September 30 2014

October 2, 2014 Greetings My Friend, I have wondered why I can no longer get up and roll like I have a good portion of my life. I’ve come to accept it and I have learned to not plan on a whole lot of movement more days than not until lunch time or just after. One of the ladies on one of my Chiari help sites mentioned that she goes through this struggle also and to be honest I found comfort in understanding that my birth defect is the culprit. This is a tiny piece of information but it makes sense and I feel better. Once I eat my lunch my day begins in earnest. I begin cleaning, cooking, running errands and going to doctor appointments. I am jumping on the elliptical and doing some stretches more these days as well. Around 4:00 I begin to slow down and any work I do I do during commercials and the like. It is working out and I have that sense of accomplishment I long for. On another site I read an article about “natural” healing. I believe if God created it then there is a truth behind “natural” healing methods. For me I am trying to do a balance of pharmaceuticals and natural products. I believe God has also given man the ability to create medications that can help others. As my doctor and I have worked at getting me on my feet again I have also used supplements, Chiropractic care and even essential oils alongside of adding exercise to my health routine. Today I am moving about and engaging in life so much more so. Part of my routine is more often than not I find that Sunday’s is a slow way down kind of day. After church I tend to sleep most of the afternoon. On Monday I wake up and feel ready to tackle the week. During the week I still struggle with fatigue or breathing problems. I have learned to sit down and rest which for me more often is writing or engaging with others on social media. When my energy or windeness settles I get up and go again until the next break is needed. I started this part of my come back with two thoughts. The first thought was anything I do is more than was done previous to my doing. The other one which helped me to keep going was “work when I can and sit when I can’t.” Each day I strived to do what I could and accepted the moments that doing wasn’t going to happen. Today I am about as energetic as I am going to get and I am good that I will never be what I once was but I also am not falling asleep every day, so fatigued that I can hardly move from one chair to the other. Part of Chiari is sleeplessness. For a while if I slept more than an hour or two I was doing good. I blacked out rolled down a hill and broke a vertebrae and I now have a CPAP which was the start of sleeping a few hours at a time. I still got up and down a lot at night but I was sleeping more soundly. I cut back on my coffee intake, started to have energy to do a few things which kept building up. Then I discovered vitamin b12 later Evening Primrose and that has helped me as well. Lavender essential oil and peppermint oil with eucalyptus oil helps with my breathing. I am now “oil pulling” swishing coconut oil around in my mouth for a few minutes each day. My lungs feel less congested these days. I still have all the things that I had before wrong with me but they are not as strong. I still tire out but these days I go longer before I tire out. So I believe that medicine and natural things are helping me. I’ve asked God to guide me as I begin something new and I am hearing Him. How do I know? It is the way I am able to function today as opposed to how I was functioning in the recent past. I realize I may not be healed so fully that I will have these diseases but being able to be more functional than I was is a blessing to me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet.

September 27 2014

September 27 2014 Greetings My Friend, The more I walk in this faith journey the more I find myself praying which to me is amazing. At the start of this journey I wondered how in the world I’d find time to pray let alone read my Bible and digest it and the works. God has shown me step by step how to channel my whole life to revolve around Him and today I am in awe. The church I grew up in tended to have prayers that were written in the bulletin and we followed along reading out loud. The Minister’s prayers were so deep and often even flowery that I thought I’d never learn to pray. I could offer up a “popcorn” prayer here and there but making a daily habit of it seemed undaunting to me. These days I spend quiet time in prayer with God and I find myself having heart to heart chats with Him. I am learning to discern His voice from my own desires and I find myself growing so much. As the day unfolds though I find I pray about the smallest of things as well. When on Face Book I see needs and I lift the needs up in a prayer. I need to make a decision and I ask God to guide me in the smallest of details throughout the day. A fur child enters the room and I find a prayer of thankfulness going up. Sometimes I get encouraged by someone and I think “Father You are right here too”. Ever so slowly I find myself having a dialog with God on and off all day and into the night anymore. I’ve learned to start talking to God as I fall asleep and when I wake up at night and in the morning I have a tendency to finish talking to God. The ACTSS prayer format got me started in this dialog with God. A-adoration C- Confession T- thankfulness S- supplication S-service. When I am in a conversation with God I begin using this format and I may stay with it or drift off into something I am trying to work out. It is my starting point and generally I pray through each letter. At first I prayed each letter at each setting. Today though I may begin waking up with it and finish up with it at night as I fall asleep. Another prayer that is a part of my dialog with God is walking through Jesus’ last hours. This one shows me how much I am wanted and loved. This too helps me to stay focused on God and God alone. As an advisor to teens many years ago the letters “WWJD” was popular. I find myself asking this question often (What would Jesus do?) The more I absorb the fact that God knows each and every thing I think, say and do I realize that some parts of my life are things I would not want my husband, children and then the thought even God to know about me. As I absorb this fact I find that I’d rather not enter into those areas if I don’t want others to know that fact about me. The walking way is often hard so God guides me in the walking away. I admit to God that this has a stronghold on me and then after I admit it God begins to take me by the hand and show me how to leave this struggle alone. Many times to day as a thought enters my mind I am now able to say “Lord take this thought away please” and God does just that. I also know that if I mess up and go down the wrong path that if I sincerely confess that God will forgive me and then help me to get out of that moment. The thing is that eventually I find myself entering back to that struggle less and less often. I can’t do it and think that God will always forgive me and go do it again on purpose. That isn’t really being sincere or honest. God knows all things and He knows if I am truly trying to walk away or if I am making the motions of wanting to walk away. Why keep up the pretense? God knows. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 25 2014

September 25 2014 Greetings My Friend, Sometimes it seems I must work through a thought a few times before I can let it go fully. The thought I am working on right now is “Complete healing”. I hear this frequently when others are praying for those that are ill or are struggling. I tend to chew on this and find myself chewing on this thought once more. One of the first things I learned was God tends to bring healing to me in stages. My longtime fear of my ex has finally settled down and that fear does not come up like it was. Step one taught me to pray for this man. I could do no more than mention his name as I prayed which went something like “Be with……”. The more I said this prayer I felt anger, the pain and the injustice leave. Indifference came upon me and I had no hate in my being. Fear was hard to let go of. I kept taking it to God. God said “move” so we moved to another state. In this state I began to relax because I knew I would not have to attend holidays where he would be present and the like. As I settled down with this I started seeing his picture with my own family members. This rankled me to no end because I was never invited to his family gatherings. I felt rejected even more so and this pain was tearing me to pieces. Along the way it occurred to me that I could not let go without some additional help. I kept asking God about medication for my anxiety and God kept pointing me to the medication. With the medication I am able to let go of the deep pain I was feeling. It is there don’t get me wrong but today I don’t dwell on it. God has shown me all the people that really care a lot about me and that is precious. This process has been just that a process a journey. God did not heal me all in one fell swoop. It has been piece by piece. As I grew a bit, God would challenge me some more until I was able to heal more completely. I believe I’ve been healed by God and I also have moments where I tend to sink backwards. The good thing is that today I ask God to help me when that sinking despair tends to rise within me and I let it go fairly quickly. So the healing is there but I also know that without a day in and day out walk with God I would fall back into the despair I once knew so well. I start to understand that God wants us to “overcome” and it seems He knows that in order to “overcome” we need to have many lessons to do so. I also know me that if I don’t work for something I tend to minimize it and then to fall backwards a lot more often than not. So the step by step process of overcoming is a healing and a complete healing in one moments time is not the best for me. After retirement I kept falling deeper and deeper into my health issues. I found a doctor who seemed to truly understand my problems and one by one we’ve walked through the many issues I had. I am better today than I was but I cannot run a marathon in life either. I am way better but not all the way. In learning to live within my capabilities I learn to do new things and old things in a new way and in that life is pretty sweet. God knows me also. If I felt 100% then I’d run way too much to sit and study, to write and to talk to God as often as I do now. I’m not upset that I am not !00% better. I know God isn’t giving me what I can’t handle and I am also growing in my relationship with Him. All of this is truly sweet. As I pray for others these days I find myself asking for God’s “peace, comfort and strength” more than a complete healing. I believe it is in these things that a true healing can take shape. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 23 2014

September 23 2014 Greetings My Friend, Each day as I begin to read through the Bible I have a series of questions I write down. “What is on my mind today, What do I want to talk to God about today, Scripture what is God saying, What is the Holy Spirit saying and How can I serve others.” I am thinking about the heading “What is the Holy Spirit saying?” I’ve gone from repeating His name in the Apostles Creed & such to finally realizing how real He is and even talking to the Holy Spirit directly. Sometimes I hear a strong message from the Holy Spirit. Some days He is quiet. I am in Proverbs right now and I find this section to be concise and so informative at the same time. I keep hearing a theme of “be honest, don’t talk too much, be true to your mate” and the list goes on and on. I love it because the “do’s and don’ts are fairly easy to wrap my brain around and do. As I read the passages I also tend to hear on occasion to do certain things that I am hearing. Be honest, don’t gossip, don’t be a nagging wife etc. I sense the Holy Spirit is saying “pay attention to this one and that one” as I read. As I finish the Proverbs I then head over to the New Testament and I hear the Holy Spirit again directing me. Some days I don’t hear much of anything directly but the overall message continues to reach me and teach me. Other days I feel like a specific verse speaking to me. After that heading I am finishing up and starting to enter into my day so the question is “How can I serve others today?” This heading makes me stop and think about where to channel my energies instead of going into the day doing all kinds of stuff for the sake of doing. Today my energy seems to be focused on being Junior’s “helpmate”. My prayer once more is “Lord teach me to be the wife, friend, lover and companion Junior needs.” As I pray this I find myself not just reacting in my ways but stopping and thinking about what actions I want to take more thoughtfully. I notice the soup is about gone that I made a couple of days ago so I think about what I will make for the next few days. As I have been more active in keeping the house in order Junior comments a lot on how much he likes the house being in order. This is from a man who seems more comfortable in dis order than in order. He does not want a spotless home but he wants it to be clean. He likes it when he comes in throughout the day to see things picked up and put away. He isn’t upset with dog toys strewn around but he also knows that they’ve been picked up and strewn around several times. I mainly pick them up when sweeping and if I stumble over something due to my balance issues. We live here and he is good with that lived in look. He does like clean floors, the bed made though so those are areas I work on. The Holy Spirit has also taught me that Junior likes to do certain chores. He does the dishes. The water and soap aggravate my skin so he does them. When I walk in and see him sitting on his big stool washing dishes I also see that he is unwinding and he loves doing dishes. He tends to mop the floors. I tried a few times to do the floors but I see that Junior mops them more these days so I let him. If he likes to do it who am I to stop him? He also loves doing laundry so I let him do that also. I wash the sheets each week and put them back on the bed. Once in a while when he has been extra busy and I am in need of clean clothes I will wash a load here and there. He doesn’t mind but I also know that he will do the laundry more often than not so I let him. I’ve learned through the years that these jobs are jobs Junior can do when his back is bothering him and he feels like he is accomplishing something. It makes him feel useful so I’ve learned to let him be. The Holy Spirit taught me to back off and let Junior do these things. If Junior is pre occupied in another area longer than usual I will step in where I can. I want a dishwasher and Junior would rather wash dishes by hand. My skin can’t deal with the soap so I have to leave the dishes to Junior. The Holy Spirit has taught me to quit assuming that as a wife I need to do certain jobs. He has taught me to step back and let Junior do what he wants to do. My man is content with the way we keep our home clean. He is content to have food ready to pop into the microwave so making it ahead for a few days works out perfect. I like to cook but three meals a day does get to be a bit much for me. He makes his own breakfast and dinner more often than not. We aren’t on the same eating cycle so this works. He likes to cook some food as well so again what we’ve worked out works real good for us. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 20 2014

September 20 2014 Greetings My Friend, I love meeting the “old” me again. I am a slower version of the “old” me but I am meeting myself and loving the cleaning in my path that I am undertaking and making our house look so much nicer. I have avoided the kitchen other than to throw a meal together for the longest time. Junior is once more not working in the kitchen and I am growing weary of the dirt build up on the cupboards and refrigerator. I cleaned those and the kitchen door today. It isn’t a shiny like if I had good paint on the wood but it is clean of fingerprints and it feels good to see the dirt gone. I had been telling myself when he finishes the kitchen I would go back to a more finished look but for now….. I am finding that waiting for the finished product may take a lot longer to arrive and I couldn’t stand the smudges anymore so I cleaned them today. As Junior leaves the kitchen alone for a while I may even organize it more so. It is hard to want to do a lot of cooking with stuff all around the place. Many times I start to organize things and about that time the things get moved so he can work in that area of the kitchen so I had gotten to closing my eyes to the chaos. I am keeping up with many of the other tasks I’ve undertaken this past year and I am staying on top of it all. I even have a day or so where I am not doing well and as soon as I recover enough I am back to picking up and keeping the house the way I like it. This week I’ve added another five minutes to the elliptical as well and yup that too feels good. It has been hard reaching this state of ability again. Now when I am sick and can’t move much I tend to bounce back into my routines rather quickly. I have a pot of soup in the crock pot for tomorrow and the next few days. I am grateful Junior doesn’t mind me not making a meal 3 times a day. He doesn’t mind eating soup for a few days and then my next crockpot of whatever. It works out. I do like to cook but I don’t care to do it full time. This works and we are eating wholesome food. I have felt God’s hand on me and with each round of sickness I have learned to get back to my old routines as soon as I am able. I believe taking on walking, exercising has helped me to be able to bounce back better after an illness. I still come down with things often but the bounce back part is real nice. I think of “you sow what you reap.” As my health failed it got real easy to just sit or sleep. It was hard getting back to the doing part of life. At first I chose to try to walk each day and I found myself not bouncing back. When my doctor and I figured out my sleep problems I began to have the ability to do more. My sleep will always be chaotic but I am able to get my sleep in more nights than not these days. As I could I began walking again. With each setback I would start from the beginning once more. These days the starting over is quicker and I am back to where I was before I got sick sooner. Junior and I are striving to eat fresh food instead of processed food more often also. I think this is helping me/us to stay healthier better. I had been cooking with fresh food for a long time before I got sick and as I got sicker it was quicker and easier to make processed. I have stopped that practice and I think this helps me to mend better as well. Added to all of this I have felt God’s prompting me to challenge myself as well. I like seeing where I was, where I am now. It is encouraging to keep on striving to do all I can no matter where my health is. That may mean learn to sit and heal and then get out and about again. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 18 2014

September 18 2014 Greetings My Friend, It is that time in the afternoon where Junior and I slow down and regroup before entering into the 2nd half of our day. For Junior His day ends when it is dark outside. My day ends around 4:00 pm. I will rest fairly much the rest of the evening and once in a while I have an energy burst so I will do something during commercials. The humidity is on the high side and I am struggling to move about more so. I am still getting the work I usually do done but I am moving way slower today. I have a lot of rest periods and I find I nod off for a short nap as well. Junior was talking to a man about some windows we are having installed on our enclosed porch and he asked for an additional price for the deck to have windows. That cost too much for right now so that will come at a later time. I heard Junior tell the man that he will hire someone to renovate our master bedroom and add a master bathroom and my heart skipped a beat. I was hoping that at some point he would hand over some of the renovating to someone else. I can see he is getting tired out from the intense job. Junior has done a great job so far and his ideas have been outstanding. He works very slowly due to his back and he has enjoyed teaching himself how to renovate. He is an amazing man to me. I think the kitchen is still a long way off to being finished. He’s changed his mind and we are getting the windows installed so he will insulate the enclosed porch more so before tearing down the wall between the kitchen and the porch. Since he’s changed his mind he is rethinking how he wants to finish the kitchen. While he rethinks the kitchen he has started adding on to the deck he built last summer. The deck will be the entire length of the house. Since the deck is up high he is also working out a plan for a car port for the truck as well. God’s plan for us has amazed me to no end. This house is so special to me and it is the first time I haven’t felt like moving in my life. This is where I want to stay. Junior was not ready to retire and he was looking for some way to fill his days when we lived in MI. We felt God leading us to VA and then to this house and in my heart this is the job God wanted Junior to work on. As he has worked we also have started looking at what we may do post renovation. We are starting a few refurbishing projects and think this is the area we will work toward. Some of the refurbishing is for our home and later we hope maybe we could earn some extra spending money by selling our projects. We will see. This journey from living in MI to living in VA has been a long journey. It seems each phase of the journey has also been a discovery process as well. For me I’ve learned to slow way down to almost a complete stop. As I learn to be way slower I am slowly learning to reconstruct my day to day activities. It is rewarding to learn to still be able to work but at a much different pace. These days I am doing housework, exercising, doing Bible study, praying and writing. My days are full and enjoyable. The neat thing is I can move from one activity to another as my lungs will allow me. At the end of the day I can look back and see regardless of my energy level I’ve been able to keep working whether physically or quietly. I also see that God has been using my disability to teach me to rely on Him more so. I am learning how to reach out to others even though I don’t have the energy I once had and in that I still feel like I am contributing. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 16 2014

September 16 2014 Greetings My Friend, One of Mindy’s babies is a noisy little boy. He squeaks a whole bunch and the name “Squeaky” sounds fitting. The littlest one is named after my birth defect “Chiari” which leaves the girl yet to be named. As I sit here Junior is on the phone with a friend’s Dad. They went away on a trip and we are checking in on Dad while they are gone. This man is 84 years old and his mind is as sharp as ever so he craves conversation. His body is slowly giving out, first it was his legs, then his hearing started getting bad and now his eyes are going out on him. We are finding that these phone calls are easy enough to do and then the face to face visits would be easier to do and less often. B’s son has a job and she is not around as much as she was there for a while. We found we could not be her “go to” in all situations. Her doctor visits were an hour from her house and she is an hour from our house. Neither Junior or I can do this type of driving on a regular basis plus do our own running to doctors and such. It is too much. Letting her take our truck all the time started costing us way too much money so we’ve had to tell her “no.” At this point we aren’t seeing her like we were at one point. I love helping people out. On the mission trips I’ve taken through the years I have found giving a week of my time to be very rewarding and each time I marveled that the people we went to help also reached back and helped me in such remarkable ways. Giving is a blessing and a joy. Enabling on the other hand is not good. I also went through a stage that the money I gave to the church or to a homeless person was wasted on things like a fancy building, fancy furnishings and the like. The homeless would go out and buy drugs or alcohol which wasn’t really helping them get out of the situation they were in and giving to me seemed absurbed. For a while I wanted to give to every organization that sent me an envelope. Through the years Junior and I have talked about what is most important to us. When we are helping someone on a one to one basis we have also found that point that we will pull back as we see the need to push them to help themselves a bit. More often than not Junior more than I will take a giving situation to prayer. Working with God on where to invest our time or energy seems to work the best. I am also learning that giving is done in other ways like the phone call Junior is on right now. It is encouraging another believer to go out and do also. I had always felt that giving was something I showed the world that I was doing. It somehow proved my faith. These days as I see giving in less grandiose ways I see that giving is done with love, not enabling and with a genuine heart. It isn’t a tick mark in my daily walk that I must cross off. It is giving from my heart. There is that “heart” message again. Our walk in every way must be from the deepest part of our heart. When we are living at the heart level with God it is at that point that the outside world begins to see the difference in us as compared to the world. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 13 2014

September 13 2014 Greetings My Friend, “Search me, God and know my heart. test me and know my anxious thoughts see if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the everlasting way.” Psalm 139 This Psalm also talks about being made in the mother’s womb knit together. 1 Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter. I focus around verse 4 quite a bit. “Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not boast it is not proud. It does not dishonor others. There are a few more I strive to keep in mind each day as well. These are teaching me to live a life the Lord wants me to live. As I wrote my notes on these two chapters I wrote love is the glue of life. I’ve been hurt real bad in my lifetime and my guess there are very few of us who are alive that have not been hurt in a deep way. It is easy to start building those blocks around ourselves to keep from getting hurt again. It is easy to withdraw into ourselves also. I have also had conversations with God when my heart is pricked to forgive someone. “But Lord do you know what was done to me?” He generally tells me He knows and He still wants me to forgive. I learn also that God knows that the hurt is deep and may take a while to forgive. He will also be there as the fear comes to overrule me. One day I wake up and realize that the hurt is not there anymore. The anger has dissipated and I am functioning in the present. Not only am I feeling whole, wanted and loved I find that God keeps telling me to go out and do. I make a list of things I think I like doing and prepare to go out with joy in my heart to find “not that”. More conversations with God ensue. “Lord I want to give because I was given a whole new life in Jesus.” God lets me sit with bronchitis, chronic fatigue, Chiari and COPD. The more I sit the more I hear “I want you to write, to be available in the community in a personal way….befriending someone down the street.” I also hear “ I have given you humor to make others laugh when their day is rather rough.” At one point God said “move, not to another city but to another state.” Lord are we hearing this right?” Each time we ask He keeps directing us forward. We finally move to a new state. We get settled into a tiny house, smaller than I’ve ever lived in and I think this is nice when all of a sudden we are told to move again. We find an old run down farm house that is screaming “come fix me.” We buy it and begin a huge project of renovating. The thing is this is the house I hope to never ever move from. As Junior makes our home liveable even before the liveable began to take shape this house was where I wanted to stay for the rest of my life. I marvel at God’s awesome direction and plans. We are in the mountains, near lots of woods and wildlife. Junior and I love where we are at and have never really felt drawn to lakeside living. It just isn’t us. God pricks my mind as I read through the Bible each year with Scripture. As I absorb the lessons I find I begin to change my thinking and my way of being. I can’t tell you the day I made that change because it was a tiny step here and a giant step there and did I really think that at one time in my life. I know I have changed and I marvel. I like the way life is going at this stage of my life and I pray I will always keep this faith walk. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 9 2014

September 9 2014 Greetings My Friend, I am enamored with those tiny hummingbirds like crazy. I can’t get over their tiny size, their busy ways as they flutter around the feeder. As I gaze out the window I can sense a “releasing” of junk within me. I may be feeling good and content but I always have a “settling” feeling also. As I stare out the window at the hummingbirds I begin to let my eyes wander outward towards the trees and the woods. Sometimes I move in a bit and notice green grass and some flowers. A day to day wandering with my eyes whether in my comfy chair or out on the porch keeps me settled like I have never known before. Sometimes I can even conjure up the smell of a fire burning wood in a fire pit even if there isn’t a real fire going. This too brings peace to my soul. As I retired and moved to a new state I found myself missing the “girlfriend” time I had entered into when I worked. I am a social person by nature and the quietness of country life was new to me. I knew I loved it but I also missed time to socialize. I missed long phone calls like crazy too. People out here tend to be social sort of. They are social at church but not so much in other ways. They came to my bedside as I had my appendix removed in a way I had never been visited before. I loved it. But with country life there is a lot to keep the things at home going along with life in general so the “getting together” is not the same as when we lived in the bigger city. All my health problems kept slowing me down until one day I found being quiet was really nice and socializing wasn’t the need like it used to be. My cousin D entered into my ministry by setting up a special Facebook page so I could share more of my faith journey and in the process I am gaining a group of friends to share my day with. I enjoy dropping by for a chat online throughout the day with more people and it fills me like the old days of phone calls and times spent socializing. Add to this my Chiari Support group friends to share the craziness of my birth defect with and life continues to be precious to me. This group tends to let me be me, let me vent when I am discouraged and I am able to minister to them as well. It is an awesome fit. I again ponder on a statement I read “I will pray for a complete healing”. My heart usually begins a quiet discussion w/i my mind. I am learning that many times there won’t be a complete healing in the sense that a disease will be wiped completely out of my system. I look back to Dad’s healing with polio. He did not die and when the doctors thought that he would never walk again he did. His walk was like that of a drunk. When he crossed his legs he had to lift one up with his hands and place the leg on top of the other leg. The muscles that died did not come back to life but Dad survived and walked. As I look at the healing in my life I see that the emotional scars from abuse aren’t completely gone. Sometimes they come roaring back in a flash. I also have to say that I am healed. This journey to wholeness has been a long and winding road. Today I am grateful for each step of this journey. On the road I wound up irritating people with my constant fear that would not leave me. When I could not enter into depression one more time and suicide was not the way I wanted out I asked God to help me. I felt that anti anxiety medication was in order and kept asking God as I began walking toward the use of medication. With each step God said “Go on.” I did and today I am fairly free of the fear and when it does try to consume me I now can ask God to take it away and He does. Without the medication I could not let go of the fear. God has healed me but it is not so complete that it doesn’t come back from time to time. These days though the “asking for help” and the quickness it leaves is amazing and if God had healed me so completely I would never have learned to rely on Him so fully. Today my focus is on managing several health issues, big ones. I enter into this journey assured of God’s love, presence and guidance. With each step of healing that I have gone through I also know that I will continue to grow and heal with God’s love. I also know what a failed marriage feels like and I feel God’s hand on me even in this marriage. I have learned to keep asking God to “teach me to be the wife” Junior needs and He does. I now know to not over fuss with Junior’s handicaps. I know to not fuss b/c he is moving slowly in the renovation process and I am good with more years of the process being a part of our lives. Only with God’s help in teaching me I have been able to let go. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 5 2014

September 6 2014 Greetings My Friend, I love watching life open up in the spring. There is something about the green of spring that is not the same as the green as summer. I love watching a plant breakthrough the earth so tender and it’s first response is to look upward to the sun/Son. As spring gives way to summer the beauty continues to unfold. The tender shoots are now glorious blooms. The leaves on the trees are out fully and so green and beautiful. The sun’s warmth warms us and seems to bring us back to life. Our whole being, the universe really seems to be clapping with joy. The summer grows warmer and hotter and humid and I find it to be trying. The bright sunshine is sometimes a bit too much. My body reacts to the extreme heat much like it does in the midst of a cold and bitter winter with a desire to shut down. For me the green, the beauty of flowers and life is worth weathering the heat. It seems to fill me even in my distress of the heat. By late summer I marvel that God’s creation is as ripe and beautiful as ever. Then fall comes, slowly at first. We see cool nights and pleasantly warm days. By late fall we begin to feel winter’s grasp on the land. Fall is a time I tend to go “inward”. My nesting instincts come out in full force. I am cooking trying to fill the house with delicious smells and warmth. My thoughts are more reflective and contemplative. Even the first dustings of snow are accepted with thanks giving. By January I’m ready for spring again and it is still a few months away. Winter white grows weary on me. I long for color again. I long to be able to go outside without a coat on. I long for the easy comfort of a summer day where I take life as it rolls along. I marvel I can pull all of these thoughts with each season. I marvel at God’s grand design in giving us seasons. As I look at the seasons of the year I tend to see season’s of life as well. The newness of a newborn is awesome. I love the toothless giggle of a baby and the innocence of a toddler. As children continue to grow I watch them and marvel. The toothless seven year old is about as precious as it gets and watching the new teeth come in and look so big in their little mouths warms my heart. The teenage years are full of excitement and filled with agony at the same time. They are launching into adulthood so quickly and a parent’s prayer is “have we given them what they need to handle adulthood?” So the season’s of life go. All of a sudden we are in our final season and we become reflective, we want to share our journey so we can help another generation and often times they are more interested in discovering all of life from their own experiences only to find out too late that they wished they’d listened a bit more. For me the best season of life began when I understood giving God all of my heart and holding nothing back….even though I learned to give it to Him in steps. At one point I was so low and unable to cope and deal with day to day life that I finally surrendered my hurts to God. Now as I look back I see that even in this journey I see seasons of growth of moments where I fell off the trail and times where God picked me up again and sent me on my way. I marvel at the lessons that wait to unfold in God’s design. Sometimes a lesson is learned as I look at the seasons of the year. Sometimes I understand God’s all encompassing love by the way I fall in love with a child, a fur child, a husband and the list goes on. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 4 2014

September 4 2014 Greetings My Friend, There is that moment in life when you realize you can’t control or make another person do what you feel is right and to be honest it is a freeing moment. As I come to terms that our home will be a work in progress for years and years not a few short months to a couple of years I feel like I have been set free. My desire is to not be controlling but I find there are still moments I want what I want when I want it. Sometimes I think God allows us to deal with chaos until we learn to accept it and move with Him through it. If I had the house I wanted the way I wanted long ago I’d be wanting something else. In the slowness though I have come to a place of acceptance and enjoyment. Once more the kitchen is being worked on very little. Junior worked on shoring up the foundation, that one made sense and then decided we needed a wheelchair ramp and extend our porch in front. He also has been building shelves in one of our sheds to put more stuff. My thought is the porch could have waited another year or so. It did not and today I am so glad that he put up the extension. Every time he veers off course like this I am so frustrated at first and by the end of the project I am so thankful for what he has done. This round of diversions I have not fretted, had discussions in my mind and with God. I just waited, watched and now I am in awe. At one point I wanted to have a showcase home to show off. Today I don’t mind that we have had very few visitors to see what Junior has done. I do take pictures and post them online from time to time but I am finding that we live here day to day and what he does is right and good for us. With the porch extension I noticed that I could see the roof line more in my chair so I asked Junior to move the humming bird feeder. He did and now I finally can watch those beautiful little birds fly by for a drink and from time to time see a few at a time. Each time I see these birds a quiet peace seeps within me. Working on the porch has allowed me to step outside and watch Junior on occasion also. When he works around the property it is hard for me to stop and visit him due to the terrain being hilly, cluttered with renovating supplies like lumber and the like. With my balance issues it is hard for me to navigate so I have not had much opportunity to sit by his side. With the porch I wander out and sit. Sometimes he stops and we talk. Sometimes I marvel at the awesomeness of his project and he beams. As he has cleared the porch off of major clutter I am more tempted to sit outside longer also. I do not handle major clutter well, it confuses me. With less clutter I am able to move about easier and sometimes now I go out on my own for a quiet minute. Life is so much sweeter again. It has been a long journey to this day but I have overcome one more obstacle. I have not commented to Junior in a long while about my idea of how to get things done but now I don’t hold it in my heart either. At this point I also do the turn around and look to where I was and to where I am now. Amazing and then I realize God will keep working in me for the rest of my life and at this point I am thankful He cares enough to insist I learn each lesson He gives me. I love this home, what Junior has created and now I get to keep it clean and comfortable for when Junior finishes his day’s work….not bad at all. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

September 2 2014

September 2 2014 Greetings My Friend, The day in and day out walk in faith is just that. For some reason I am remembering people I’ve met through the years that were seasoned believers or so I thought. The one’s I am remembering right now are the ones that were so confident they were going to heaven and so sure most others weren’t. I wanted to feel the assurance of my faith so their confidence spoke to me. Then I wondered about the “other people weren’t” part of their assurance. As I walk in faith I tend to feel secure in my salvation. For me though I also want to reach out to the world around me offering the hope I have. I have felt so low that I didn’t even register on the “alive” category. I hate that I was feeling that unwanted and since I’ve accepted Jesus I have that I am wanted, special and I have a purpose to go out into all the world (okay my world) and give the hope I have. For me that is writing about this journey of faith I am on. My ADHD ways are annoying to those whose body and mind can’t register at my pace. Supplements, an aging body has slowed me down physically but mentally my mind still tends to race. Again the supplements do help me from blurting every thought outloud. Years ago though I learned to journal and a love for writing grew from that. Slowly God walked me through a process to refine my writing and even in my years of writing now I have continued to grow and learn. It is in the writing for the most part that I have found my niche where God wants me. When I am faithful to this asking God each time I sit down to write to guide my words I find that I continue to grow, to get feedback indicating I am on the right path. Being ADHD tends to make me very social and silly as well. Through the years Junior and I have reached out to others. At times we have had people move in with us. Junior befriended a young man that was lost in the welfare system and had no hope. Today this young man is working and living without the aid of welfare. Sometimes we have heard of a need for furniture, clothes and the like and gave, donated etc. Money is there also we do and have given to our church, to organizations and the like. So my gift is writing but God calls me to “live” Him in all that I do. That means that lost and lonely looking person needs Jesus also. The nicely dressed person often times is as lonely and lost as a street person and needs God’s love. Some of the lost and lonely are easy for me to relate to. Some are not. I sense God saying that He wants “All” people to have the chance to accept His Son, repent and to turn to Him. That means that prickly person that tends to rub me the wrong way also needs an opportunity to meet Jesus. In the process of loving God I find my eyes opening to the most downcast of people. I find a heart to accept people where they are at. Now I tend to relate to women who have been abused, people struggling with progressive diseases since I have a couple myself like Chiari Malformation, COPD and GERDS. Some days getting that smile on my face takes a lot of work. Being open and frank about my day in and day out journey though is so helpful to some people. I know this by the responses I get as I write about that struggle to face the day and to continue on in faith. They encourage me also. My Christian community is growing from a building of believers (church) to a body of believers found in the community, online and at church. Again I see Jesus reaching the most unacceptable people and loving them. If Jesus reached them I guess I need to seek and reach them also. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet