March 30, 2017

Greetings My Friend In my senior years I have curly hair and I am enjoying it a whole lot. I always had a wave to my hair, when I went through menopause I got very curly hair and as menopause passed my hair went somewhat straight again. I had a hairdresser teach me to squirt my hair the days after I have showered but she taught me to use a hair dryer. I prefer wash and go hairstyles so the hair dryer was not something I could deal with. I went to a straight bob and that too required me straightening the wavy side of my hair another thing I was not good with. Next I learned how to squirt my hair and scrunch it, that I liked except my hair clung to my head and was not fluffy. Recently we bought a shower head with 2 heads, one was a hand held and was easily clipped where I did not have to stand on a footstool to get down. I have learned to wet my hair, wrap it in a towel for a few minutes and when I take it out of the towel my hair is almost dry. My hair is fluffy and curly and I love it. I love doing all of this girl thing with my hair, it is not something I ever got into. I keep trying various clips and headbands out because I do not like hair on my eyes and face. I have used those small grab clips for sometime and a few weeks ago I asked a lady at church who had one of those large grab clips in, how she got her hair into the clip. She was very nice and showed me, I was surprised at how easy it was to wind my hair into the clip, I can see using these this summer when I need to have my hair put up for the heat. Part of my personality is over planning, realizing that with Parkinson's Disease I will eventually have a hard time doing everyday activities including getting dressed or combing my hair so I am starting to plan simple things for my caregiver to help me to do. The curly hair I believe should be should be easy since there isn't much fussing with it. Last summer I started wearing sun dresses and I quickly liked the ease of slipping a dress over my head, the comfort of a long dress so as winter came I continued to wear skirts and dress'. The only balancing I have to do now is to get into my underwear. I also think this too will help my caregiver, mainly my Mr. Wonderful, Junior help me get dressed. I quit wearing makeup just before I retired, I had allergic reactions to makeup and gave up. For me planning for these needs ahead of time allows me to be in charge of my life and I think I won't get overly anxious. I will be used to seeing myself in dress' since I have preferred to wear slacks and shorts throughout my life. Once I started wearing dress' I found that I like the way they feel and I now prefer wearing them now. I like maxi length dress' and skirts they allow me to sit crossed legged and not show off the things I don't want to show off. I find it interesting that my senior years finds me changing the way I have dressed and taken care of my hair, even going without makeup. I find with each of these changes that I wish I would have done these many years ago. Down here in the mountains many of the women wear long skirts all the time. I think I was afraid of being different instead of trying to find the style that was more to my liking. Several years a Christian country singer taught a remarried retreat for our church. I loved her country style, cowboy boots and a dress. She carried it off smartly and I have admired this look since then. I wish I could wear cowboy boots now but menopause has given me feet that get hot easily and has not left me. I wear mules a whole lot. I found if I could slip out of my shoes quickly the heat passed quicker so I still wear the mules all the time since the hot feet did not leave with menopause. I am grateful to God because I feel good about my lifestyle changes and He accepts me with these changes, so does Junior, I can see it in his face when I am doing my girl thing.He beams at me and I believe God and Junior have taught me I am pretty. That is the best feeling. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 28, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I am a detail person and when I mix up the details it bothers me a lot. When I was coming out of my abusive marriage, I had a need to tell all the gory details, I think because the look behind startled me as to what I put up with. I was counseled not to go into the details which took me time to learn not to do. Learning to not tell each little piece of information has been a long and winding road for me. Recently I read in my morning Bible study time "So that as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord." I have been learning to give God the credit for the changes I am making in my life, the struggles I have overcome and even when good comes to my life. My prayer life and Bible study time is guiding the direction of my life. As I make the changes I realize the only way I am able to make the changes is because God is guiding me. I am surprised when I see the results of listening to God's direction. For the past 8 years we have had our house in Michigan rented out because of the housing market crash we were upside down. This year we are finally selling our house. Last June Junior and I were involved in a rear end accident. Junior went to the ER because he had something wrong with his neck behind his ear. He has been having his Chiropractor work on the problem and finally the claim was ready to be settled. We received money for the accident and for me it was hard not to tell how much. God is teaching me people do not need to know the amount. I do find myself thanking God for what He has done to help us through this struggle. I am thankful that Junior was not hurt any worse than he was. As I focus on these things the money we received seems less important. My boast is a thankfulness that we received what we needed and God watched over the whole process. At the same time our debt has gotten out of