February 28, 2017

Greetings My Friend, When Jesus gets a hold of you, you better watch out! I have known Brenda for about 8 years now. Junior saw Brenda's son walking down the railroad tracks and he asked Jeremiah if he would like to help him do some work around our place in Haysi and later on our house here in Coeburn. Jeremiah was in his early 20's and had not really held a job so Junior wanted to teach him some skills so he could go to work one day. One time while Jeremiah was working Brenda came by to check on him when he told her to come talk to me and a friendship began. Brenda has had me so irritated I wanted to strangle her, she was focused on all that had been done to her in her life and her hurt and pain she could not see all that she truly had. She struggles with depression big time, with diabetes and a host of other problems and despite all of this I found I loved this woman like a sister. She came around when I needed a friend, helped me work through the last stages of my hurt from my marriage and we shared the sting of abuse in our lives. Through prayer and medication I began to move forward but Brenda stayed mired in her pain. After we moved and Jeremiah had helped Junior out for a year or so he finally went out and got a job. We felt he should start off with some local jobs in local stores or such. He went big and decided he wanted to be a truck driver so he did his research, got himself into a truck driving school and is now a truck driver. Brenda loved hanging around with us and she often would stay at our house for a few days at a time. Did I mention that Brenda is a hoarder? She is and she has admitted it too. She started to hoard in our spare bedroom and we fussed at her for this, then we started insisting she pick up after herself and slowly she began picking up after herself. Along the way I started telling her how I began getting back into the groove of keeping house like I would watch TV and commercials I got up to do a few things. She watched me as I worked my way back into health.Brenda had breast cancer so I drove her to the cancer center to get radiation. We had long talks as we went back and forth, even sharing the driving due to my exhaustion. After the the radiation treatments were done Brenda kept up her lifestyle of hoarding, taking her medications willy nilly and she backed off coming over. She would call here and there and go on about who did what to her and I listened, fussed at her and thought she would eventually walk completely away. About a year ago Brenda found out her cancer returned and this time she needed chemo. She waited to start so she could go on a trip with her son, then she would cancel and reschedule her appointments sure that the doctors were out to kill her. Finally she decided it was time to operate and the doctor's told her it was not time, the tumor was too big. She had a sobering moment and I believe that is when it sunk in because since then she has slowly opened her heart to Jesus. He wanted her to trust Him and of course she argued with Him about that. I kept telling her she needed to trust Him and if He wanted her in these treatments then she needed to follow what the doctor's told her. She began taking her medications on schedule, eating better and she started cleaning her house. Justin has been helping her slowly the house is getting cleaned out of all the junk in it. She is in an apartment at this point and she wants to go back to the house. She threatened to move back to her house, live in a tent until she could move in. I believed she would too. We visited her the other day and the change in her was astounding. She was giddy, she had brought a friend she has made with her and Justin. She talked about the goals she has of cleaning out that house, to prove a point to her neighbors, her goal to move to Texas with her son and the change was astounding. She is planning on staying in her apartment for another year, working on her house and Jesus has a hold of her big time. Junior and I have prayed for her, our church has prayed for her and even my on line friends have prayed for her. I never ever thought I would see this day but now that it is here, I am so thankful. I believe she will be in heaven and I have longed for this the most. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you. Love Janet