April 29, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Junior and I have hit our 19th anniversary this month and I am very happy with this marriage. With my Parkinson's Disease I am not as energetic as I have been and traveling is not easy on me as anymore. I find that we still need time away, to date each other and to focus on ourselves not the concerns of keeping our lives running. We have fallen away from dating each other even though for awhile the traveling back and forth to stores or to the Tri Cities for appointments felt like we were dating. These trips take sometime because we live more in the country away from the local malls and what not. We have not been big on dates at restaurants as a date because they have been routine in our marriage. Since moving to the country though we find ourselves not eating out as frequently so I have started to see that we may enjoy a nice restaurant for a date once in awhile. We have also thought about taking time to see some of the Civil War sights in the area and to visit a few of the small museums that are around. Last night we found ourselves running around town picking up a few things we needed and decided to have a "date" night by eating at a restaurant. We decided on a fast food restaurant "Captin D's" and instead of getting the food to go we went in and had our meal. It was nice visiting with each other. We still sit next to each other when we eat out which I like. We talked about the projects we are working on in the house renovation, our fur children and each other. The time relaxing with each other focused only on each other was uplifting and we finished the rest of our running then headed home. In our single's group and remarried's workshops we learned how important it is to take couple time. Being retired we are together all day most days and it gets easy to be about the business of living with me cooking and cleaning and Junior renovating and keeping up the outside of the house since I can't move about as easily anymore. When we first moved here we traveled back to Michigan or went on trips. The more our fur family grew the harder it was to leave them and find care for them while we were gone. Then we started to feel like we are on vacation a lot with the beauty of the mountains and the more rural setting we live in. One day we noticed we were in a rut so we remembered what we were taught about the importance of making time to be a couple. We were taught to have a date night once a week maybe every 2 weeks. Date night did not have to cost a lot of money for instance we could go to the park and walk around. Secondly we were taught that couples should go away overnight every month or two. We followed this advice until we retired and even awhile after we retired and again we got ourselves into a rut. We also learned that a couple needs to have time in prayer which was another area we had drifted away from. We started praying again a couple of months ago and I see a huge difference in our marriage. We were getting edgy with each other, Junior's PTSD was having him reacting more in anger when we decided it was time to come back to the teachings we had learned when we were single and then in the remarried classes we had. It has been difficult with my health declining, my ability to walk was difficult and we had no idea of what was wrong with me. Since I found out I had PD in Oct. of last year we are settling again, there is something about knowing what you are fighting against. Even better is dating within our limitations and prayer helps both Junior and I to understand each others struggles and see each others heart. We are "hearing" God's directions more clearly again and I believe that is the icing on the cake for us. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 27, 2017

Greetings My Friend, It is easy for me to believe just about anything anyone wants to tell me, I want to believe all people want to be honest and straight forward so I have a tendency to take people at their word. While I was reading the Bible this morning I learned yet again that I need to test everything with the truth and for me the "truth" is the Bible. I want align my life with God's ways so I often perk up with what teachers of the Word tell me. At one point I took what I was taught as the truth and rarely picked up the Bible, today though I read the Word daily. I prefer to go through the Bible in a year and I usually do a Bible study on the side, right now I do the study with Junior which is a quarterly we have for our Sunday school class. Since I have been reading the Bible for going on 20 years now I have found times where what I have been reading does not match what is being taught. The Apostle Paul was teaching about this type of a problem, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds." I have heard teachers on the radio that had one small fact right and just about everything else was so off the mark of what the Bible teaches that I was astounded. I remember one Bible study where they were teaching about King David and it said that Saul was his father which Saul does call him his son but that was a reference to his affection for David. That affection lasted only a short while and the Saul began to seek to kill David. Often times when Saul was confronted with David's righteous treatment of the king Saul then would refer to David as his son. David's real father was Jesse. That was my first encounter with mistreatment of God's Word. I also am learning when a true believer mixes up their information such as I never get Cain and Able sorted out as to the brother who killed the other one. Generally I will mention that when discussing the passage. If needed I am willing to go to the Bible and read the account so I can name the right name to the brother I am