control, some of it is the renovating we have been doing to the old farmhouse we bought in Virginia. Some was spending too far ahead of a renovation and then finding we did not want to do what we first thought. God has been teaching us how to spend more wisely. We received enough money to help pay off some of the credit we had gotten into. More importantly I am thankful for the lessons we are learning and have learned. God has told us to trust Him. Trusting is hard for me to do so the last 8 years has been a lot of learning to trust. First we felt led to move from Michigan to Virginia and I had to trust to move from a state I had lived in for 50 years. I had to learn how to relate to a different weather pattern than Michigan. It is somewhat warmer where we moved, my allergies have gotten worse, my health continued to decline and through all of this I learned God was near. I have found the doctor's seem to listen to my complaints and have done an amazing job of helping me move through each problem. I trusted God for the financial end of moving that Junior would not loose our new home or our old one. I trusted God as He taught me to accept a work style that was unfamiliar to me. I trusted God as He showed me how to reenter keeping a home again as the house opened up through the renovating. I relearned how to work with my broken body. God has been my rock and my redeemer. When I did not think I would ever be able to work at keeping house again, God allowed the craziness of renovation to have me sit and rest and at the right time God taught me how to work when I can and sit when I can't. The details that help me now are to look at God and to see how He has made all this possible for me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 25, 2017

Greetings My Friend One of the things I ask God to do is to show me my strongholds and then to help me to walk away from them in His strength and power. Recently I have been asking God to guide me with a Parkinson's related problem and how to deal with it. I am learning that some over the counter medications are not helping as well as I thought they would and God has led me to eat Activia yogurt and a banana each night as I take my evening medications along with an over the counter laxative. It is helping me a whole lot and I am grateful. I have been giving up my treat that I truly enjoy which is homemade cookies so the other day when it came time to take my medications I felt led to enjoy 3 cookies instead of the banana and yogurt. I was a bit excited since I had made a batch of peanut butter no bakes earlier so I went out to put the cookies in a container since they had not been put away at this point. I got a small bowl to put my 3 cookies in and as I was putting the cookies into the container I saw a very small cookie so I ate it then I put my 3 cookies into the bowl to take with my medications. It was not a big deal eating that one small cookie, that is what I told myself as I popped it into my mouth. For some reason I instantly regretted this decision since I really had 4 cookies not the 3 God had told me to have. In the flesh that was not a big deal but in God's eyes it was a sin and with God there is no difference in that little cookie or what we consider a big sin like murder. Both are as bad because God is pure and holy. God wants only my best so when He sets limits it is not to harm me but to help me. I have constipation due to my disease and I need to stick to those things that will help me without filling up on things that don't help me. My intestinal track has been turned upside down so now that I have found relief I don't need to mess my system up with eating too much sugar. I have gone several days not eating any cookies and in the process regularity has returned to my body so the one little extra cookie may truly harm me. I knew when I felt bad that God would forgive me if I repented from my heart and I felt the forgiveness soon afterwards. I also have made a new commitment to not eat extra sugar and to follow the promptings God places on my heart. I have found myself enjoying the Activia yogurt because I have been allergic to milk and many milk products. I was surprised when God pointed me towards the brand of yogurt to use. This yogurt is supposed to help with digestive issues and I am inclined to believe that is why I am not reacting to the yogurt. I frequently eat a banana in the morning especially during the winter months. It seems the combination of 2 bananas one in the morning and one at night and yogurt is balancing my system out and I am grateful for God's guidance. I am amazed at how what I consider a tiny sin is truly not a tiny sin in my life. My indulgence could have upset my digestive track taking me back to where I was just a few days prior. I think this is what bothered me the most. Today I have resolved to trust God and to do what I have asked Him to do, help me with my problem. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 23, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I had God signs as a very young child when Dad came down with polio. The most prominent one was Dad lived when the doctor's said he would not and then Dad taught himself to walk again when the doctor's thought he would never walk again. When Dad's parents refused to help us, Grandma Chearhart told us to come back to Michigan and somehow we would make it. Grandma Chearhart was a widow raising a son on her meager salary working in a hospital cafeteria. When Dad got well enough to travel from Colorado back to Michigan, Mom loaded up us 3 kids and Dad into a car that worked until the engine was turned off. It had to cool for 3 hours before starting it again and we headed back to Michigan. Once in Michigan the 5 of us moved into Grandma's small home and we began a journey of getting on our own feet. Many days the hospital provided food for us to eat, our church provided clothes, medical