July 10, 2013 Greetings My Friend, I am thinking once more about a church family. Today the teens are here helping Junior dig a trench. We will pay them what we can which will go towards them going to camp. It is a win win situation. They will do the back breaking work and Junior gets a much needed rest from some of the labor of renovating our home. I have joined a women’s Bible study and frankly my monthly get together with these women help me in my spiritual journey. Some of the women have been Christians decades longer than I have been. Some are new Christians and we tend to blend our experience together. We each learn from the other, help the other understand hard concepts. On occasion we have a potluck at church just to share a meal. Sometimes the youth will put on a dinner for the married people, the dating people within the church. It is another fund raiser for the kids to go to camp and the adults get to be a couple for a bit. As I ponder life I wonder how in the world people manage without a church home. When Dad and Mom were dying I found my church family stepping beside me. Sometimes I cried, sometimes people came by with words of encouragement. It is hard to say good-bye to people and a church family being close at hand helps with the whole process. Here in VA the church helps me as much as any church or more so. I miss having interaction with young people so I am able to talk with young women. I give them my knowledge and they seem to appreciate my view on life. Sometimes I call a friend just to chat. The friend may be a widow or have just had surgery and I am able to connect for a bit and bring them comfort. I haven’t gotten as involved with as much volunteering as I have done in the past. I can’t. I do love folding the church bulletins once a week. I help straighten the pews out and I find contentment. Each time I try to do more, I find myself not being able to be the helper I was in the past. So I reach out as I am able. God is teaching me to sit at home more. In the sitting I find myself writing down my thoughts and discoveries. I believe God is teaching me to be a writer and bringing an everyday message of my faith journey to others. I don’t know why but for the longest time I felt if I truly “got it” with my faith journey that I’d be blessed, get a lot of money and have nice things. I thought that I’d be popular as well. That was what I thought. Of course this is not why God wants us in a relationship with Him just so we can get things. Through the years I have learned that God is preparing me. Some of the stuff I learn now will be used in heaven some-how. I don’t know how but some way God will use what I am learning right now. I often find myself amazed at what I have overcome, learned etc. I am a survivor of abuse both childhood and adult abuse. I am able to offer hope to women who are struggling through abuse. Sometimes I offer hope to a young mother. Sometimes I am a friend to someone who is struggling. The strangest, wonderful lesson of late I seem to keep coming back to is that God wants ALL of me. I struggle giving ALL of me to God. I pray and God is helping me to let go of the strongholds in my life that are holding me back. The more I let go and let God be my all-consuming God the more I find peace within my being. I have always believed that God was real. I just did not figure out how to be in relationship with Him till my divorce. I was at the lowest I could get and I began talking to God as if He were right next to me. He is and as I learned to talk with God I learned for the first time that I am not alone. I hate being alone I really do. Knowing that God is beside me, guiding me comforts me to no end. I believe that because of my Dad and first husband that I got a wrong idea of God and His love. Both men were cruel and I had thought that all men were mean. There were times I was afraid even God would be hard to please like Dad and the first husband were. As I learned to talk to God one on one and listen for His direction I found out God is truly a caring loving God who wants my highest good. God sent Junior into my life to show a man’s desire to help a woman be all she can be. As I pray God teaches me to be what Junior needs and that my guy does not want me fussing all over him. I watch him a lot and as he hurts I have learned to back off leave him alone. At this point I ask rarely if he is hurting because Junior does not want to talk about his pain. I think for Junior he feels if he talks about his pain he is giving into the pain and can’t walk away. By dealing with it on his own in his mind I think Junior can strive to live as normally as he can. I have also found when Junior is driving me nuts that if I pray and ask God to open my eyes to him that I begin to see Junior with a new set of eyes. I am able to let Junior be Junior. I don’t try to make him into someone I want in my heart. He can’t even begin to imagine what I want so it is not fair to expect him to be what I dream of. For the longest time I worried about Junior’s tendency to hoard. I started taking that fear to the Lord. God has opened my eyes to Junior’s generous heart. He has made me realize that Junior loves me enough to not over fill our home with so much stuff we can’t move. God has also taught me to relax some of my standards as well. In the process we have blended two very different styles of living into a comfort level for each of us. Junior hates a spotless home. I hate a home where there are paths and if you go off the path you may be lost. I grew up with that. Junior’s mother was so clean that no one dared to leave behind a pile of anything. Junior also likes doing some sort of housework. He does the dishes, I can’t due to allergies. Junior’s likes vacuuming the floors. He loves doing laundry. I like clean sheets on the bed and keep up with that. I keep up with dusting and we both cook. It works. Since my older years are taking a toll on my energy level, Junior’s help’s me with some of the housework. It is nice to be honest. If Junior needs me to bring him something or go to town then I do that for him. Yup I like being Junior’s helpmate and frankly it feels good. May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine on you. Love Janet