discussing. Some false teaching I see online is if you pass along a post with a Bible reference then you will be blessed or another one which states if you deny Jesus with man and they want you to pass that around it is for false reasons not lining up with the Word of God. Passing a status around does not show my love for Jesus anymore than passing along a cute picture of a baby does. My love for Jesus comes in how I live my life, how I care for people and how I offer the hope I have in Jesus. By reaching out to others in love God knows the intention of my heart, not by passing something around. In fact I generally refuse to pass those things on. I prefer to pass actual Scripture passages that offer hope, or a prayer that speaks things from the heart. I want to offer the encouragement of a Savior who willingly came down from heaven and died for my sins along. I know more fully when I am being mislead these days and I either state the facts as I read them in the Word and begin a discussion or ignore those things all together. I also will pass along the updates that say that God does not do those things like you will receive money if you pass along a post. The more I read my Bible and live my life as I am being taught by God the more I am able to know when I am being deceived by those that have impure motives. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 25, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Before I began to write I did a quick check on Facebook, I saw a couple of updates from my help group about the struggle to deal with the stiffness and the struggle to maintain an upbeat attitude. A while back I saw on another help site about a lady near the point of giving up and ending her life. I am in two different groups because I have 2 things wrong with me, one I have mild symptoms compared to the other people and the other I am just starting this journey although I have more than likely been experiencing problems for a few years but was only diagnosed 6 months ago or so. Having a chronic illness is difficult and to be honest since having cancer 12 years ago I have struggled with my health. In the process I have known deep depression and slowly I have found my way back to hope again. Before then end of this disease I am sure I will meet depression again so when I see my new found friends struggling I hurt for them. For me the only way I am able to cope is Jesus, I believe I have been brought back to a semblance of energy which is not of my own doing but Jesus leading me to take certain steps toward a better way to deal with chronic fatigue, with the confusion I was experiencing and then teaching me how to do old things in a new way. Deep inside I believe that my calmness is Jesus telling me He will guide me in the upcoming struggles I will endure. People today find it difficult to talk about hope, the hope they may have because most people find it politically incorrect. On my help sites I mention I will pray for them, once in awhile when the conversation allows for it I mention how my faith helps me and if questioned further I talk about Jesus more directly. For me that is the hope I have so I give the hope I have to those who are hurting. I also think about Queen Esther in the Bible whose Uncle told her when she was not sure if she should go to King and ask him to save the Jews, "Perhaps you were born for a time as this" or words to that effect. Maybe growing up with a Dad who had polio, having a son with hearing problems and marrying a man with an amputation has prepared me for a time as this. Junior has been an amputee for 50 years or so, Dad lived with polio for around 30 years and they both went onto have a good life even in their disabilities. Now that I have an answer to my balance issues, understand the stiffness and how to work with it I attempt to work with my limitations. I know this disease has a possibility for a decent life span so that means I will deal with more symptoms that will continue to limit my ability to do what I enjoy doing now and I don't like it but I know that Jesus will help me cope and I will find contentment at that stage of disability as well. Junior has learned to deal with a very bad back, the potential of a knee replacement surgery for his good leg and to handle his PTSD along with his amputation. If Junior can learn to cope then I am going to do the best I can to cope with my disease. I also see that Junior relies heavily on Jesus and to be honest I have never trusted or loved a man as much as I have Junior. I am going to keep trusting that Jesus will guide me and I will pray for each person I meet online who is struggling whether it is with a disease or disorder or even with depression alone. It is the only way I know how to help give the hope of Jesus. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine you. Love Janet

April 22, 2017

Greetings My Friend, It was a short sentence but it spoke volumes to my heart, I needed to know this deep in my soul "He chose our heritage for us the pride of Jacob whom he loves." I grew up in a small family with hardly any aunts and uncles or cousins and for some reason I longed for a large family to be in. I barely knew my Dad's parents and I never met his brother Frank and Lola his wife or my 2 cousins, it was what it was. One year Grandma C gave me copies of pictures from her life as a child, I hung them up on a wall and stared at them realizing that I was part of a group of people that reached back into history and continued into the present. When I went through my divorce I worried that my history was broken and my mark would be gone unnoticed. So reading that God chose me and gave me a heritage well that was heart warming, as I thought about this I could feel this heritage going way back into history. I loved it feeling my heritage all the way back into time. I am part of the family of God and I have been learning how to live in the family of God for years and one day this family will live in harmony forever. Now though we learn the lessons we need to live in this giant family. One time we went on a cruise with our remarried ministry family at church and on the cruise I met a young lady who warmed up to me when she found I was a Christian. She barely spoke English but she felt safe to be around our group because of our Christian relationship with Jesus. Then there was the time we went on a mission trip to Honduras to help with an orphanage and I was amazed at how our Christian heritage helped us overcome the language barrier, we learned from them and they learned from us as we worked at the common goal of building the orphanage. The youngsters loved the games we came up with to play as we taught about the love of Jesus. I remembered making puppets from socks from my childhood and shared this craft with the children. Instead the children walked around wearing the socks, it was fun watching them walk around with one sock on some with the eyes and mouths put on for the puppet. I also find when I meet other people in the faith that we understand and automatically love reaching out to each other, it feels nice. God wants all of us to choose to be in His family, I love that too. Just as my Dad left home at 14 never to never live with his parents again man chose to leave God's presence and continue to refuse to follow His ways. God lets us have free choice so we choose to follow His ways or go off on our own. I felt I wanted to live on my own for years only to wake up one day and discover that living in the family of God is what my desire has always been. When I first returned to the safety of God's loving embrace I worried about being chastised forever, only to learn that God has forgiven my sins as far as from the east to the west....they never meet. I don't have to know how to live His ways up front, God will teach us. He understands that we are on a journey and is patient enough to teach us all the things we need to learn. I no longer think much about being in a small family, I have a huge family to be loved by and to love back. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 20, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I don't know how I got myself off track but I did, today was mammogram day and somehow I wound up being an hour off on my timing. I was blessed because I was taken in when I did show up and by the time I got home I had a message on my machine that it looked good. That is done for another year and it is now 12 years cancer free a relief, these days I don't over worry it as I did right after I had cancer. Next was blood work although the lab was closed and we did not have time to go the hospital so we headed to Lowe's to pick up paint for the floor of the deck where the fire pit is then it was time to take Daisy and Phineas to the vet. That was a long wait because the Vet was busy. Phineas has hookworm so he got medication, Daisy's eyes are not doing well so she now has an ointment and eye drops, she has pressure in her eye. With each visit to the vet the kids have had ringworm and we have been medicating them, they still keep passing it between them. We then stopped by Food City for bananas and magnesium citrate oral solution for my issue I have. Finally it was time to head home and it felt good to be greeted by the rest of the gang. We found a Fed EX package tied to our gate on the porch inside was the paperwork for the sale of our house in Michigan. With the signing of the paperwork we will no longer own the house in Michigan. Today we realized we have enough fur children we need to take one child to the vet around once a month. Daisy has been going for 3 or 4 months now due to her eyes and at 9 years old she is considered a senior dog. As a senior dog she will continue to have problems that need to be dealt with. I am thankful we can take good care of our fur children, God has blessed us with the income to do so. These babies also help Junior and I have something to focus on. At our Easter gathering I had Daisy in my arms carrying her about as I moved around, she helps me keep my balance and she soaks up the attention as I hold her and pet on her. I also tend to Daisy's needs such as medicating her eyes or bathing her which makes me stay focused on being involved with day to day life. Now that I am better than I was a few years ago when all I could do was sleep I also am able to keep the house clean and prepare meals for us to eat. I am grateful God kept pointing me to focusing on things so that I can be where I am today. I have learned how to get do these things again and enjoy them. I know as my disease progress' I will once again not be able to take care of my personal needs or the needs of my little family, for now though I enjoy the opportunity to help Junior by making our home comfortable when he done working each day. By doing these things I am active as well which is good for Parkinson's patients, the more I am physically active the longer it will be before I enter the next phase of this disease. We had our Easter gathering this past Sunday and it felt great to once again have a crowd. We all have our physical challenges so we made the day a potluck day, we also had containers for each of us to take home left overs in. My mother in law always passed out leftovers after family meals so I was thrilled to do this with our friends. We get to eat and remember the fun we had Easter which warms my heart. In all of this I sense that God has created us to take care of each other and frankly it feels nice to do so. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 18, 2017

Greetings My Friend, In the church we know that Christmas and Easter will bring people to church that will not come throughout the year. I have heard these people referred to as "Chreasster's", it is good to remember the birth, the death and resurrection of our Savior. To be honest even though I went to church all year in a round about way I looked forward to these holiday's more for the family gatherings, the awesome meals we put together and the times both good and bad we had at these gatherings. No where in all of the celebrating was the thought of the reason for the season. As my faith has grown I find that taking time to reflect on the cross has helped me to focus on the gift we have been given in Jesus. This gift has opened the door to a relationship with our God that we could never do without a Savior. Jesus brings me hope here on earth, today with all the strife that surrounds each of us. I am facing Parkinson's, deep sadness at the loss of special relationships in my life, the scariness of our world and I am able to keep my head held high, hope in my heart because of a Savior who gave His life for me. For awhile I found myself asking the question," Do I take Jesus home with me after church and live with Him during the week?" Many church goers show up on Sunday but come Monday they have left Jesus at church and live life as if they never met Him or made the choice to follow Jesus. God does not call me to only follow Him on one day of the year or one day a week but each day of our lives. Once we invite Jesus into our hearts and ask God to forgive us our sins. Some of us say that we live under grace so the way their lives are lived is they continue to sin because God is gracious He will forgive them. God is a gracious God but that does not give us the right to keep sinning which means we have not fully given our heart to Jesus. I say this because if we truly have given our hearts to Jesus we would be convicted by the Holy Spirit to change our ways and line up our lives as God teaches us in the Bible. Our confession of Jesus means we truly see the life we are living is destructive and is taking us nowhere fast. Many of us come to Jesus when we hit rock bottom, we have no where else to turn so we turn to Jesus. If we truly have turned our hearts to Jesus we will begin to change the way we think and act, we will be more caring and honest. We want to please God, make God first before all relationships and in doing this we begin to have healthy relationships, to walk away from the things that are destroying us. Opening our hearts to Jesus becomes a way of life and then we will want to give this gift to others. It is hard for me to not talk about the hope I have,to tell how He is changing my life and the only courage and strength I have comes from Jesus. Jesus left heaven, lived the same life we live, without sin though and then took on our sin and died a horrible death. Unless you have truly experienced Jesus in your heart it is hard to understand this precious moment, life and an eternity with Him. I face a lot of these things knowing that there is a greater prize waiting for me called heaven. I have little understanding what heaven is but the Bible does teach me that life there will be worth it and for some reason I know, that I know this is true. I also know without a doubt that heaven is our choice, we either will believe and accept this gift or we will live eternity in hell. I want to live and give this hope each day of my life even as my health fails I sense God will have work for me to do which comforts me immensely. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 15, 2017

Greetings my Friend, I have known that people with Parkinson's slow down, until recently though I have felt I was keeping up with things at my regular pace. Using the walker I felt like I could walk quickly, the walker kept me stable and when I was somewhere unfamiliar then I slowed down a lot. Recently I noticed that Junior was finishing his meal before me which was new. Many times I finished my meal, sat and talked to him and then jumped up to clear the table. Last night I noticed Junior started doing what I usually did, chatted when he finished and then started clearing the table as I continued to eat. I was crushed as I realized the slowing down process has started in earnest with me. I am noticing when talking with people I am struggling to pull out words and for me I have always been good with words. Sometimes doing one of my word puzzles where you find the word in a puzzle I can find them quickly and more often now I am taking longer to finish the puzzle in fact I got rid of one puzzle that had a timer on it. I can usually find all the words it takes me longer to do the puzzle. When I see my friend Terri I watch her move a mile a minute and words are even quicker, I was like that at one time and I miss that part of my personality. I am starting to miss the person I have been for over 60 years, even with the slowing down some with age I miss the older version of what I thought I would be like. As I want to cry over what I once was I also tell myself that a slower version of who I was is still the same heart I have always had. I am enjoying the things I love to do, cooking, cleaning, loving my man and fellowship with our church family. I find when I am loosing things I strive hard to see what I do have, I learned to do this by writing my thankful journal after my divorce 20 years ago. Right now Junior is putting up the roof on the carport which will extend onto the porch giving us a nice sized outdoor room and I am grateful I have all of this to enjoy with the man I love. In a little bit I plan on going outside onto the porch to begin cleaning it up again and arranging the outdoor furniture so we can enjoy cool summer evenings on the porch. As I focus on my thankful thoughts I find myself letting go of the pity party I was slowly entering into. I am sure I will mourn a few more times in my life and I know that I will need to let myself let go of what once was and then find what I still do have. For some reason Parkinson's seems to be bringing my moments of mourning on more frequently right now. Easter is tomorrow and I am reminded that Jesus has died for my sins and that by believing in Him I will someday walk in eternity of no tear, sorrow or pain. This means I will have a perfect body that will never wear out and I find great comfort in this. I also am reminded that no matter how broken my body is God has given me many wonderful memories to recall and walk in again. We are having friends come by for dinner, a potluck of food to share and enjoy and I am grateful for the feast we will enjoy, for a Savior who willingly left heaven to come down and die for me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 13, 2017

Greetings My Friend Sunday is Easter the hope we look forward to as a believer in Jesus. The Disciples did not know Sunday was coming, they knew the confusion of their Savior being arrested,scourged,beaten and crucified. Jesus told them but they did not "hear" what He was telling them. The Disciples were in fear for their own life and confused because they saw all that Jesus had done, the miracles He did and now He was dying on the cross, that did not make sense in their minds. For many years I loved the Maundy Thursday service it is my favorite service and the church reads the accounts of Jesus' last hours of life, His death and then in the darkened Sanctuary a loud cymbal crashed. We left the service in silence. To me I could understand the fear and confusion the Disciples had. I was only able to attend Good Friday Services for a half hour of the 3 hour service because my job only gave me so much time to attend service and eat lunch. But that period of time did speak to me as well, we heard sermons of Jesus' last hours so it also helped me focus on the gift of the cross. Sunday came and I feel the awesome gift that Jesus rose from the grave. These days are how I process the gift of Easter, I don't do the Lenten studies so much or give up something for Lent. Last year I did but I did not do it this year. I am grateful for the gift of Jesus in my life, He is very real in my heart and I have experienced the love of a Savior who has died for me. After living 40 years without a true walk of faith today I appreciate the gift we have been given. This gift is open to everyone no matter how awful of a life we have lived or are living. Junior has challenged me this past year with a statement and I have begun to absorb the depth of it. First you have to believe that God is who He says He is or more specifically you have to believe Genesis 1, "God created..." God spoke the world into existence, next we have to believe that Jesus is God's Son, came into the world to take on our sin and pay the price for us and accept this gift Jesus has given us. If we do it with a genuine heart then we can enter into a relationship with God the Father and the Holy Spirit will dwell in you to guide you in the Father's ways, the way we were created to be in the beginning and we can expect to live in eternity with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. The three in one is hard to understand and I liken it to my life I am a wife, a mother and a grandmother. I am one but I have 3 different parts to my life as well. For the longest time I did not understand the Holy Spirit's role in the God head so I started talking to Him in my prayers like I did with the Father and Lord Jesus, one day I understood His role in my life. I find we have to believe even though we do not understand that is faith and again I liken faith like the way I can't see the wind but I know it is there just as I know God is there. My desire for Easter is those that do not know Jesus will ask Him into their lives. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 11, 2017

Greetings My Friend When I went to Divorce Recovery at a church that I did not attend I met several people who told me their story mostly the ones that had gone through what I was going through. At the end of the story they gave the credit to Jesus which was new to me, the church I grew up in did not do this. As time went on I learned this story telling was called giving their testimony, at first I thought the believer had only one story but as time has gone I have learned we have many stories or testimonies. After I got used to hearing these testimonies I wondered how they knew how to tell their story, our lives have many different things that lead us up to a given moment. Through the years I started giving my story and it has gotten better with each telling, I have even learned when I am talking to someone who is dealing with health issues to talk about my health and how Jesus has helped me. The same goes if someone is dealing with abuse, I talk about the abuse I endured in my life. I see Paul telling the Corinthian believers "For you can all prophesy one by one so that all may learn and be encouraged, and these spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. For God is not a God of confusion but of peace." I see the believers told each other about what Jesus had done in their lives, their story lined up with the teaching of the Apostles and the Apostles also taught as Jesus did from what we call the OT. Reading the Bible I learn how the lives of the ones before taught the next generation about the mistakes they made, the things they got right and they were taught by God to remember all the times He provided for them or corrected them. The 10 Commandments teach us as well, we learn the things that matter most to God and we soon discover why we need to love God first, not to lie and on. We learn by the Word of God and we learn by telling our story to others how God has helped us. Remembering has helped me a lot, when I was younger I remembered all the hurt I endured but by reading God's Word I discovered God telling the people of Israel to remember how He provided for them in the past. By changing the way I did my remembering I was able to let go of a lot of pain, I felt heard and understood when I remembered how God has loved me, cried with me and them insisted that I move on. God taught me I could survive cancer, that I have a family of believers who want me when I feel like my own family has given up on me. I can now say as Paul said that he was content in all things. He knew wealth and he knew poverty and he was content either way. God led Junior and I to move to Virginia and down here we have met people who are comfortable with our rather direct ways. Before people were pointing out that we did not need to be so "honest". I am grateful I met people who gave their testimony and met this sharing how Jesus has helped them get through their struggles. When I had cancer I met people who told me how many years they had survived cancer, today I see how comforting many people find that they too can one day tell someone else that they too can survive their struggle and that there is a God who longs for them to turn to Him and to trust Him. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 8, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I know that my improvement in symptoms is about the best I will get since I have been on Parkinson Disease medication for 5-6 months now. Even though I know this somewhere deep inside of me I have a few days where I am doing better, I have increased my exercises and I see that my gait is better. The other day I walked out on the porch to clean it, went off the porch to the carport next to the porch to plant flowers without my walker and I did pretty good. Sunday at church I almost felt like I could walk without my walker, I felt that confident. My mind starts wondering if I should try not using my walker, maybe go back to my walking stick. I even tell Junior I want to although I am not positive and he says he does not think it would be a good idea. When I have these days soon after I have a reality check, I spend time on my feet cleaning the house and after about 2 hours my lower back is killing me. I walked around very well with no hesitation or stumbling but my back hurts something bad. When I sit for a couple of hours I am ready to get up once more sometimes for another 2 hours or so, at the end of this 2 hours I am winded and my back hurts worse than it did earlier. These reality checks reminds me that I will only get worse not better. I fuss at myself for thinking I will get better, I have been having these delusions for a few years now. I don't go through them as often these days but I still have them. Sometimes I want to beat myself up for having these what I consider silly thoughts. Other times I reflect on my Dad and Junior and how they were able to make themselves go further in their disability. Dad was sure he could teach himself to walk when no doctor felt he could. Dad felt if he could train his back muscles to carry him so he could walk. Our church got Dad a back brace and while we were at school and Mom was at work Dad worked hard at teaching himself to walk and eventually he did. He walked strangely like he was drunk but he walked. When Junior lost his foot in Vietnam he taught himself to walk without a limp. He eventually was able to walk without a limp, most people are amazed when told he is an amputee. With these 2 examples I find myself striving hard to push past my limitations only to find I am not improving.My hope is the efforts I am making will delay the next stage of my disease which gives me a better quality of life for longer. I like this thought a whole bunch, Mom was my example to strive to be as healthy as I am able with diet and exercise,Mom was a heavy smoker, and she did not live smartly with her health. At age 64 Mom could not walk from the front room to the kitchen anymore. She refused to use oxygen due to her vanity and her quality of life was poor for many years. I vowed I would try to live a more healthy lifestyle. I never smoked, drank very little and I exercised moderately for most of my life. This summer I will be 64 and over all I am in as good of shape I can be given I have a chronic illness. With this illness I am still striving to live as healthy a life as I am able to live. I still do exercises, now I know the ones that will benefit me the most, I am eating next to no processed food and I am resting as my body is telling me to rest. For awhile I rested for a few minutes until a PT taught me to rest longer. Today I rest for a couple of hours at a time. Doing this I find I can work longer between rest periods. God has placed these people in my life to give me their examples, gave me PT so I could learn how to exercise with my disease and teach me longer rest periods was smarter for me. My faith in Jesus sustains me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 6, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Part of the "ACTSS" prayer format I learned is the A-accolades, to give God the glory. As I do I found myself mulling over the word glory and what it means in the Bible. I was reading in 1 Corinthians about the word glory in regards to men and women "For a man ought not cover his head since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man." My mind questioned the word glory. I have learned to do a Google search on the word I am thinking about so I looked up the word glory online. "Glory-The Hebrew word kabod (K-B-D) originally means "weight or "heaviness". The same word is then used to express importance, honor and majesty." This explanation helped me understand some of what glory was about in regards to God's glory. If I am comprehending this right it means that because God created we need to acknowledge what He did and be in awe of who and what he is and can do. Frankly that for me is rather easy to do. God spoke and all things came into being out of nothing. That is amazing to me. When I think of all the details that make our universe operate I am beyond amazed. All the planets are held in place, the sun and moon rotate so that each day we have have a sunrise and daylight and each night we have moonlight and darkness. I think of all the animals the various sizes and breeds I am amazed and then each animal and man's individual body is made to run smoothly and perfectly. How in the world do all of our intestines fit into our bodies? We have fingernails and toenails and even the inner workings of the eyes and ears amaze me. Add to this God created these workings to each size so think about the workings inside of an ant and the workings inside of an elephant. All this thinking leaves me dizzy with awe and wonder and this is one way I am able to give God the glory. It is heavy and weighty and words can't begin to describe it all. As I ponder this I take my thoughts back to the passage I was reading and I try to wrap my thoughts around what God is teaching me. First I know from Genesis that God created man first, He created man differently than He did all the rest of creation. God spoke and it was created but with man God created him out of the dust of the earth. God took special care with man. Next God created woman. He told Adam that it was not good for him to be alone and after passing all the animals in front of Adam it was decided that Adam needed something special so God put Adam asleep and created woman from his rib. I am not sure but my thought at this point is man was created first and God was very happy with his creation of man. He created man to care for the garden and I gather to be in a relationship with. Man seemed to be lonely so God created woman to be a companion to man, to be his helpmate. For me I like the role of being a helpmate to my husband Junior. I like when he sets the tone of our life and I admire his dedication to God. I trust him to lead me and guide me and my goal is to make him comfortable and to help him do the things we need to do to run our lives smoothly. I am an organizer so I keep track of appointments, make sure we eat well and I find great joy in having the house in order so when he comes in at the end of the day his favorite recliner is cleared of stuff allowing him to put up his feet. Junior also lets me help plan with him the way our house will work best for us as he renovates it. He brought me to look at the windows we had installed in the area where our TV room will be expanded to. We talked about how to set the area up and what will work best for the area. I am Junior's helpmate and Junior relies on me to give my input on what I need to keep our home in good order. So God made man in His image and glory. I have learned that the image mostly is His spirit since God is spirit. The woman's role is important too but she was made to be with man. God loves me as a woman, has important work for me to do as well but I was made to help my husband not to lead him. The older I get the more I like being a helpmate and not be over men. I also have learned that I am not a piece of property and to be treated poorly either. Life has taught me this hard lesson. Once I asked God to teach me His ways, I started to learn that God has always wanted my best and my best is to align with the way He created us. When I do this I bring God glory. I like this way of living a whole lot. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 4, 2017

Greetings My Friend, In a few days we will celebrate Easter and as a Christian I celebrate Jesus life, death, burial and resurrection. I learned when I was baptized in the Russel Fork River about how I symbolically go through Jesus' life death and resurrection, before I go under I am in the world, going under is my death and coming back up I have rose with Jesus. Before I was baptized in the river I had accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior one day while I was listening to a Christian radio station. I felt the same although slowly I started changing inside, thinking different, reading the Bible more frequently and the growing process was exciting. I was baptized as a baby so my baptism was more for my parents than for me. They made a commitment to raise me in the church which I am grateful for because the church started my walk of faith even though it took me a long time to understand my life in Christ. I have always felt better going to church on Sundays because this habit was instilled in me as a young child. Along the way God planted in my heart to pray through the last hours of Jesus' life. I had a back and forth with God telling Him this was difficult to look at what was done to His Son and through the years I had questioned "why". To me this was a barbaric act and it made no sense for anyone to have to go through what our Lord endured but God kept repeating for me to pray. Anytime I have these moments of reasoning with God I find that God will always prevail and in the end I wind up doing as I am told. Today I question less and "just do it," strangely doing as I am told to winds up teaching me profound lessons and my journey through the cross was enlightening to say the least. For the longest time I focused only on the nails in Jesus' flesh. That sounded awful and I could almost feel the nails being pounded into my flesh. Through the years I have read the Bible's 4 Gospel's accounts of all that Jesus endured and a few teachers have taught me some depth to what Jesus endured. Jesus was scourged, He was whipped with a whip that had several strips of leather on it and on the strips of leather was tied things like stones, broken pottery and such. Next I was taught that those objects dug into the flesh and pulled off of Jesus' body, possibly His flesh was torn to the bone. After the scourging, a crown of thorns was placed on Jesus' head, a robe put on His very tender back and the staff He was given was used to beat His face until He was disfigured. I learned that the crown of thorns were pushed down roughly on His scalp which penetrated his skin and blood more than likely dripped down into His eyes. The salt in the blood had to sting His eyes. While the Soldiers were beating and mocking Jesus they shouted insults like "If you are God then save yourself." When Jesus had to carry His cross He could not, more than likely He had lost a lot of blood so He was very weak. On the Hill the soldiers pounded the nails into His flesh and my heart aches for my Savior, I find I had no doubt that Jesus loves us because He left heaven came down and lived among us and ultimately died for my sins. After praying this prayer for a few years I found myself learning how ugly sin is to God. I learned Jesus loved us so much to leave heaven where He lived in perfectness. He put up with our sin nature and I learn the smallest sin in my eyes is major to God. Along the way I found myself grateful to draw closer to God because of Jesus' loving life, death and resurrection. I was growing in my relationship with God the Father and I started hearing the Holy Spirit's love and guidance. My love grew healthy instead of needy and God taught me how precious I am in His sight. Confessing that I am a sinner was not so scary, God was teaching me how to walk away from my sins and I found freedom for the first time in my life. These days I am thankful for the time spent at the cross. I know I am not alone as I deal with Parkinson's disease and I can face this disease because God loves me and uses my story to tell other's about the love of a Savior. I come to Easter with joy and thankfulness. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

April 1, 2017

Greetings My Friend, The status stated something about not planning on working with a broken body and the struggle we have doing old things in new ways. I "heard" of the hope we have as we strive to work and be productive in our lives. While reading the Bible the other day I saw the word "hope" used in the passage and then as I wrote in my journal I found myself using the word hope. If I did not have hope I would give up on life and exist in a state of numbness. "Do I say these things on a human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads the grain. 'Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake because the plowman should plow in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do we not even more?" If we listen to God and do not muzzle the ox, we have hope to have grain. God is teaching us the best way to harvest the grain and then Paul teaches us about harvesting souls for Christ. First Paul taught us from the OT on the physical process and in the NT we learn how to apply the physical to our spiritual walk. Those that are teachers deserve their pay although Paul did not ask for pay. He was more interested in opening peoples heart to God more than receiving pay. This was Paul's choice. The greatest concern God has is for us to accept His Son Jesus, He desires for us to freely choose Jesus and God has placed on some people's hearts to teach and grow us in our spiritual nature. The only way we can walk with God is in our spirit, not in our flesh. I struggled to learn my spiritual nature. Only through a daily decision have I begun to meet my spiritual nature. God has taught me slowly and steadily as I have been able to absorb the lessons leading me to the spiritual nature. For me I began my journey in the physical realm and slowly the spiritual realm grew within me and made sense. For me the OT keeps showing me how God was teaching Israel through the physical realm. As I grasped the lessons I have been able to relate to my spirit the lessons of the physical nature. After absorbing all of this I found the Holy Spirit teaching me to tell my story of my faith journey and those seeds of my words will go out and be planted into the hearts of those I tell my story to. The Holy Spirit was telling me by giving my story or testimony I am sowing seeds of faith and then God will bring the people to Him. I liken this to seeds being planted in the ground, the testimony is watering the seeds of faith and at the end the growth of the seeds will be God's love shinning on that person's heart opening it to Him. My faith journey went along these same lines. I have a good friend who stood beside me when my Dad died, our relationship had been difficult and when my ex felt that I should have not been upset with his passing my friend came beside me and held me tenderly. She understood the pain of my loss, the unanswered questions and she opened my heart to God's tender love for me. After I was divorced a friend saw me struggle with a coworker and had heard my story of abuse, when she found herself in an abusive relationship she came to me to help her. She had been watching me and knew I would understand. I was able to open the door of faith to her as we went to Celebrate Recovery together. In all this seed planting we had the hope of harvest at the right time. God teaches in the physical realm and then draws us to His spirit. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet.