be in relationship. I wanted to be a mother from the time I was a young girl. When the kids had to work through their struggles well I tended to pull away if I felt that was what they wanted. The years alone has helped me to draw real close to Junior. I trust him. I don’t discuss his every flaw with my friends. The counselor we were seeing taught me to turn to Junior first and I am ever grateful that I learned that. I trust Junior with my life. So he drives me crazy as well. As I keep stating I have been working hard to overcome since I had cancer. Life in general has been a huge struggle for me. I lost my energy, my get up and go. I realize I have also been dealing with depression and the Prozac has helped me to regain a measure of my energy. Of course taking that spill did not help in the whole process. I am mending and once again I am sitting more than I’d like to. That feels like the way retirement has gone so far. One step forward and about five backward so the Prozac started helping and I started walking and doing more then I fell and here I sit yet again. Doing my walk is a huge struggle. I come home winded and I don’t even do the whole route. Going to appointments wear me out and the next day I sleep a lot. I am struggling to do most things. As Junior and I were talking I heard again how lazy I am. That hurts beyond words. I am trying to overcome, to do and to be and he thinks I am lazy. I don’t have the stamina that Junior has. He is amazing with his back being so bad, with a foot missing; he does a whole lot of things. He is renovating our house and he is doing a wonderful job. For me, I am learning how to overcome and get back. I have started walking several times only to quit because I couldn’t do it. I have learned how to cook with a make shift kitchen and then I quit because I fell. I am trying the hardest I can and Junior thinks I am lazy. Junior has been dealing with health issues for decades. This is my first decade with health issue after health issue plaguing me. I start to overcome and then I am slammed with something else. I did not think I would have these many this young. So I am dealing with issues, trying to overcome and I find the whole process to be overwhelming. Junior is too good of a man to hold my anger against him. I tell him he has hurt my feelings. I go about doing what I can when I can and frankly again Junior is too good of a guy to derail this relationship over his comment that I am lazy. I take my struggle to God and God tends to comfort me, help me move on. We are in a fallen world so as wonderful as marriage can be….because we are in a fallen world; well we have those moments of bewilderment. God guides me, comforts me and I move on. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet

August 4, 2012 Greetings My Friend, As I have been sitting trying to overcome the effects of the spill I took my brain has been prayerful and contemplative. I ponder “why” a whole lot. As I think I also reflect that at one point I had a desire to be a writer and a speaker. It has been a huge desire and in some ways I felt God placed this desire in me. I am becoming the writer with my blog and my book. I am not a speaker as of yet anyway. As I felt the desire I also felt I wanted to be famous. I wanted to go around giving the “hope” I had and telling everyone about my “hope” in Jesus. I saw Joyce Meyers, Billy Graham and Michael Youssef. Those are the ones I admire and feel a kindred spirit with. As I am convalescing I find myself sitting in the front room looking into the door area, hall area. I am in front of the fireplace and the TV looks out onto the door area. I get to see more of the “finished” look of our home and again I find that we will one day live instead of being in chaos of renovating. We have two area rugs on the floor as you come in the door. They look real nice. Bookshelves line one wall. Junior is building an entertainment center for our TV area. The entertainment center divides off part of the front room so there is privacy and a division in the room. That will be nice so if we have company and the room is messy it won’t be as noticeable right off. I like being out in the front room more now. We made one room a family room which now will turn into an office/bedroom area. I had not realized how closed in I was feeling with the TV in the family room. For a long time it was a “cleaner” area without the construction chaos so it felt wonderful. I get to see Junior’s innovative work and that is so much fun to me. He is so talented that I find myself amazed at his creative ways. I still find his work habits to be rough to deal with but in the end I know that it will be worth the struggle because we will have an awesome home. So I sit here looking at our home and seeing the potential. I also sit here and I am starting to ponder my health more and more. For several years now I’ve found myself stumbling more. If Junior and I take a walk he needs to walk on my left side. If he is on the right, I tend to drift toward him as we walk. When I was working we started working out at the gym and at first I found myself feeling more energetic. Then I started being tired before, during and after my workouts. I was nearing retirement and thought I was exhausted from working. My job went through a re-organization and my area’s work load increased a whole bunch. I was tired a whole lot. As I look back I see that again cancer seemed to play havoc on my energy level and again what I had been doing began to be a challenge. As I entered into retirement I felt that I’d probably take time off and rest for a while. Later I would look for a part-time job. I found I was sleeping a bunch. I would drop off to sleep without much prompting and I napped a whole lot. As we settled in Haysi I started walking again. I love to walk and have walked a good portion of my life. I have even done some other form of excise through the years. Exercise has been something I do and for the most part enjoy. I started walking down the road along the river and it is beautiful. Some walks found me following a heron down the river. There was such peace in the walks. When I got home I was exhausted and fell asleep right away. I kept at it for several weeks but I was still extremely tired so then I started with shorter walks. When we were moving into this house I often walked down the road. Along the way I would encounter a hill that was a challenge, I would see a horse and pet its nose and one time I had a deer cross my path. It was awesome. Again I continued to walk but I never felt like I was moving out of the realm of being exhausted. I soon stopped. I was finding myself sitting more and more watching TV which is something I’ve never done, watch a lot of TV. On occasion I would try to work in the house a bit and found myself getting under Junior’s feet and him being irritated with me so I watched TV more. As I started on Prozac I was gaining some of my energy back and it felt wonderful. So some of my lack of energy seemed to be depression and then I fell. Since the accident I don’t hurt much but walking in from the corner wears me out. I realize how badly my body was beat up in the fall at that point and tell myself I need time to mend. My activity level as a whole is way low compared to most of my life and it frustrates me to no end. As I have been pondering while sitting yet again I am starting to wonder if something else is wrong and to be honest it scares me. As I was pondering about what I wanted to do for the Lord I felt that maybe I will never be famous and that is ok. I am good with that really. To be honest I don’t think I’d have the energy to be a speaker flying around to different places. As I ponder I started to wonder….is this lack of energy part of God’s plan for me. Will I show God’s love by the way I handle my struggles? Those are the questions I ponder as I sit in my comfy chair. That is the main goal at this point in my life, trying to find what God wants me to do. So I write and share my journey with you. I enjoy my writing and to me it is a part-time job. I have realized that working is not something I am ready to tackle yet. I keep thinking I am on the mend only to be slammed down again. So I have given my struggle to God and told Him….”your will Lord.” I mean it to. I may not be a famous writer and that is ok, I am writing and I am thrilled with that opportunity. I do realize that I have more things to bring up with my Doctor and hopefully we can bring me back to a measure of the active woman I have been, until then…..I learn how to sit still and know God…. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet