January 31 2015

January 31 2015 Greetings My Friend There is that moment you know that you know you have it right this time. It could be a lesson, an exercise or a placement of furniture within the house. I could not sleep last night so I set about changing one corner of the TV room that has been plaguing me. Upon completion I knew that I had finally found the right setting. Lately as I do my Bible studies I find myself relating the OT to my life in general. One of my questions in my heart is why did God allow thousands of years to pass before He spoke to Abraham. Why was it hundreds of years after Abraham until Moses and the OT was started to be written and again a thousand or so years before Jesus. As I ask myself these questions I start to see that my life’s journey resembles the OT growing and learning often taking years to the point of accepting God’s Word and starting my journey of faith. When I do the look back I see that as a small child I must have understood some because I can see where I was listening to God even though I was so young. When I grew I knew who God was but wasn’t sure how to be in relationship. In my teenage and young adult years I questioned God and wanted to live life on my own. At the end of my rope in despair I returned to God and started my earnest walk with Him. I see this basic principle of actions as I read the OT. Right after the fall I see where Seth’s people began to call on the Lord. To me Seth’s line believed and followed Adam’s teachings. As Seth’s people intermarried God’s ways became watered down and soon all people were far from God. Along comes Abraham and God starts teaching Abraham to “hear” to trust and obey. Abraham believes God yet he has his moments of doubt and from this point on I truly see the back and forth of our journey with God. As God’s people wander in the wilderness I see that I too have wilderness wandering times in my life. I have different wanderings sometimes at the same time as other wanderings. I see moments where I am finally in the promised land feeling safe and secure in God’s love. Today I sense my many wanderings are settling down and a steadier walk over all. I still find moments that I need to learn and grow in an area of my life. These days though my wanderings don’t generally last as long as my first wanderings did. For me I have learned to “hear” Scripture that teaches me to “remember” God’s provision. I have learned to be thankful for all things. I learned to do this by remembering both the big things and the little things. I marvel more so at God’s power and love when I do this. King David taught me to confess and be comfortable in admitting my weakness’. In confessing to God I find Him teaching me how to walk away from something that is destroying me mentally, physically or spiritually. Somehow in all of this I feel God’s love, desire for my good and then I see me reaching out to others in the same way. Today I am grateful for the years of growing God’s OT people did. I have their lessons as my guide in my own journey. I understand now that God isn’t looking for perfection in one setting but a growing perfection. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 29 2015

January 29 2015 Greetings My Friend I read another Bible passage today about “being in the Spirit” and I find that I am truly understanding “being in the Spirit” more, I am absorbing this deep inside of me. I understood the meaning but did know how to apply it to myself. As I absorb this I review that since I asked Jesus into my heart in earnest I have been growing and learning and in that I find myself changing. When I began reading the Bible I absorbed God’s love for me and His creation. After I started feeling God’s love as a constant and not taken away depending on my actions I finally knew what love looked like and felt like. My journey to this moment has been just that a journey. Some days were better than others in my changing than other days. Slowly though a “new person” was forming and I kept liking this new “me”. For me the journey I take through the Bible each year works the best. In the Bible I am amazed at all the lessons I keep learning. I have learned about Agape love, truth in love, reaching outside of “me” and out to others in need and so much more. All of this was due to the help of the Holy Spirit and on one level I understood it and another I did not. Since I can’t say I feel Him. My idea of feeling Him in me was skewed at best. I thought when I was overcome with the Holy Spirit I would start speaking in tongues, be dancing and raising my hands etc. This happens to some people but no one can be in the Holy Spirit like that 24/7. I felt that I should feel Him in this way all the time or feel Him daily in this way. Wrong. Today I sense His quiet presence in my life. I realize I don’t want to allow my mind to go down some paths of lust, greed or gossip. Many times the thoughts come and I have learned to pray and ask for God to remove the thought, the desire and I am amazed when it goes away in a snap of a finger. The Holy Spirit convicts me, I sense the conviction so I ask for help and I get the help I need to not have those thoughts. In the home I grew up in we had put down humor and I believe the put down was truly meant as well. I developed this way of reasoning, speaking and even thinking. The more I hated it as I got older the more I did it and as I started my faith journey I sensed God teaching me to look for the good in people instead of each fault. This was a new concept and I was enjoying it. As I learned to look for the good in people I met people who saw good in me. They saw my talents and encouraged me. The more good I heard and the more I was encouraged I learned to speak good and encourage. I believe I am encourager and this is one of my spiritual gifts. God showed me what He wanted from me and as I learned to change (obey) I found a desire growing within me. I have loved writing from childhood on. I was rusty and all over the place as I began my writing journey. God directed my steps, the people I came across that mentored me and in a few short years I started writing. Today I am writing something daily and sharing my writing with others. The Holy Spirit has taught me and guided me. When I married Junior I did not want to be the kind of wife I was in my previous marriage. Divorce Recovery taught me I contributed to the demise of my marriage even if I felt I was a victim and as I absorbed this lesson I asked God to teach me to be a wife, the wife Junior needs. Being in the Spirit seems to be a daily walk and a lot of it is in the quiet of my heart. The heart is where I decide to be what God wants and not what I want. A passage goes something like “What does God desire? He desires, mercy, just scales, kindness, helping the widow and orphan.” The more I learn to desire these things the more I find myself doing them. I like learning to walk in the Spirit. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet.

January 27 2015

January 27 2015 Greetings My Friend I’ve done what I can around the house and now I need to stop. I’ll start up again in a little while. I understand how to move through bouts of illness these days. I realize that I am getting sick more often than I did as a younger person. A trip to the ER revealed I had a stomach virus. Today is day # 3 and I am still queasy, heavy foods seem to make me sick thinking about them so another day of a soft diet. Lately I go through the illness, vegetating then moving into small amounts of activities as I can. Working has worn me out so I work my mind instead and when I feel my strength return back to doing physical jobs. As I think on this I see once more that our lives are settled and routine again. We have moments where we upset the routines like a date day, a trip to MI or such but the minute we get back we know our routines and fall into them quietly and contently. I have never gone to the ER as much as I have since moving to VA. The visits aren’t for little things either. I’ve blacked out and rolled down a hill breaking a vertebrae. I’ve had my appendix removed those required overnight to several days in the hospital. Since being diagnosed with COPD I’ve had bronchitis bad enough that I needed extra help so the ER is very familiar to me these days. We have a routine when I need a trip to the ER as well. Junior gets me into the hospital set up and then he goes and does some errands while I wait to be taken care of. He comes back about the time I finish up and we go home. He gets my prescriptions and then leaves me alone. With me making meals ahead I am able to dish up something and heat it in the microwave. Once in a while Junior will cook something if needed. In all of this I am finding comfort. I am feeling cared for and wanted too. Since I seem to be sick more frequently I also feel God’s comfort a lot. I sense He has been teaching me to be proactive which means I stay healthier longer. I am learning those triggers for bronchitis like allergies and such. The inhalers also makes my lungs function better too. I am also learning that being proactive can only help me so much and I will get sick regardless of all the precautions I take. This has been a harder lesson to learn for me. I felt that if I did what I could then I should not get sick at all, WRONG. It does mean I won’t get as sick as often and I will recover quicker by taking care of my health. Knowing that my efforts are paying off helps me a lot even if it isn’t in the way I thought they’d payoff. I also sense Junior is starting to understand that I am not seeking attention with these illness’. His former wife was sick and he felt she wanted attention more than she was sick. The last bout of bronchitis made me realize that I am sometimes so weak that walking is a struggle. I didn’t notice it at home but from the car door to the entryway door was a huge struggle so now Junior gets me a wheelchair, takes me to the receptionist desk before leaving. I appreciate that. I thought this type of struggle was years away and it has happened a lot sooner than I expected. At first I was upset then I tried to “be good” and today I am at peace with this is life now. The steadfast love of God, the patience from Junior and I accept my health issues. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 24 2015

January 24 2015 Greetings My Friend I love watching Junior think through a project, he stops and stares at a spot in the project for long periods of time. I know he working out the idea in his mind as to what he wants to do next to make it “just right.” Yesterday we took off to Bristol for a date day. A Pro Bass store has just opened up so we took off to check it out. We wandered around, enjoyed the aquarium and the store in general. Afterwards we had dinner at the restaurant. All in all it was a very relaxing day. We talked as we drove along the road to Bristol and home again. We got silly and enjoyed each other. Junior did his tease me and then make a silly face which of course melted my heart. I said something quirky and his hand reached over to touch me. I love these little moments of love that we share. We have grown in our love, learned those sensitive areas and now we are comfortable being intimate with each other. I had always been a face watcher prior to Junior. Watching expressions allowed me to remove myself from anger quickly. When I first married Junior I was watching his face a lot, asking him if he was angry at times. He seemed bewildered by my questions but kept answering “no”. I learned that Junior is a face maker. His face is reacting to all the thoughts rolling around in his mind so it may appear he is angry but in truth he is figuring out projects, the next thing he wants to do and the like. As I learned to be at ease with all these faces I began to enjoy them. Today I am at ease and deeply in love. In the beginning when Junior got gruff with me I found I was defending myself. Through the years I learned that Junior was not attacking me but seeking a way for me to “stop”, to let me know I had hit a tender spot with him. Today if Junior is grumpy I know he is tired, in pain etc. I know to give him time and space and when he settles down he will come to me again. He is safe to me and I am safe to him. For me God taught me to pray for Junior and for our marriage. It is a habit I truly don’t want to neglect. I see moments where God tells me to back off and leave Junior alone. I learn those sensitive areas to not push those buttons. God has taught me to learn Agape love first with Junior and now it is my goal in general to Agape love all I am in relationship with. Seeking someone’s highest good to me has helped me to quit being the enabler that I was in the past. I learn to give the truth in love. I can’t beat someone up with the truth but I can in love and gentleness give the truth which in turn is Agape love. I am also learning to run as much as I can by God first. He truly is all I need and in that I am finding healthy relationships and healthy ways to relate to others. Rejection does not affect me as it has in the past because God reminds me that I am His and He is all I need. In the process God has given me people that care and enjoy me. It is a strange kind of wonderful to fall in love with God. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 22 2014

January 22 2015 Greetings My Friend, I am amazed at the mess puppies can make. At times I feel like I have toddlers at home again and my house will be clean and in no time there will be toys strewn all over, they have found things that need to be chewed and even a potty accident here and there. Today I don’t get as upset as when I had toddlers. I know that they will settle down. After they are settled I will pick up their debris and things will stay fairly picked up for a while. When I had toddlers I didn’t realize how short of a time they would be little so I felt like I was never going to be able to stay on top of the mess of life. Today I know better so I am less likely to feel overwhelmed. I have been asking God to help me stay calm recently. We have someone staying for some time with us and she is critical and full of doom and gloom. I can handle a little criticism and doom and gloom but after a bit I will grow weary of it. I don’t want to make a scene or a fuss but I find that sometimes I need to tell someone to “stop it.” I kept talking to God and finally I told the person they needed to stop and added some of the feeling words I was having with her comments. I wasn’t liking the moment but it came. Later I realized that sometimes we need to be more direct in our comments to get someone to hear us. This was the case for me. I also know that my direct confrontation was tempered and I kept to the point instead of hauling out every other offense I could conjure up. This was the way I operated at one time in my life but all my chats with God helped me to face the confrontation. I think that those confrontational moments need to be when we are defending our faith etc. Today I find that sometimes that confrontation moment is also for those moments in life where you need to have someone back off. As I look to Scripture I see times where God’s people, Jesus spoke out about things. At this point I see that God doesn’t want us to sit in the shadows and let people walk all over us as well. God doesn’t want cruelty for cruelty’s sake but He does want us to defend ourselves as well. For the longest time I misread the Scripture “if someone hits you turn the other cheek” I felt that we were to let others hurt us. I am learning that might mean that God says if you are hit once, turn your cheek and walk away. It is a new thought for me. I also remember that the Holy Spirit guides our words and actions if we are listening to Him. I understand that God never goes against His Word so if I am lining up with His Word and the Holy Spirit is telling me to speak my mind then my comments back tend to be tempered and not cruel. As I looked at the confrontation I saw that I stuck to the point and stated my feeling rather bluntly without berating the other person down to the pit. Learning to say “stop” still is hard for me but God helps me too. Sometimes he takes the anger away and sometimes he takes the overly harsh words away but allows me to respond with ‘truth in love.” Being a work in progress means that I am consistently growing and learning in Christ. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 20 2015

January 20 2015 Greetings My Friend Junior’s creative process shows itself once more. He has added on to the front porch and is putting up lattice on the end so people won’t fall off. In one place though he changed from the lattice to making a railing with wooden slats. It looks real nice. I am working on learning to accept people where they are in life’s journey. B tells me what I want to hear like she is going to come and go to church with us. She never does and after a while I get irritated. As I ponder my irritation I realize I have believed her instead of letting her be or do what she does. I look forward to her coming for her not to come so I have been telling her that we both know she isn’t going to come. B has said she gets irritated with me and thinks on my statement and knows I am wanting her best. I see my side and I am starting to see her way of life. She is who she is and more than likely she isn’t going to change. Junior keeps telling me to “just let her talk.” I am also working through her “I’’m going to clean my house, my car, care for my pets better” and a lot more statements. I did well with these “going to” statements when we first met. I tended to believe she was really trying to change. As the years have gone on I see that she isn’t and she is going to tell me what I want to hear. I can let them get to me or realize this is who she is and let all her comments roll off of me and move on. We’ve had a talk about my impatience and I believe we will move forward easier now. My journey right now seems to be accept people where they are at. I have learned to let Junior be Junior and I love discovering his heart over and over. Now I need to take this lesson to other people in my life. Learning to let go of my expectations of them changing frees me to love them where they are at. As I absorb this lesson I also see that I don’t have to let others run over me with their actions as well. I know that B isn’t dependable so I should not depend on her to do something that is important to me. I should not put her in that position as well. I would say I have this part down pat and now I need to learn to realize she is who she is. As I find peace in day to day life with my emotional and physical struggles I was thinking I would be on a level playing field in general. Today I am learning that there is always a new lesson to learn and work through. Just because I have learned a lesson it does not mean I am done with learning or that others are at the place I am at in life. God taught me to pray “Open my eyes and heart to Junior” and right now I believe God is teaching me to “open my eyes and heart” to other people in my life. The heart is where I meet the true person even if they have a rough exterior. I also know as I think of people from my life that when I began to look at their heart I see that they are mean inside and out. I see too that God has had me move away from some of those people because they are evil and enjoy being evil and it is best to leave them alone. Some people are happy right where they are at. I see two parts of my faith journey coming under control and I learn that I won’t stop growing and learning if I keep allowing God to change me. I love the changes so far and look forward to more growth. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you Love Janet

January 17 2015

January 17 2015 Greetings My Friend I feel the warmth of the heated throw on my back and the comfort of my neck pillow on my neck. A mid morning nap is tugging at my thoughts and I am contemplating that I may give in to it. For some reason I am back to sleeping 5 -6 hours and then I am wide awake. Lately I finish out my nights sleep with these mid morning naps. I keep thinking my sleep pattern will settle to more of a routine than a week or two one pattern and then another. Today I go with it since I know that I will gain momentum to enter into the day once I feel well rested. I over did it yesterday and I admit I scared myself a bit. I made two pots of soup then decided to move the chairs and clean behind them. The bending over to pick things up and the pulling out the chairs caused me to have a blackout and I felt the room spin. I managed to stay on my feet and I gained my stamina fairly quickly so I sat down and rested. Even though I have gained the ability to push myself to work for longer periods I find that I need to stop more often anyway. Junior and I were talking to a lady from church the other day. Her family is in crisis and she was telling us about some of the stuff going on in her life. A few times I said that “I would…..” I relate because I once was caught up in this muck and mire. I often will state how hard it was to get away from being a victim and claiming my own life. I also state that God is how I was able to fully walk away since I know I would still be there left to my own devices. I heard Junior mention to her that he understands that she doesn’t want to change but needed to vent. I heard it and did not absorb in my mind that people prefer to stay in the pain they are in. It took me a lifetime to finally walk away but I also know I kept learning lessons along the way to be able to fully leave. I am surprised to learn this so as we chat I believe that the person wants to let go. I keep telling my story in the hopes that they “hear” something to encourage their journey. I do this because I wanted someone to step beside me and help me to walk away and felt there was no one who would guide me. So the thought that someone does not want to walk away from the pain is hard for me to absorb. I now also understand that abuse victims tend to leave their spouse a good 7 times before it will take. This was true for me also. We believe all the tears and comments the abuser comes up with that they will change, won’t do it again. We go back thinking that this time they will truly stop only to find that nothing has changed. For me one day my heart turned hard and I no longer believed him. I asked for a divorce, he stalked me until I relented and then 6 months later he asked for the divorce. When he asked for the divorce I knew to run and not look back. I wasn’t stalked etc. so I was able to break free and begin rebuilding my life. I know how hard all of this is and for some reason I believe people will walk away. At this point I am attempting to see the help I give like my journey at sharing the Gospel. I learned that we need to be in relationship, show the love and patience God has shown us. In this I believe I am planting a seed of faith that may grow as another person comes into their life to water the seed and growth comes from the warmth of love and nurturing of the water. In this I can let go of the need to expect change immediately, it isn’t going to happen. I keep learning and growing in God’s love. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 15 2015

January 15 2015 Greetings My Friend Phrases I am mulling over: “And Abram believed and it was counted righteous” I hear a couple of thoughts to this. First all you have to do is believe, God is God and Jesus is His Son. I stop and think, “I believe all the way down in the bottom of my heart.” Believe that is it, nothing more but I find my belief grows stronger when I read the Bible, pray, worship and live my life as if God is God. The next phrase is one I wrote in my journal after reading the Bible. The question I ask is “How can I serve others today?” I wrote “Live what I believe and believe what I live.” Along with this I also “hear” ‘share the Gospel and sometimes use words.’ My lesson is to live what I learn from God. Paul wrote “Be imitators of Christ”. This teaches me that as I learn I must put into practice the things I am learning in my faith walk. It is in this way that “I am a new creation in Christ.” The more I learn and grow in my faith journey the more I change and grow to be like Jesus. I will never be as perfect as He is but I do change from a self centered person into a God centered person. The more God centered I get the more caring, loving and “whole” I am. I am not the dysfunctional loving person I once was. For me I am an enabler and I tend to think my enabling ways are healthy. They are not, in fact my enabling ways doesn’t help me or the one I am enabling but keeps us both stuck in the muck and mire. The only way I have been able to even begin to break my enabling traits is “believe God.” Day by day as I pray, read the Bible, associate with other believers. As I grow in God’s love and learn then I find myself being encouraged to “go forth and make disciples of all nations.” My old idea of evangelizing was beating people up with the Word. Today I understand that evangelizing is learning to be in relationship, to live what I learn and to believe in the changes God is making in me. When Junior and I are out in public people are watching us. I don’t always realize how we affect people but we do. Sometimes we are silly and enjoying each other as others watch us. Sometimes Junior is talking to me as an equal and others see us. Once in a while I am bragging on Junior and I am heard. These small ways are spreading what we live and believe in a quiet manner. I don’t always have to be in public to live what I believe also. As Junior renovates he is working for me and on to the Lord. As I clean, cook for Junior I am working as on to the Lord. Sometimes Junior comes in and tells me about a struggle he is having with one of his projects and I listen, give a back and forth which allows him to think out his project. For me as I have been learning to live with disabilities I find myself talking out ideas that I think will help me. Junior offers his input and this helps me to be proactive with my health issues. These little things are ways we believe and live what we believe. Our belief is both internal and external and in the quiet of our lives we find that we are sharing the Gospel. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 13 2015

January 13 2015 Greetings My Friend Part of the kitchen renovation will include tearing the wall down between the kitchen and the enclosed porch so we need to move and empty the things that are along that wall. We have a bookcase we are using for medicines and supplements that needs to be moved. While at the store yesterday I bought some more baskets to organize the bookcase and instead of using the bookcase I have found a closet that will fit these things. My goal is to organize the baskets of meds within the closet. This is exciting to me so I am sure this will be done in short order. Junior has the front porch railings up and is working on the extension to the back deck right now. I know that the kitchen is months away from being worked on further. I long for it to be done but I also know that Junior is working out the rest of the interior design in his mind as he works outside on the deck. I also know that when he gets to the kitchen in earnest he will do an awesome job. Since the kitchen is in some order the waiting isn’t as hard as it has been in the recent past. I am finding myself wanting to do other things like painting the hallway or the spare bedroom and it is hard for me to reach a point of starting these projects. I understand Junior’s pace so much more so these days. Getting our home ready for the holidays was trying and I’ve spent time coming back to my energy level again. This means painting may not happen for some time. It is what it is. In due time things will get done. Learning to be content in this has been a journey and now that I have arrived I find peace and patience like I have never known before. This peace and contentment also applies to life in general. I was who I was and I am now who I am now and that too is okay. I marvel at the transformation my life has taken on. God has been the transformation of healing so many areas of my life. Before this faith journey I made lots and lots of attempts at changing and even made a few small changes but with God I see a huge transformation. I am no longer afraid of my shadow. I have no problem talking to strangers these days, even men. I have been so afraid of men for so long and now I can talk to another man without fear that he is going to harm me. For the past few weeks I get up to do my morning on the computer and as I go to prayer I fall asleep. When I wake up I finish praying and then begin my housework routines. This too isn’t cause for me to beat myself up anymore. I wake up and begin my day. At the end of the day I have walked, worked and wrote. I have that fulfilled feeling and it is good. For some reason I have been given the “job” of learning why I am the way I am. The more I learn why the more I find an understanding and an acceptance of my life. My cousin will often explore our families dysfunction with me and in that I learn why I allowed things that I should not of allowed in my life. ML has been a long time friend and has let me do the exploring as well. With these two people letting me bring up the past more so I have learned and at this point my past is my past, I can close the door. If someone opens that door I don’t worry about a flood of emotions haunting me because I have dealt with them. God has taught me to do this work and I am so grateful. I feel that I am entering into this New Year ready to move forward wherever God leads me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 10 2015

January 10 2015 Greetings My Friend It seems to take a while to fully enter into the New Year sometimes. I wrote the year as 2014...so goes life. I caught my mistake and corrected it so I am once more into this year. Life’s lessons seem to be learned by going backwards relearning, regrouping and then moving forward. The older I get the more comfortable I am with the walk backwards from time to time. I have quit berating myself because I seem to need to go back and start over. The years are teaching me that this backward movement helps to imprint the lesson more so in my mind. I learned this lesson with exercising. I found myself building up time, stamina and muscle tone only to get bronchitis and have to start over again. As I had bronchitis one more time though I saw that I bounced back a little quicker and I am noticing that bronchitis is coming to visit me less often. These days when I have to start over I am grateful because I see that my effort is paying off. I learned the same lesson with my emotional health too. This one has taken me decades but I believe that I have worked out all the pain of life I have dealt with. I will have moments of remembering but these days I also know that I can move out of those moments quicker and I don’t stay as long. God and counseling has given me the tools to work through old hurts. I don’t shove them in a corner only to find them haunting me again. I have dealt with them one by one with God’s help so they no longer rule over me. I keep learning the lesson that dysfunction took years to build up in my life and it will take years to build a healthy life to override the dysfunction. The same lesson can be applied to my disabilities. My goal these days is to do what I can to be proactive and accept the things that cannot be what once was. I am also learning that there will be times I will lose an ability I just had and I am now okay with that. I still grieve the loss of my child’s interaction in my life. Today though I grieve for a moment and then move on. When I look back I know I did the best I knew how to do even if it wasn’t the greatest and that is all I could do. I sense God has understood me and forgiven me my past so I move forward in His love and grace. If the door opens again then the hurt won’t be in the way to building a new relationship again. I see that “old age” is teaching me to be content, accept who I have been and to keep striving to be a better “me” than I was yesterday. It is here that I am able to learn the valuable lesson “let go, let God.” My trying to help God to help me is less these days and I am able to leave my struggle at the foot of the cross more readily. People who knew me back when I was a wallflower will still respond to me as a woman with no backbone, no intelligence etc. They don’t want to see that I have changed and I can’t make them. God is teaching me to accept this and to revel in the “now” with the people who see me as a survivor. They see my strength and growth and I don’t need to prove anything to them. I can’t change those who want to pigeonhole me into the past so leave it there. The lesson I learn is to live in the “now”. God has seen my growth and He is enough for me today. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 8 2015

January 8 2015 Greetings My Friend My daily trips around Facebook give me hope and confidence to proceed through life. I send off a lot of funny to me anyway pictures. I find myself internalizing many of the Scripture passages I see and pass on. Those remind me again of the faith journey I started years ago and help me to stay on this journey. Somedays I feel so low and then I read “I will never leave you or forsake you, I know the plans I have for you, to prosper you not harm you” and I find myself perking up again. Christmas passages brought me the familiar telling of Jesus’ birth and for some reason I found comfort in the familiar. Other times I read about Jesus’ resurrection and at that point I am giddy with hopeful anticipation of a better day. Many times I read the help sights about Chiari Malformation and find I am not alone. I understand so many things that I have dealt with in my life that now make sense. Right now my heart has been in deep prayer for many of those that are hurting way more than I hurt. Unfortunately surgery for the CM patient only means that the symptoms are halted for a while not permanently so they face multiple surgeries. CM also blends in with many other problems so there are the struggles to face those defects as well. Right now I am in a quiet spell with my difficulties. I have balance issues and dizzy spells. I have learned to eat protein and I am finding my straining headaches come less often. Essential oils and supplements are helping me sleep, breathe and stay calm. Eating healthy is helping me with my weight and exercise helps me bounce back from illness better. My energy level is so much better and chronic fatigue is managed. Today I truly know to work when I can and sit when I can’t. I know that if I do this I will come back with energy again. Christian friends also help me a lot. I feel another support network with my Christian sisters and brothers as they encourage, lift up prayer concerns and such. I have learned to pray throughout the day by lifting up the concerns I find out on Facebook. One of my Chiari friends has had major surgery and has struggled to come back. I have been asking God to intervene for her. Other friends have lost a loved one so I can pray for them. The opportunity to pray for people gives me a sense of purpose. Somewhere along the line I heard that it is easy to pray for those you know and care for but learning to pray for people you don’t know takes my faith deeper. Along the way someone will let me know they are praying for me and I am bewildered that someone else cares for me enough to lift me up in prayer. For me I have felt like I was useless and unwanted more than loved and cared about. These prayers seem to give me a sense of “life”. Junior is the start of my learning that my life has worth. I believe God put us in each others path to speak worth in to each other. He too felt unwanted more than wanted. Junior has always respected me, listened to me and the more he treated me with value and purpose the more I felt that I was truly a child of God’s. I’ve also been able to do the same for Junior and to be honest I have only been able to do this for Junior because I am constantly seeking God’s input as to how I need to fill Junior’s needs. I am fairly certain Junior is seeking God’s guidance in relating to me as well. I have learned that my Christian family is more than the people I attend church with and I see “the body of Christ” with a new set of eyes. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 6 2015

January 6 2015 Greetings My Friend Since this is the 6th of January already I find myself mulling what this year will bring me. For me when I retired and my health went south, we moved 2 times in 2 years I have been building back up to the point I am able to move through life again. I can’t move like I once did but I am moving and doing and my days feel full and good. Since reaching this new state of being able to move about again I start to ponder where my life journey and my faith journey will take me now. I ask myself what are the goals that I have and am I listening to God’s direction? When I follow God’s lead I know that I will enjoy the journey much more than trying to do life on my own steam. My focus for so long has been “get back to some sort of doing”. I have reached that level and now I think of more goals to achieve. I want to be still and reach out to people in my community. I have enjoyed some new friendships from doing so. I love seeing someone who was lost find their footing and go on to having a productive life. I pray this is still part of the work God wants me to do. If it is not I know that whatever He wants me to do I will find satisfaction in it. I learned to get onto instagram last year and used it mainly to post pictures to Facebook. I am starting to see that this is another outlet to meet people, to share pictures with others and even to share my faith. I’d also like to delve further into Twitter. I see some more growing and learning as part of my journey in life. As I get excited about new endeavors I look back and find myself wanting to continue to grow in my relationship to Junior. I still want to be the wife he needs not what I deem he needs. My prayer for my marriage will be a huge part of my journey this year. I also want my relationship with God to continue to grow deeper so I want to continue reading my Bible, digging deeper into the questions that my mind comes up with and of course attempting to have many conversations with God. By doing this I believe I will have “ears that hear and eyes that see” God’s plans for me. Deep down I also pray this is the year that my children and I can overcome the divide that divorce has brought to our lives. I pray my daughter will let me back into her life and my son and I will be able to grow our relationship deeper as well. I pray I get to know my grandchildren more so as well. In God’s timing though, not mine. The renovations are still going on in our home so I pray that I will start to see our home finished looking and being fully lived in. I pray this year Junior can get the yard going with his gardening and landscaping. I believe we will be further along for sure, seeing the end in sight is another thing. We will see where this year’s work will take Junior and I learn how to keep our whole home clean and running efficiently. I look forward to some more decorating and that is a job I love to do. I am excited to see where this year will take me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 3 2015

January 3 2015 Greetings My Friend The push of the holidays are now over with. I find myself sitting a bit more even taking an extra nap here and there. The day in and day out routines await me and I am happy to embrace them again. The visits were awesome and getting our home in shape was wonderful. Our dogs surprised us and were well behaved with all the people we had over. We find them overall well mannered in general but with company they acted like kids on their best behavior. At one point we wondered if we needed to make them stay outside during our visit. I couldn’t seem to move past an issue I’ve been struggling with Junior on. I prayed asking God to help me accept this quirk in his personality but I found myself upset. I talked a bit too much once more and I realized that he was hitting a spot in me that I felt disrespected. Once I understood this I knew I needed to have a heart to heart talk with Junior. God had softened my heart to the point I did not need to flare in anger over this grievance but I did need to let Junior know how I felt. I was able to tell Junior with loving words what was bothering me and I believe he will respect me. God has shown me that I can have a need and I can voice that need without anger and expect the respect of having my need met. Sometimes God teaches me to let Junior do his own thing and sometimes I sense God teaching me that it is okay to insist on having something I need to be met and taken seriously. I think about “truth in love” again. For me most of my needs in life were met with asking, not being heard and then having my anger flare and maybe then my need might be heard. I am thankful that the anger flaring part of getting my needs met is fairly much gone. Junior has treated me with such respect through the years that today I understand “truth in love” moments more clearly. I also am learning to meet those deep needs Junior has. I believe in my heart that Junior has set the tone for us to have this give and take in our marriage. Junior kept telling me that to be a leader he had to be a servant. At first this seemed strange but the more I read my Bible the more I see Jesus lead in this way. I understand now that we tend to be willing to do things when we are heard, accepted and loved. In all of this I find myself accepting more readily and letting go of fighting to get things my way. I learn new ways of doing things and at times I see Junior changing the way he does things more to the way I do them. This blends us so much that the team in us becomes our normal. “The two shall become one” rings true in my heart. Slowly I see how a man and a woman can blend to be one and I see that as a Christian I become part of the body of Christ. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 1 2015

January 1 2015 Greetings My Friend For me the 1st of the year calls up lots of memories. Mom and Dad married on January 1st, Grandma C’s birthday was January 3 and my son M was born on January 5th. All of these were right behind Christmas. As the years have gone on my mourning is minimal a flash and it is gone. I rarely can go by these days without a thought. Today I understand and I am able to allow emotions to come and I also know they will subside soon enough. I still don’t grieve the passing of my parents much. I did love them somewhere deep within me but I don’t miss them too much. For me all the arguing is gone and it is a relief. As the years have gone on I learned that we were never going to settle those questions and my wanting life settled didn’t mean they were ready. As I move past these memories I find myself looking forward into the New Year and pondering where the road of life will take me this year. The past year has shown me a “settling” of life and entering fully into my retirement years. I understand that I won’t be able to do what I once did and I have found a way to do life with limitations. I find a fullness to my retirement. At the back of my mind I thought I’d be Grandma C and feel so lonely and unwanted. This past year God has shown me how much life I have still to live, to give and even to share the Gospel. Junior and I have reached out to our community once more to a couple in crisis. With the reaching out I am reminded that when Jesus walked this earth He did not save each and every person. I have a lot to give but I can’t give all I have which is a struggle I have. In my mind if I am not giving my “all” then I haven’t even tried. As I learn God’s love for me I find that God will push me. He loves me enough to encourage me to reach beyond those old boundaries and to try new things. When I do step out in faith and reach out further I find a sense of accomplishment. With this thinking in mind I try hard to not be an “all in all” to someone, I can’t be if I wanted to be. My sense at the start of this year I will continue writing, cleaning, cooking and reaching out to those in my community. For me I am also learning to give as God does realizing He does not always give us everything we want but He will give us what we need. I sense I am also still learning the difference between wants and needs. As I learn these differences I find I will react to others in much the same way. The more I learn the “needs” outweigh the wants I find that I want a whole lot less in life. I want to love with all my heart. I learn to love with my heart from God as I learn to trust and obey I also learn to love as I am loved. I keep finding that I am much happier with a Junior hug, a puppy snuggle than I am with a fancy car, a designer purse etc. Father help me to “hear” Your voice and to do Your will. In Jesus name. May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine on you. Love Janet