May 30, 2017

Greetings My Friend, My greatest desire is to give the hope I have to others I meet in my life. My hope is Jesus. Because of Jesus I find I am able to find the strength to face each day's set of struggles, to feel joy when overcoming a huge obstacle and to know the comfort of loving caring arms wrapped around me when I have hit bottom. I have learned that God does not take away the struggles in my life although He walks me with me through each thing in my life and I find joy in living my life the good days and the not so good days. While talking with Debbie our friend the other day as she drove us for Junior's hernia operation Junior and I found ourselves exploring our faith. One thing we learned is a great way to minister is right in the church. Junior and I were learning how the church comes alongside of us with praying, helping us get back and forth since I no longer drive and sent words of encouragement through online and cards in the mail. When I finished thinking of how the church starts ministry right within its doors a new thought came to me, " I want what she has!" My thinking is how we invite others to the faith is by the way we live our lives day in and day out while others are watching us and we are unaware of this watching that is going on. I often tell the story about my friend Michele B who watched me as I went through my divorce then began life as a single woman. She knew my story of abuse and found how I was growing through what my life had handed me. She felt safe to approach me when she had a similar struggle because she had been watching me. I had began a serious walk with Jesus as I went through my divorce and Michele saw the change in me. I also had a coworker who was making my life difficult, Michele came beside me to let me know that the coworker was cruel and encouraged me while I dealt with this situation. She often asked how I was able to deal with it to which I responded "I walk on my lunch hour asking God to give me courage to go back." To be honest that was the only way I was able to deal with this situation, I wanted to quit, to run away and God kept me right there. I believe this was a lesson teaching me to rely on God in all things and it is one I remember often. I do "remembering what God has done in the past" in the form of thank you's then listing the things God has done or given me to face my day. Terri from church has shared a journey of abuse in her life as I have, we have become good friends and encourage each other often. We have another friend who knows abuse and has poor health with a kidney missing. Debbie knows some of Junior's story of unfaithfulness and relates to us. These people are church friends and we have started sharing holidays with each other, we invite friends outside the church to some of these holiday gatherings and the prayer is others will see the love we have. Our hope and prayer is that they may get to know Jesus by the way we interact with each other. A couple of years ago Boogie fell and broke her shoulder, she is Debbie's mother. Junior and I drew close to them during their struggle of healing. At this point I am not concerned that my children are not near to comfort me. My friends are close to us and we are willing to love each other as Jesus loved us. This group of church friends has shown me the love of Jesus, the body in the church shows us Jesus, I am learning how important those cards that are sent mean and I am going to start sending cards as well. God is awesome. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 27, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Lately I am reminded about the Apostle Paul's teachings being content in all things, whether he had an abundance or he had little both of which he dealt with in his life. I ran across a 2nd passage where Paul mentions to be satisfied with food and clothes for the body, this teaching has been rolling around in my mind quite a bit in regards to my Parkinson's. Prior to the diagnosis, I was anxious about what had been going on in my body, steadily loosing my ability to walk straight, walk for any amount of time along with brain fog tremors and fatigue. Figuring out how to pace myself was hard because I was operating under the thinking of a well bodied person so I pushed myself trying to get past that wall that held me back.When I was told my diagnosis I felt peace and overall continue to thrive in that peace of knowing what I am up against now with my focus on prayer and guidance how to live my life as fully as I am able. The first hurdle I faced was "should I take the Carbidopa-Levodopa" that was prescribed by my doctor. When I read the leaflet that came with the medication it scared me big time with all the side affects. After some praying, talking to the pharmacist I decided to go ahead and take the medication. I took the initial dose for a good six months before I needed to have the medication increased. My doctor was happy because usually people need an increase sooner. I believe they start people off with a lower dose to get them used to the medication then increase it.I understand that generally a person will stay for quite sometime at this dose for a few years even. The first few weeks with the stronger dose has been difficult with a need to stay awake well into the night, sleep more during the day and a total mix up on my routines. Next I discovered using essential oils to help me get sleepy and a breathing strip to open my nasal passages along with the CPAP to help me breathe better which now has me sleeping a lot during the day and all night too. As I write, it is the first day that I feel awake an hour after getting out of bed, my thoughts are more coherent and I sense that peace the Apostle Paul is teaching about. The journey to this point has found me relying on God seeking His guidance and assurance that I am doing what I need to be doing to be as healthy as I am able. Through this process God laid on my heart the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm which finds me repeating over and over when I am struggling to get to sleep or trying to quiet my mind of all the internal chatter that tries to rob me of my peace. This morning while reading in 1 Timothy the Apostle Paul stated we should be content with food and clothes and I felt that contentment. As I wrote in my study journal I reflected that God has had me on this journey for sometime now. He is teaching me to love the simple life, a life set apart from the mainstream of people. He has laid it on my heart to enjoy the bounty of the earth, preserve the food from the ground that is provided to us. I use dehydration as my method of preserving food, we buy meat from a meat packing plant for several months at a time, we have propane and wood/coal for heat and cooking and 2 generators for when the power goes out. After the 2nd storm in the last little while that has knocked our power out God has pointed us to using a simple solar power method where a solar panel and a battery is hooked up to the lights in our home. We have a well for water and the next phase would be to start growing more of our food. Our property has raspberries, blackberries, chestnuts and even walnuts growing on it already and we are learning to harvest these things and use them in our diet. The more I learn to rely on God the more I am able to be at peace with my disease, with my life and I find it to be the wholesome living I have longed for. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 25, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I met Brenda when we moved to Virginia, Junior took her son under his wing teaching him how to work. After her son had spent a couple of years underneath Junior's wing he went out and got a job. Brenda has continued to be in our life and we have a fondness for her. Brenda sees the glass as half empty and is prone to a lot of doom and gloom in her thinking which is a challenge for me because I see the glass as half full. She has finished her chemo therapy, now she is preparing to have a mastectomy which means she is full of anxiety. She is sure the doctor's are messing things up, she hates the apartment she is living in, the list does not end. I keep pointing her back to Jesus but she has to "plan" for all of the potential problems,I long for her to know the peace Jesus will bring to her life. We had talked for a few minutes she hung up then texted me telling me I am her rock which I responded that Jesus is her rock. My heart understands her anxiety but understanding does not make it any easier to watch her struggle. Brenda believes in Jesus, has had moments in the past year where she drew near to Him then she's back into over thinking her life. In all of this I start seeing that I need to take her to prayer a whole lot more again. I go through spurts of praying for her constantly then I drift off to other prayers only to be reminded that I need to bring her to the Lord more. When I am bringing her to the Lord with prayer I am more confident of how to be her friend and I see her quieting down her anxiety levels as well. I have learned through the years that I don't need to keep repeating a prayer request to God, He heard me the first time. This bothered me until I realized that God does know my prayer request but the repeating helps me and God knows I need it. By repeating my prayer I am learning to stay focused on Jesus and how He would handle the situation. I learn to keep my problem at the foot of the cross which is where it needs to stay, not in my hands trying to "fix" it. I am calmer when I talk to Brenda and I don't fuss at her, I am able to point her back to the healer of all problems the Lord Jesus. I do not fall prey to Brenda's doom and gloom attitude which for me is rather easy to go back to. Brenda does not need lectures she has heard them all, she needs me to let her ramble on, point her back to Jesus and slowly I hear her turning to Jesus. Once in awhile Brenda will call me, I will be pointing her to Jesus when she hangs up irritated. Later she texts me telling me she knows I only want her best, she needs to empty her thoughts out. I believe God wants Brenda to choose Him, to trust Him and through me He is reaching out to her. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 23, 2017

Greetings My Friend, My Dad used to tell me " Leave something for the man's imagination when you are going out on dates." He meant that men don't need to see all of a woman's female parts exposed for all eyes to see. This statement has stayed with me through the years. When I found myself single again I remembered what my Dad taught me and dressed more conservatively. While reading 1 Timothy I see the Apostle Paul's teaching about how a woman should dress, "Like wise also that women should themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness - with good works." For years I read the first part of the passage with an "eye" on how to present myself as a woman, not loud or proactive and I love striving to live this way. It has always meant more to me to share my womanly ways with my husband only. This time I stopped at "with good works", my first thought that part of being a woman also is about seeing to the needs of my world around me, like befriending a young lady while her Mom goes to work or writing a poem for my children and some of the children in the neighborhood. To me I see this as a natural part of what "mother's" or "women" are inclined to do. I recall a lesson in Titus 2 about older women are teach the younger women how to love their husbands and their children. Loving is not as natural to us as we think it is. Loving for me did not come easily, I had a "needy" love where I wanted to love so I could receive love. I am a people pleaser by nature and I do not always know what healthy love is. God teaches us how to Agape love in His Word and I see it in the way He loves me. God is not needy and has no problem correcting us for our own good. I wanted my children to love me and I tended to try to be soft on my children because the parenting love I had was so harsh. I could never please my parents and I desperately wanted their love. It would have helped me to have an older woman guide me and teach me. Grandma C helped me a little but she too was not able to teach since her own mother died when she was 7 years old.The other older woman in my life who taught me about being a woman was my mother-in-law. She too lost her mother and left school in the 3rd grade so her role as a woman was also skewed. I long to mentor young women, older women whomever the Lord puts in my path. I know my writing is another way to reach out to others and to point them to Jesus. Another way I can show other women is to dress nicely without showing all the female parts I have. My goal is to live what I believe and I believe the Bible teaches me how to live my life. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 20, 2017

Greetings My Friend, My new stronger dose of Parkinson's medication was messing up my sleeping in strange ways. I could not get to sleep until real late into the morning which meant my day was turned upside down. I mentioned to my PCP about the crazy sleep pattern and I also mentioned that sometimes I wake up struggling to breathe. Right off she asked me if I was using my C-PAP at night and I am, then she suggested maybe I should try those breathe right strips. I have used them now for a few nights and I can't believe how much better my sleep is. Back when I was a teenager I broke my nose and I have a deviated septum,which is more than likely the culprit for my struggle to breathe for many years now. When I first started seeing my PCP down here I was having trouble sleeping at all, maybe an hour here or there. We started looking at my problems working through them one at a time, the first thing was for me to have a sleep study test done. The study showed that I had sleep apnea so I use the C-PAP. Right after I was diagnosed with this I blacked out so I am faithful to use my machine each night. Through the last several years my PCP and I have gone through the list of ailments I had resolving my problems one at a time. Most recently was the strips on my nose for the night. I have slept with both my machine and the nose strips for several nights now and I marvel how my sleep has improved. I sleep for 4-6 hours, wake up wide awake so I do my quiet time in the Word, then go online and later I get up to start my day. I generally lay down again for an hour maybe 2 at some point late in the morning. When I get up from that I have not needed another nap. I do have to sit down if I am on my feet too long because my back hurts, my shoulders feel tight and sometimes my calves start to ache. I associate these things to PD and resting for awhile more than a few minutes I am able to do my day rather nicely. Junior has torn the kitchen up putting in electrical, moving cabinets around making it difficult for me to do all that I would like to do. I believe though that soon I will be able to make the foods we enjoy like cookies, bread, dehydrate fresh fruits and vegetables for winter easier with my newfound energy. It seems that little things like this keep happening and I believe God is answering my prayers in astounding ways. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 18, 2017

Greetings My Friend, One of the problems people with Parkinson's deal with is their sleep schedule gets messed up or no sleep for a few days. My sleep schedule has been crazy for a couple of weeks, I can't get to sleep until late into the night which means my wake up time is late in the morning. I have been struggling with this for several weeks until I saw my doctor recently. She suggested those breathe right strips for my nose along with the CPAP machine along with Mealatonin before I go to bed at night. I have a deviated septum which finds me waking up struggling to breathe, the strips are helping me to breathe easier. I took the Mealatonin and slept well, waking up the next morning at a decent hour for me. I hope to not depend on the Melatonin every night, time will tell. I have had a hard time adjusting to the later morning start, eating meals with Junior due to my late wake up times. Some doctor visits are so helpful, I also learned that a rash I have been getting each summer for 12 years now, after receiving radiation was a fungal infection. With the first day of using the medicated powder the itchiness settled down and I am grateful for this as well. I went into the doctor's office with a list of things I am struggling with and one by one she gave me a solution that is working helping me to get back to the comfort level that has been missing in my life for some time. My problems were bothering me enough to disrupt my life and at the same time they were not huge things like my PD. God is so good because He laid it on my heart to ask the right questions at the right time. It is times like this I see God is in the details of life and I marvel at His graciousness to me. He also showed me that traveling is not something I am able to do anymore. We ran for 3 days to appointments. By the 3rd day I was barely functioning and I longed to be in my routine living again. I am sad that this chapter is closing on my life, at the same time I am grateful for the traveling I have done. I am grateful for the things I still am able to do as well. I can be a friend to Brenda who had a breast removed recently, we text and talk on the phone quite a bit. I am friends with others who have PD and they came to my aid when I was exhausted and needed encouragement. My doctor had answers to my health issues and in all of this I see God's hand on me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 26, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Brenda had her mastectomy recently and her other health issues played havoc with her recovery. She was supposed to be outpatient but they kept her for several days. Each time we texted or she called me I could hear how weak she was. I was very concerned that she was not recovering as quickly as she should have. At one point she texted me telling me that we could not text because the texts were setting off the heart monitor. We had a giggle about that one. After a couple of days the plan was she needed to go someplace for recovery where she could learn how to care for herself on her own. I felt better with this news and then I learned once she finishes with the rehab she will need home health care for sometime. Brenda's sleep apnea did not help her either. We knew she had problems with this but she never looked into it. Now she has to have that checked out and will more than likely need a C-PAP machine. After hearing her voice today I heard my old friend's fight coming out of her. Junior and I have come a long way with Brenda in the last 8 years since moving to Virginia. I can see she has a long way to go as well. Brenda is a hoarder, her son cleaned out her house 3 times now he refuses to help her. Junior has gone over made her work while he did some repairs, Brenda did great as long as Junior was their insisting that she pick up her share of the trash in her home and on her property. Once he left Brenda would not pick up one more thing and then she reverted back to her old ways. By the time Junior came back the next week the areas she had cleaned up were once more filled with trash. Junior told her he would come back when she cleaned out enough in her house so he could get to the areas that needed work like wiring, or plumbing. Junior finally told her when she gets things cleaned out he would come back to work on her house. In the meantime Brenda decided if she moved into a low income housing apartment she could then have a clean place to stay and go to the house to work at cleaning it up. Since she has lived in her apartment, she has needed help to clean it up so her place could be sprayed for bugs. A few times she went to her house to clean it up and filled up several trash bags of trash. For a couple of years Brenda stayed with us on and off, we teased that the spare bedroom was her room. I was always fussing at her to clean her room up before she left. One time I went into the room only to find she had not been doing that. It took Junior and I a good 6 hours to get the room back in order again. Brenda stopped coming by our place when her son got a job. Prior to that Junior took him under his wing and mentored him teaching him how to work we gave him a small allowance, Jeremiah helped with the renovating of our home. After 2 years Junior told him that we could no longer afford to pay him to help us. Jeremiah sat around for a few weeks then he found out how to get into a truck driving school and he has been working since then. Jeremiah's mom Brenda was so proud of her son. While we were studying for our Sunday school lesson we were learning that sometimes it is important to invest in helping the poor rather than just give money all the time. We learned many good lessons ourselves in helping these 2 people. We learned that giving them money and not making them not work for it did not help them learn how to help themselves. We learned that we could not take off and give them rides whenever they called, sometimes they need to learn how to get themselves around on their own. The 1st time Brenda had breast cancer I drove her to the cancer center. I struggled with my own energy by running her and eventually I told her she needed to get herself there when she came down with cancer a 2nd time. We realized that we lost a lot of time working on own home while we took Brenda all over. I want to rescue Brenda in a big way except when I constantly rescue her I am not always helping her.More recently we have found another couple who are struggling. They want us to take them all over to their appointments. We won't do that now. Once in awhile we will take them to an appointment and we have learned to insist that they step out to help themselves. I realize that part of helping people is teaching people to find a way to help themselves and if they are not willing to take that 1st step, then there is no help they can get to truly help themselves. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 13 2017

Greetings My Friend, The long awaited day came, we made the final payment on our Lazy Boy sofa recliner and it was delivered before I had gotten out of bed. What fun to see it in the TV room when I got out of bed. The other sofa recliner was moved into the sitting room making that room look real nice too. I spent several hours moving end tables pushing the sofa to the right spot and sweeping up the floors. When I finished the TV room I spent time in the sitting room fixing that up too. I stopped a few times to take a nap and got back up to work some more, all of sudden the rooms were to my satisfaction and I was content. Our home is taking shape and we are replacing the make do furniture to our style and taste. I am happy this day has come. We now have 2 good pieces of furniture and Junior's recliner I bought him for Christmas the first year we were married. We have been working toward this day for awhile now and it has arrived. Tomorrow I will slice up some strawberries then dry them afterwards I would like to tackle the Hosier cabinet by cleaning it up and getting it ready to be used when Junior finishes with the electrical project he is working on. I have longed to get this piece back into the kitchen for sometime now and soon it will put in its spot. Junior has been measuring the cabinets so he can make them all the same height. He is thinking of making doors with chicken wire in the middle of the door giving the look of a rustic farm kitchen. Outside the porch has gotten messed up because Junior and his buddy Howie are working on another electrical project for the carport when they finish that up I will get that area in order once more. The clutter is not what Junior usually drags out onto the porch, it is mainly a few things scattered around so I know I will be able to get that back in order on my own. Slowly the carport is getting a roof on it which means this summer the van will be in the shade and next winter it will be out of the winter weather too. God has brought us to this moment of organized and functional pretty. I am grateful for these little gifts in the renovation of our home. We continue to learn to trust and obey even when it feels like we will never see the end of all the renovating. Slowly though we are seeing nearly finished rooms and it is worth all of the lessons we have had to learn along the way. I wanted to move in hire the work done and be on our way within a year. That did not happen. We could not hire a contractor so Junior undertook the renovating, I learned to live in the middle of chaos, how to work with a broken body and slowly we are seeing rooms that are nearly finished. I am grateful that God took us down the long road instead of the easy road because of the lessons we have learned along the way. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 11, 2017

Greetings My Friend, The other day was about the best day of energy I have had in awhile since starting my new Parkinson's medication. I was pleased I was able to deal with the chaos of the kitchen being a mess due to a wiring project Junior is working on, cabinets pulled out and a hosier cabinet parked in the middle of the kitchen. I made potato salad and baked a banana upside down cake, which was a 1st try and it is okay, I won't make it again though. I am adjusting to waking up later in the morning, staying awake late into the night and loving my energy level returning. I had thought I had seen the end of my hobbies preferring to be physical with housework and cooking. In recent days I can see I will be able to return to sewing and decopauging adding in finishing some furniture. The hosier cabinet came with our old farm house and that makes it precious to me. It has seen a few years and has been a long while since it was cleaned up so I am looking forward to making it look good again. I am thankful my asthma has been brought under control too, I have gone a year and a half now with no bronchitis. God guided me to find my triggers and then to remove all the rugs in the house, use air purifiers and keep the doors closed during allergy season until after noon. God has been guiding me with ways to stay active and get exercise into my day by doing housework, being on my feet for long periods with cooking,baking and putting food up for the winter. Now the stronger dose of medication is bringing me back a measure of my old self again. I am grateful to be on my feet for awhile longer. Prior to starting the medication it was difficult for me to walk long distances, at home I was resting more between jobs I was doing. I am learning with PD that the dopamine in my brain is decreasing which is why my muscles aren't doing what they once did. I am often told I should squat more when getting objects from the floor. The problem in I can squat to get down but the muscles that I use to pull myself up quit working on me and I often need to sit down on the floor and use a lot of effort to pull myself back up to a standing position. My muscles freeze up on me a lot making everyday movements difficult at best. The medication has a way of replacing the dopamine in my brain so that my muscles work better. This medication will only work for so long and then the disease process will take its course. By being active I am able to prolong the process with the help of medication. My goal has been to have as a quality of life as I am able through exercise and good eating. Over the past 12 years since cancer I have had to push myself real hard to regain a measure of energy to live a quality of life. God has guided me and has brought me to this day. I am sure chronic fatigue will continue to plague me and again God has shown me how to manage it so that I can do many of the things I now enjoy. I know that I need to stop and rest, not for a few minutes but an hour or more most days. I have found that resting gives me time to talk to God or to sit on the porch and soak in the beauty that surrounds me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 9, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I have spent my young adult years learning how to be organized. I grew up in chaos, our home had no order to it and I longed to have order in my life. When I went to work for the bank I learned rather quickly how to organize my work. I worked in commercial loan processing which required that what the work that came in on my desk had to be off my desk completed by the end of day so organization was needed to do the work. As I learned how to organize my work I found these principles helped me with organizing my home life. I have grown comfortable with a well organized life so when we moved to Virginia into a smaller house than what I have been comfortable with I struggled with keeping our home in order. A year later we bought the house we are in that has been in a state of renovation for 7 years now. In the midst of all this I was struggling with chronic fatigue and other health issues which were unknown at that time. I believe God allowed this total disruption in my life so that I would rethink all the ways I did life. He knew my health would not be what it was so when order began to come into all the craziness I wound up doing housework differently than I had always done it. I learned to do old things in new ways and I was grateful for the lessons I was given. I have spent a few years bringing order to our lives and I have been growing very comfortable with the new routines. In the last week Junior has decided to work on the fire pit area, have Howie do wiring for the car port that attached to the porch, do wiring in the kitchen and rearrange a few things in the kitchen and my old feelings of anxiety are popping up with the disorder in these areas. I know this is the way Junior needs to work with his bad back and I also know when he finishes he will put things back to a semblance of order again but I am struggling. Recently I have had conversations with women from church and the first thing out of my mouth when I was asked how I was doing was "I struggle with Junior's sloppiness." I was shocked I said this out loud and upset because I love Junior deeply. I have long decided I wanted to be with no other man but Junior and I am willing to live with his chaotic ways. I am pleased he does not do his hoarding inside the house and it is in our out buildings....a little into the yard but that is mostly his tools and such for renovating. I am praying that one day our yard will be neat. Today while we were praying and doing our Bible study we had a frank talk about our shortcomings and how it affects the other one. Junior is learning to slow down as he tries to figure out his wiring project. I admitted that I am learning how to cope with his piles and a cabinet that is parked in the middle of the floor in the kitchen. We both felt God was teaching us lessons. For me it would not take much for me to be overly dependent on routines and life does not stay the same. By God allowing me to work through these changes I am staying flexible and learning to rethink the ways I do life. Junior moves slowly but my guess is he struggles with some projects since carpentry is not something Junior knows readily. I believe God is teaching Junior to talk to Him before he does a project instead of after he flubs it up several times. By talking to God 1st Junior won't be redoing a project 5 or 6 times. Lastly the items that are out of place makes me think about where I am walking teaching me to navigate my feet. I struggle because of my Parkinson's where I trip rather easily. As the dopamine leaves my brain I am not able to comprehend like I once did. God is always looking out for our good and I find a comfort knowing He is watching out after us. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 6, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Junior and I were doing our weekly Bible study lesson and we found ourselves in a conversation relating how we both have felt like were in front of people but we were not seen. I know I worked at being unseen so I would not get yelled at or hit. All of sudden Junior stopped the discussion and had me write down 3 statements "Some don't matter, some are over looked and some are insignificant." Next Junior told me to think about these statements and I sat there bewildered. Junior said the lesson was over until I had thought about these statements. When Junior walked away I sat there befuddled then I picked up my Bible and began my daily reading through the Bible. Amazingly I found the answer in my daily reading in 2 Corinthians " Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, the Jesus Christ is in you?-unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to that you may not do wrong - not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. I felt the Holy Spirit teaching me that I have work in reaching out to those who don't matter, are over looked and are insignificant because I was once shown I don't matter, was was insignificant and over looked. I felt compelled to talk to Junior at this point. He feels that we have a need to reach those that are not "seen and noticed" around us beginning at church and then reaching out into the community. I have felt we were heading toward this type of ministry for some time now. When we first moved down here we met a young man in our neighborhood who had not worked, was the 2nd generation in his family that did not work so Junior felt led to ask him to help us out so Junior could teach him a few skills, later we befriended his mother and still later we have met others who are not in the mainstream of society. Right now we are needing some help with some electrical work on our home and we know a gentleman who has not worked in sometime but has had training in electrical work. We are asking him to help us out and we are developing a friendship with him and his girlfriend. I don't know where this relationship will take us, time will tell. We seem to find people as we do our daily lives, some are in our church, others are in our community but I sense Jesus is guiding people to cross our path. We finished our conversation with recalling that Jesus did not reach out to the people who were not "seen" in the community of His day. He ministered to those who were lost, lonely and hurting and I feel if Jesus cared about these people He also wants us to reach out to them as well. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine you. Love Janet

May 4, 2017

Greetings My Friend, As we ended April we were treated with a very hot couple of days here in Virginia. My goal was to see if I could deal with the heat now that our extended porch and carport surrounded our home and windows. I decided to see if I could manage without the air conditioning and I knew about 4:30 in the morning that it was time to turn on the air when both Junior and I had drifted into the TV room to sleep in our recliners, the dogs were outside and the heat in the house was unbearable. I found myself saying "enough" then went over to the air conditioning unit to turn it on. At that early hour I remembered in order to keep the house cool the doors needed to be shut during the heat of the day and I had kept them open. The heat was so bad that when I made peanut butter cookies the batter was melting before I put them in the oven and they melted more in the oven turning into bar cookies instead of regular separated cookies. My lungs complained loudly, my body reacted by being sluggish and I knew that as much as I love summer my body struggles in the heat. I find myself thinking back to past generations that lived with the heat wearing long sleeves, long skirts and marvel at how they managed. I have found wearing sundress' to be much cooler, pulling my hair up helps even more and I still struggle with the heat. My lungs rebel in the humidity, the heat and the pollen. Once the air conditioning is turned on I am able to do a good days work, my lungs aren't struggling to breathe and I am grateful that God has given man the ability to create air conditioning. I find myself wondering how generations of people lived without air conditioning and my thought is they were better able to manage because they did not have the air conditioning. They had cotton and linen fabrics that was able to keep them cooler, absorb the heat and wick it away. They knew how to shade their homes and keep the coolness in. Today I see we would be unable to sustain ourselves as our ancestors did in the past because we have become very dependent on technology. I remember being in awe of all these gadgets, having bought into the idea of it all only to find myself wondering if we are that smart. A power outage now becomes life threatening and makes us unable to function. We no longer know how to grow our own food, put food up for winter or even how to cool our homes without air conditioning. I am grateful God has challenged me to learn how to live a more simple life not relying so heavily on all that is provided by technology. I have come a long way but I may not be able to go completely off the grid of technology unless God provides a healing in my body. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

May 2, 2017

Greetings My Friend, The last few days I have been taken back to the comfort of familiar things I learned as a child in Sunday school. I started remembering the Lord's Prayer and being upset because I had forgotten parts of it. I kept going over it, looked it up in the Bible and I am now able to remember it more fully. As I was going through this exercise in remembering I also recalled the 23rd Psalm. I don't know that I ever memorized the entire Psalm I know I memorized the 3 versus and it always brought me peace when I needed to quiet my thoughts down. I loved the imagery of the Shepherd keeping a watch over me and the green grass where I could lie down and watch big fluffy clouds float by. Next I saw myself beside the still waters feeling restored in my mind, body and spirit. This Psalm is generally read at funerals and I do find comfort thinking of those that have gone before me in this Psalm as well but I prefer to think of this in the land of the living, here and now as I read it. As I read into the next set of imagery once more I am reminded of a few things that God provides me, It starts off with "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." I find myself not so afraid of the unknown and scary moment in life. After my divorce I turned to the great Shepherd, Jesus and right away I felt Him guiding my steps and learning to trust and obey. I felt myself walking away from the fear and evil I had known most of my life, I was learning how to change from a frightened woman who had no control to take control of my life so that I would not find another destructive relationship again. For me the main imagery ends with this stanza while the last versus' intrigue me, I find I don't understand fully the table that is prepared for me or the oil is poured over my head and what is meant by the word "anoint." After I have read it through again I find myself attempting to memorize it only to find I stop where I always stop. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures,. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his names sake." This is the part I know the most and repeat the most in my thoughts. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil," I shudder less these days at the thought of "valley of death", that deep dark unknown void where I find myself feeling like I am falling down a deep hole with no bottom. I am starting to see that death is not as frightening as when I was a child, I see now that to close my eyes in this life will find me opening them to Jesus. I still desire to see this life through the ups and downs and at the right time I wait to go to Jesus. I believe as we get older we don't fear death like we did when we were younger if we are in a good relationship with Jesus. "your rod and your staff they comfort me." I have always felt that the rod is the rod of correction and the correction is a loving correction. The staff for me is like the shepherd's hooks we see on plays and such where they reach out and pull someone away from something, I see that as pulling me away from something that may hurt me. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows." I love the imagery here but I do not fully understand what it is teaching me. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." I like learning to please God with these last words because as a child I believed if I could please my parents life would be wonderful and I often relate to God as my parent whom I want to please and desire to be in His presence always. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet