January 4, 2018

Greetings My Friend

Brenda came to New Year's Eve night church with Junior and I this year. She was quieter than usual, a joy to be around. She met a few of the people we love, some remembered her, others met her for the 1st time since she has not been to church with us in about 5 years now. When we made it home it was after 1:00 am so I cleaned up the best I could since the pipes froze up, took my bedtime medication and waited for sleep to come on the recliner watching TV with Brenda. I need to fall asleep in the recliner anymore before going to bed because if I am not half asleep I tend to wake right up so I wait for sleepiness to overtake me. Brenda and I chatted while I found myself getting drowsy, then I was out for the night right there in my recliner. When we all woke up around the same time Monday morning, Brenda was in full Brenda mode. She talks not stop, to herself, to us, to the fur children. As I finished my morning medications, made my protein shake I started wondering how I was going to focus on the Word as I started my new year in the Word. I could find an anxious feeling trying to overtake me and I fretted how I was going to find the quiet I so desperately needed when a thought popped into my thoughts. I have learned that these sudden thoughts are usually from the Holy Spirit giving me guidance, He told me to invite Brenda into this quiet time with me. I found a journal I was not using, an old Bible I was no longer reading out of, then I had her write down the headings I use as I journal my thoughts, a prayer to God the passages I read that day and what I hear the Holy Spirit teaching me. I realized I was having Brenda do what I have been telling her for many years to do. Brenda, followed my example up to a point when she dozed off. After she slept a bit she decided it was time to go home. While she wrote in her journal, read the days passages and dozed off I was able to move through my quiet time rather nicely. The first lesson I learned was to allow God to make order out of my chaos, then the Word taught me again that God is Spirit, when Jesus came He was flesh and Spirit and I need to worship God with my heart (my spirit) and in my flesh. I focused on the line Junior has been talking about all year "In the beginning...God created." Junior has found that if I can't believe those very 1st words then the rest of the Bible won't make sense. I had come to believe this statement but I "felt" the lesson as I read it. I then grasped that Jesus being God in the flesh and how He worshiped God in His spirit and in His flesh. I have to say that was an eye opener for me as well. This visit with Brenda was the best one we have had in a long while, she was absorbing what I was trying to teach her. She accepted me telling her to pick up after herself without making excuses, she even followed through picking up the things she got out and was using. Brenda struggles with hoarding, she does not always clean up after herself then it become a huge mound to sort through so she is overwhelmed. She has stayed with us for weeks at a time in the past making the spare bedroom a hoarders mess. It took Junior and I several days to clean all the junk out of the bedroom, it was then I started to realize I need to parent Brenda. In less than 24 hours Brenda found a piece of fruit cake in the refrigerator, took it out, cut off a piece and left it to lay in the TV room, she left a can of pairs on the mantle in the sitting room, a coke can on an end table and her coat thrown on the sewing table. She was with us less than 8 hours total and she had started leaving things lay around like she does at home. I had to go behind her, remind her I expected her to pick up after herself. This time, she did with no excuses as to why she was the way she is. God has been working on Brenda as well, I can see it and I am in awe. Slowly Brenda is starting her own faith journey. God has gotten her attention with 2 bouts of breast cancer and now she is dealing with 2 nodules on her lungs. God has taught me that Brenda was over protected as a child with her mother making all of her decisions, telling her when to wake up, when to pick up. When her mother died 15 years ago or so, Brenda has struggled to figure out life on her own. Since God laid that on my heart, I know how to work with Brenda. I need to parent her, teach her how to clean up after herself, manage her time, her life. Knowing this I am much more patient, a little more insistent of how she will act in my house by putting her things where they belong, even throwing her trash away, not on the floor. Again God has shown me how to make order out of the chaos of my thoughts and feelings by parenting Brenda to a point making her responsible for her actions (picking up after herself), giving her tools how to walk with Jesus and manage her time. I believe God has gotten her attention and she has begun her first steps in a life long journey of faith. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you. Love Janet