equipment and so many other things. With all of the people stepping beside my family I never caught on to God's awesome provision in my life and my own true faith journey did not come into being until I was in my 40's. As I was reading about the Israelite's journey in the wilderness I came across this passage, "And the Lord said to Moses "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, inspite of all the signs that I have done among them?" God had done so many marvelous miracles while they were still in Egypt and then He brought them out of Egypt, had them cross the Red Sea on dry ground,gave them water out of a rock and even provided manna for them to eat in the desert. At this point the people were grumbling because they craved meat and thought they would have been better off back in Egypt where they were slaves. The forgot all the awesome ways God had provided for them the minute a new problem arose. For me I had forgotten about all the provisions my family had even though we were struck with polio. I believed God was in all that had gone on and for some reason I never trusted God with my entire heart for some reason until my own life's journey had me in the pits of despair. I had not learned to remember all the times God had provided in my life at that point. I rekindled my deep love for God, even discovering Him for the first time when I went through a divorce after 24 years of marriage. I felt kicked in the stomach and reached up to God in despair and that is when a truly deep walk began in trusting, remembering God's provisions throughout my life. In my despair of praying I felt God cry with me, hold me and push me to get out of the deep funk that overtook me. I learned to be thankful by writing a thankful journal and that is also where I started my remembering of God's provisions in my life. When I married Junior he kept asking me "what does the Bible say" each time I asked him any questions about life. This was the moment a daily time in the Word started to become my habit. Today as I read the passage I felt God's irritation at His provision for His people I saw where I had let God down in my own journey of faith all the times I questioned His provisions for me. In the next paragraph I read "The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving inequity and transgressions..." I sensed God's patience with me and His love for me and I realized that I needed to focus on remembering all the provisions God has given me in my life. I saw how God is teaching me to look back and see He has never left me or forsaken me and has always walked through each moment and trail right beside me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 21, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Recently we attended the funeral of a friend's mother. The service was beautiful, the words, the songs and afterwards we went into the Family life center to share a meal and remember this woman's life. We chatted with many different people as we ate and as we were preparing to leave Terrie caught us and asked if Junior would show is prosthetic leg to her friend. Junior was happy to show her his fancy leg with the tee shirt embedded onto the leg. Of course a conversation ensued about all of the particulars of being fitted for the prosthesis. As we chatted we learned the friend's boyfriend just lost a portion of his leg to diabetes and how not only the long process required to get accustomed to being an amputee. Not only the physical changes and pain but the emotional pain that goes on with amputation. Michelle, knew quite a bit about the process of needing for the leg to heal and the shrinking process that comes with it. Getting inside the mind of the amputee is difficult and Junior spoke to that end of it since he has been in that same spot. I also told Michelle about being the loved one who desires to work with their new limitations. For me I believed if I added on a certain amount of time to the project that I was being considerate. The problem is one time it may take only the extra I thought it would take and the next time time it could 3 hours. There is no way to program the time a disabled person can do things. I did not learn this lesson until I became disabled. I understood when Junior could not hold hands because it threw him off balance, I grasped Junior's wanting to sleep closet to the bathroom door. But understanding that he cannot work to a time frame which has been difficult for me because I time how long things take and then schedule myself accordingly. The anal organizer in me has struggled to understand this piece of Junior's handicap. Now that I am going through my own disability I understand fully. I admit that once an organizer always an organizer so now I do a little housework everyday, Monday I clean the bathroom, make oatmeal in a jar make 2 meals for us and sweep the floor. The rest of the week goes much like Monday and with this our home is in order most of the time. I had to learn not to get upset if I overslept, if I was too tired to work etc. I have learned to pick up where I left off on my schedule and soon I will be back on track. Since Junior understands the process of working in disability he has encouraged me to let go of my need to be organized anal ways. God loves me and He has taught me He looks at my heart not how well my work gets done. I was able to give this in a capsule form to Michelle so she was able to see how to understand her boyfriend's ability to do things. To me I felt happy that we could help someone cope with disability which affects both the person who is disabled and the one who loves the disabled person. After the funeral we went grocery shopping and as we discussed the comfort we had in sharing our experience with someone who is going through a similar struggle. Later I realized we were ministering to Michelle. For me ministry has always been when I am on a mission trip, teaching Sunday School or something along those lines but ministry really is when I can share how I am able to handle being married to a disabled man with someone who is entering this same situation. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 18 2016

Greetings My Friend, With Parkinson's Disease I find that my body quits working in the most uncomfortable ways. Most recently it has been having a regular BM which is not something I generally talk about but things have gotten real bad. I have found myself doing what I usually do eating my fruits and vegetables with no movement. I went to my on line PD support group and asked how to get through the problem. I learned a lot and I was still struggling so I took my problem to God. Now I was embarrassed to ask for help about such a personal problem although I was desperate enough so I asked for help. My PCP gave me a prescription for Miralax which was not working so as I said I asked God and He gave me the idea to use Actvia Yogurt and bananas along with ex lax. This has been helping me a whole lot. Eating yogurt and a banana is replacing my bedtime snack of homemade cookies. Asking God means I need to trust and obey and right now that means giving up the last hold out on sugar the cookies. To be honest I thought about having my cookies until a little voice inside of me reminded me that I was the one who asked for help. It seems the struggle was a stronghold in my life, even though in my mind it was a minor stronghold, it was a stronghold none the less. Did I want to feel better or did I want my cookies? I was miserable enough that I chose to feel better. For the next several nights I repeated the same procedure as the first night, one night I did not need a laxative and another night I did not need the banana which meant I could have my cookies. About the time I think I have given over all of my strongholds I discover that I have not. Everything has been working smoothly for a little while now and frankly I am grateful that it is. I am thankful that I am learning to give up more sugar in my life even though in my heart I still crave it. It came to me that when my gallbladder went bad on me I got to the point of anything with tomatoes was not worth eating even though I loved tomatoes. My favorite homemade soup was cabbage soup with V8 juice and since my gallbladder has been out I can't eat it. There is always that point where if something I eat makes me miserable I give it up. Oatmeal cookies do not make me miserable but my problem does so if I need to give up my favorite cookies I will work at not eating them. I also find that my weight has gone done another pound or two, I do like that too. I admit that I am still sucking on 3 lemon drops at night. The sour candy helps keep my dry mouth moist. I felt before all of this this problem I had worked through all of my strongholds, my sugar addiction has shown me that I have not and when I think that I have in the future I need to remind myself that I more than likely have not worked through all my strongholds. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 16, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I feel a new level of "Be still and know that I am God" growing in me. I have a mind that rarely shuts down and it goes a hundred miles a second so learning to be still in my thoughts has been a huge process to learn. Radiation for cancer took me to my first stage of stillness because I was so tired all I could do is sleep or lay awake staring at nothing until sleep overtook me again. I grew in quieting my mind through that process and through the years I have settled down. Recently I finished the process of learning to let go of relationships and as I have let go and let God, I am feeling a quietness within me. I was talking to my life long friend Marilyn recently and I was explaining this quietness to her and I could feel the quietness as we spoke. The search to be loved, to be wanted and to be accepted is over. I have found all that in my relationship with Jesus. I don't have the need to be excessively silly to deflect any anger that may be coming towards me, I don't need to fit into a certain social group and I find I genuinely like who I am. With all those restrictions I placed on myself now gone I find I can love living in the present. It seems that God has laid certain passages on my heart the shape He wanted it to be in "But the fruit of the Spirit is love,joy,peace,patience,kindness,goodness,faithfulness,gentleness,self-control;against such things there is no law." God took me through each of these things until I started to imprint them on my heart. I had very little patience so God placed me in all kinds of situations where I had to learn to be patient with people who were slower than I was mentally as much as physically. I learned to let the person finish their thoughts instead of finishing their sentences for them. I learned use self control when I wanted to control a situation where I should roll with the situation and on through the list God took me. I found myself learning that we all are not at the same place in our faith walk at the same time and that was okay. Next I found myself focused on the love chapter in the Bible 1 Corinthians 13 " Love is patient and kind; loves does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hope endures all things." God was teaching me what love looks like and how to love the way He loves me. I learned "it is not all about me." I have had a problem with making life all about me and this was with me as a young child because my siblings were telling me that to me all the time. And later as an adult I had a tendency to ask questions about something I was struggling with like my computer at work when the IT person was working with another person in my area. The more I felt God's love the less inclined I felt the need to make life about me. God did teach me to use my story to tell of His goodness in my life and I still do this a lot. Along the way I grew in hope and faith when one day God taught me the last sentence in 1 Corinthians 13 "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." I was learning to grow in faith and hope which before this point I had what I now call wishing and no real hope. I was starting to believe the promises of God and this passage was teaching me to look at my heart first and then look at other peoples heart. For me the heart message is Agape love or seek another person's highest good. This piece has made the greatest impact on my life. I had to be honest in what I wanted for other people and not seek my needs of them. I had to be honest when honesty was scary because I might be rejected. God teaches me to please Him and find my need in only Him. He will give me my needs not my wants. I have cut the last needy cords in my life and in this I find great peace and contentment. I feel comfortable with the woman God is creating me to be and I even like her, when others don't like me I believe it is their loss because I am special. I am sure I have more things to grow through before my time on earth is gone and I have faith that God will give me the hope of a better day in His wonderful love. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 14, 2017

Greetings My Friend, "How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? But the Lord has set apart the godly for himself." Okay I woke up when I read that passage in Psalms. Sometimes I find a theme as I read the OT, Psalms and the NT. Today I found the theme mostly in the Psalms and the NT. A few words later I read "Be angry and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your own beds, and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord." I have chased all the wild dreams of the flesh seeking for....at this point I am not sure what I was seeking other than maybe to be seen, heard and liked. Then there was the wakening of my heart wanting and desiring so much more from life, the world was not giving me what I truly thought I wanted. It seems that a lot of thinking or pondering goes on in the night on your bed so I was surprised to see the Psalmist stating to ponder on your bed. The silent part is hard for me anyway, my mind has a constant round of chatter going on. My mind feels like the noise of the world, the TV going, traffic outside, and even the equipment we use in the house like vacuum cleaners and the washing machine. Noise is all around us so being quiet is difficult. Since moving to the country away from the urban Detroit area I have found that quiet. Walking down our country road cars come by here and there, the sounds of the birds singing fill the air and the sights of deer and rabbits fill my mind with a gentle quiet that is soothing. A few times God sent me to the porch when anxiety was consuming me the peace felt so good. In the quiet I settled the anxious thoughts I could feel God's whisper on my heart. Because of this exercise I am able to hear God's whisper's more often these days. Next I read in the NT the book of John, "So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him." I am seeing how Jesus is not what the world wants to consume them. The Pharisees were upset that the Jewish people were seeking the Savior Scriptures talks about. Yesterday I learned that the Pharisees wanted to keep things the way they have always been because they liked their authority with the Jewish people. Again I see that in today's reading and I "hear" my heart choosing Jesus along with the Jewish people of Jesus' day. I hear God saying to me "How long will you love vain words and seek after lies?" I have been on a journey of learning to live the simple life and this simple life teaches me that the world is not impressed with it at all. In fact the world sees the simple life as boring, not intelectualy stimulating etc. God teaches me that He is not expecting me to serve Him in a wild and frantic pace but in an in depth way. I like this way more and more and I strive to maintain this quieter pace, well I also am made to slow down because I can no longer run the pace I once did. I sense that God has allowed me to have Parkinson's Disease and Chronic Fatigue so that I will slow down to hear His whispers on my heart and to share the things I am learning. When I look at my broken body these days I am not upset like I was. The search for what was going on with me has ended and now I know what it is. I know the source and now I learn to live with it, to make the best of my life with God's guidance. I am grateful for the country life God has sent me to and since my abilities are limited along with my energy level I am choosing to be active within our home. I have taken on the joy of cooking simple meals from scratch, soup, bread and putting up food for the winter. I am relearning how to sew once more making quilts, skirts and even a few nightgowns. My people socializing is saved for church and trips to the store mostly grocery shopping and Lowe's for renovating on the home. I am able to reach out to people in my community and on the internet to minister to and I love this life so much more than when I was a wife, mother, working outside and inside the home, going to college and volunteering. I was tired, believed many lies and so unhappy. Give me Jesus that is where my heart is today, I am happy and content. May God bless you and keep make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 11, 2017

Greetings My Friends, Sometimes the truth is inconvenient. It was in Jesus' day as much as it is today. We know what we should do, should follow or believe but it is a bother to pay attention to the facts that are staring us in the face. Jesus is a fact the world does not want to accept, the world thinks it is unfair that there is only one God and wants the idea all ways lead to God. God sent His Son to live a perfect life and then die for our sins, that is not convenient either because we like our sins and want to hold onto them even if they are destroying our lives. The Pharisees in Jesus' day saw that Jesus was upsetting the status quo when He rose Lazarus from the grave. "So the chief of priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said 'What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our place and our nation.' The religious leaders liked the role they had in their society, even though they could quote Scriptures and should have realized Jesus was the long awaited Savior they had gotten very comfortable. They knew these signs were reason to believe Jesus was who He said He was and they were willing to ignore these marvelous signs so they could go on as they were. They preferred to live for the flesh and eternity in hell rather live for their spirit meeting the Spirit of God and live eternity in heaven. Throughout my life I had my struggle with living and admitting that Jesus was who He said He was. I did not like being bold and declaring my faith because it might offend others. Today I believe that what God says is what God will do. He says if we will not believe He is God, that His Son is Jesus we are truly choosing our eternity in hell. We want to think that a loving God would never do this. Actually a loving God has set the boundaries and will make us choose Him or not choose Him. Adam and Eve chose to listen to the devil and God threw them out of the Garden of Eden, if God did this with Adam and Eve then I believe each and everyone of us will have to choose. The Bible speaks a lot on what God wants of us, about hell and heaven and we need to choose Jesus or not. I am amazed when I run into passages like this. I see that back in the time of Jesus people preferred to live for the flesh rather for eternity the same thing is going on today. I used to think we have come so far from those days, look at all that has been created since then like electric lights, cars and so on. Today I often think that we are getting dumber not smarter with each passing generation. Yes we have gadgets and with these gadgets we are further from our spirit. A walk in the woods or a quiet walk on a beach will open our spirit within us to long to connect with God. We walk further away from God by all the distractions in our day to day life. Living on our little piece of property where mountains and woods surround us has opened my spirit within me and I find it reaching up to God. I learn the simple life which is so much more rewarding than all the years I tried to fill my day with so much activity that at the end of the day wears me out and leaves me empty inside. Ultimately we all are searching for that inner quiet. Some fill their lives with activity and others are discovering to slow down and listen to the still voice of God whisper on their heart. I find I long to tell of this Jesus that loved us enough to open the doors of heaven to all who will believe and allow Jesus to bring them to the Father. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 9, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Awhile ago I decided to look up the definition of the word holy, it means set apart. I have mulled this over in my mind a lot since then. I have learned through the years being a Christian means we choose to be set apart because Jesus' life was set apart, that God has always been set apart at least since the fall. Right now I am in Leviticus which is a whole lot of rules and regulations and well it is hard to grasp all that is being taught. My new method underlining and circling is helping me to read each word and in the midst of these long tedious chapters I am finding some nuggets of profound information. My first sentence was "Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I the Lord who sanctifies you." I see that God is calling me to not be like those all around me but to be set apart. I learn that He is going to sanctify me so I look this word up to find it means "make holy and bless." I also learn I will be purified be made more perfect and I find comfort in this. I have always loved learning and growing in my learning, I used to think a college education was what I needed but it was more tests and a bias that the teacher had that did not always match up to my moral compass. With God I have entered the best schooling for me, studying God's Word, growing in His design for mankind and in my special unique job for His kingdom. I like this learning the best. I am encourager I love seeing the potential in all people so writing is one way I am able to encourage others. My unique way of encouraging is telling my story so others relate, realize they can be and do and at times I encourage myself to spur "me" on. I realize why God calls us to be set apart and I am comforted in this. It is getting easier to not be like the world because God makes me feel very special. I read further and discover God speaking again,"You shall be holy to me for the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine." Again I hear God calling us to be in the world but not of the world. God is growing a special people first to Himself and I sense He is also setting us apart so that we may reach out to bring new believers to Him. He teaches us that He wants a "royal priesthood" which says to me we are to teach the world of God's wonderful grace. As Jesus spoke to sinners we are to reach out to the sinners around us and give them the hope of Jesus. I learn that God is not calling us to be uppity ups but to have love and compassion. God did not make life easy for the Israelite's they had to obey Him, choose to follow His way of life for them. It seems hard to live like this but through the years I have learned to listen to the Holy Spirit's guidance and I am able to follow God's ways. I can not do it on my own but I can do much with the Holy Spirit's guidance. God does not expect us to do all of our holy living on our own. On my own I can see the wrong in me and I give up rather than try. With Jesus I learn to be thankful for the simple but important things in life, I have food to eat, a roof over my head and I am thankful for many things I used to take for granted. I no longer need to be like others and I am content in my own unique way. I thank God for being a friend when I felt alone and unwanted, He has shown me I am His and He will never leave me or forsake me. With Parkinson's I struggle to walk. The other day Junior and I went down to our neighbor's and I took myself up his porch steps. When it came time to leave I needed help getting down the steps. I am grateful I could be outside in the rare warm February afternoon. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 7, 2017

Greetings My Friend, The question I have gotten is how can you cope with Parkinson's? I cope because I either live the life I have or I bemoan the life I have. I choose to live to the best of my ability, to enjoy my life and to share it with others and bring the Good News into a hurting world. Junior and I are doing our weekly Sunday school lesson in Philippians and we are learning about Paul's contentment no matter what the circumstances are. As we end the weeks lesson one of the passages is "And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." In my journey of faith I am learning to be content with what I do have, not what I want. God keeps teaching me that He will supply my needs not my wants. I need food, clothing, a roof over my head, friends and love. God has provided me with all of these things and as I learn to be content, I keep discovering true contentment right where I am at. I have a need to work, to be productive so God has given me work to do for Kingdom building. My thought when I retired was I would do mission trips, volunteer and I even attempted to work in a thrift store that supported abused women until I realized even that was too much for me to handle. Surprisingly I was able to write without needing a whole lot of energy and I see that God has been pointing me to a writing at my own pace. I joined Facebook, Twitter and found a group of people to socialize with. When I was told I had Chiari I found a group on line who shared their struggles with Chiari Malformation. Within a short time I discovered I was not dealing with all the same issues most of the group was dealing with but I have maintained my association with these people. Next I was told I had Ataxia so once more I joined this group and I related kind of. Now that I know I have Parkinson's Disease I am in this group as well. I have a blog and a Facebook page where I write about my life's journey and how my faith in Jesus sustains me. By sharing my struggles I have made friends who also have disabilities and we support each other. Most of us have a faith in Jesus which helps too. Through all of this God has been supplying my need to work, to be ministered to and has given me a social life, a chance to enter into disability with others, to write about my discoveries and a chance to pray for all I meet who are going through various trials in life. Along the way I realized that God was allowing me to be confined more to the house than opening the doors for me to be active at church or in the community where I live. I believe God knew how I would get more caught up in socializing, wanting to be recognized as a person seeking approval and not utilize the gift of writing He has given me. I have learned to be content in the quiet of our home and today I enjoy this quiet. I am never alone because God is near all the time and He provides me with people to socialize with on line. In all of this I have a few young women whom I can "mother", women my age who are disabled and people with my disease who can relate to me. God has put Junior and I together and we are a couple with disabilities who support each other. We understand each others needs and concerns, which is answered by God as we pray to be what the other needs. Recently I have found I am asked the reason for my hope, especially in my support groups and I give them the hope I have in Jesus. I do this by giving my "story" and how I rely on God to meet my needs. I have lived many years now so I have many stories, abuse as a child, an adult, divorce, cancer and the journey to finding out I have PD. Sometimes I give a condensed version of all my stories or other times I relate my story to the person's particular struggle. I love being an encourager, an overcomer with Jesus' help and giving the hope of a Savior who loves us. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 4, 2017

Greetings My Friend, There are those moments when I struggle to think as I once did. Sometimes I go the fridge to get something and I open the door, stand stareing until I can pull up what I went the fridge for. It takes me a few more seconds than it used to, then Junior and I decided I should take over the bills. He was paying them well, he struggled with spending too much money so he gave me his credit cards and the check book so I could help him keep himself in check. No problem or so I thought, I used to do all the bill paying in my first marriage and with Junior I had a set of bills I paid with my check and he had others with his check. It worked rather well the first 10 years we were married. In retirement we went to shared accounts and I was struggling so he took over paying the bills. I picked up the plotting and planning again and learned all about bill pay and went on my merry way. Not really, I soon discovered silly mistakes like not registering what checks I was writing, not looking on line enough to stay on top of the ebb and flow of our money. It was hard but I gave Junior the checkbook back and he agreed he should handle the finances again. The good thing is this timeout gave Junior the incentive to stop spending money. We also have decided to work on what to pay together more which means I will keep my hand in on our finances. We are putting our house up for sale that we have been renting since the market went bad and we were upside down on our mortgage. The housing market has picked up so we should be able to get what we paid for the house. As we thought about this I thought it would be nice to travel up to Michigan so we could prepare the house to put it on the market and then we would need to be there for the signing. Junior has been gently telling me that I wear out to easily and he felt travel is not for my good anymore. I did not want to hear this though until we had a couple of very busy days recently. I was exhausted beyond belief which when the truth of what Junior has been telling me hit me. A phone call to our realtor assured me that we do not need to make the trip. He is asking the tenant for a walk through to get an idea of what needs to be done. He knows of people who will paint and spruce up the house to put it on the market and then he informed me that we also do not need to be in Michigan for the signing when the house sells. He can send the documents via e-mail and we can fax them back which means I won't have to struggle with my energy level being poor. Parkinson's is hard to accept at times, I am at peace for the most part although letting go of somethings is taking some adjustment. Right now, I am wondering if I will have dementia and I am a bit scared. As of yet I have not taken this concern fully to God which is what I need to do. Exhaustion has been keeping me from some of the mind games I have been playing like jigsaw puzzles or word search games. With this realization I believe I need to make an effort to play them more. I am exercising my body as much as I can and PD seems to be taking most of my focus. I am sure I will have to learn even more so I can maintain for as long as possible. As I have discovered new concerns I realize I need to begin a new set of conversations with God. I know that I know He will walk with me through this difficult disease, it is the hope I have and the peace in my heart. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

March 2, 2017

Greetings My Friend Waiting for God's timing can be a long wait and you wonder if you have heard Him correctly. In August of 2010 we bought the home we now are living in. We were in love with it before we were ever let inside to see it and when we walked through we knew this was our home. The house was built in the 1920's, had not had anyone living in it for several years, had no heat source and the house had not changed much since it was built even so we knew it was exactly what we wanted. We thought we would be able to find a contractor to come in and get the house up to snuff but never did. Junior undertook teaching himself how to renovate and has done a great job. He is slow due to his back problems and he does not mind redoing something 4 or 5 times until he gets it just the way he wants it to be. Right now he is starting the master bedroom and bathroom and he has made progress in regards to some insulating, putting up a wall and such. Our friend Debbie suggested we try her contractor and then he got tied up with several projects so we were discouraged. Recently I heard that Henry was looking for some work and I asked if he did plumbing. Junior hates plumbing jobs and he will put them off until I can no longer turn the faucet on. So Henry came by to help with a plumbing job or 2 and in the course of conversations we asked if he would be willing to help Junior with the bedroom and bathroom. Henry said he is interested and he will begin working on this project. Along the way we would make calls, look on the internet some more and people would not even come out to give us a hand. I realized that Junior would do well until it came to the plumbing piece and so I have started trying to figure out how to get him some help knowing that it is rare out here. Henry made it over and I now have a laundry room sink and a tankless water heater for the washing machine which means hot water. Since we moved into this house we have not had hot water for the washing machine. Somewhere in my heart I knew God would bring us what we needed when we needed it the most and today is the day that we have the help we need the most. I sense that Junior would not mind slowing down with renovating and would not mind getting involved in a slower pace. He had wanted to work as long as he could at his job in a paint chemical factory. He was not able to due to his back problems caused by his amputation when he was in the war. Renovating to him was his job and he has loved it for the most part. It was his "job". Along the way we found ourselves grateful that we did not have the contractors right off, the more we have lived in the house we have found that what we first wanted would not have worked for our needs. Junior and I have been able to sit in a room or use a room and now know those little patterns that will be of most use to us. Our relationship has grown stronger as we have learned to understand each others work style. I was able to come back to an energy level where I am able to keep the house up, prepare meals and make Junior comfortable. With my diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease Junior has been learning to give me a wide path to move around in allowing for my tendency to wobble back and forth. I have learned how hard it is to work being disabled, when I was more able bodied I felt if I gave an extra hour or 2 to Junior's project I was being generous only to learn in my disability that it is not so easy to project. I am grateful for the long time before we found a contractor to work with us because it has given Junior and I time to grow in our retirement. God does know best. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet