August 15 2015

August 15 2015 Greetings My Friend My lesson again today has been “be patient, look at the heart not the method with which it gets done.” Junior moved inside to the TV room today a room I spend a lot of time in. The area rug has been taken up and a piece of linoleum has been put down until it is time to refinish the floor down the road. This means that most of the furniture is out in the sitting room and any pathway around the room is blocked making me maneuver around the chaos. I am learning to not rely on my own steam and I immediately reach out for something to hold onto as I make my way through the room. I ask Junior if I can help and he replies “ sit and let me do what I do.” I decide to watch TV and find little things to do such as make the bed or fold a load of clothes. I feel antsy but I stay out of the way. Bedtime comes and he finishes one of the projects he was working on but the furniture is still askew. My prayer as I go to bed is that Junior will have the furniture back in place when I get up. I worry I won’t sleep because I haven’t moved about much. I did fall asleep fairly well and this morning all the furniture was in place. This means I can move through my usual day of sweeping, arranging or whatever. I asked him to put a corner shelf up that was original to the home and he did so this needs to be cleaned and decorated. I looks good and I am thrilled when I can use some things that were original to the home. Since spring Junior has been extending our front porch and I have a little section set up to go outside and quietly reflect on God’s awesome creation. Several days a week though I have to maneuver through some of Junior’s mess’. Junior feels that if he keeps things orderly then he spends less time working. It is foreign to me but through the years I have grown accustomed to his way of working. I seem to also relearn this lesson with each project. The good news is that I move through the learning part quicker and feel less aggravation. I admit that I have not done this on my own will power. I still have to take each of these things to God and ask to be taught how to cope. As I think on this I recall early on in my faith journey learning that we are to “pray without ceasing.” My first thoughts were how in the world can I do this? I found some set times to pray and I could occasionally lift up a popcorn prayer but praying all day everyday? With today’s answered prayer I understand more fully how I have started to learn to pray throughout the day. When I quit thinking that I had to say pretty prayers, use a format such as ACTSS with each prayer session and learned to start talking to God as if He were right next to me I am learning to pray without ceasing. I still use a format from time to time to get myself started in quiet reflection time. I also am learning to talk to God about what is on my mind at the moment. Sometimes I surprise myself when my words to God are poetic. If I think on this isn’t that a life in general anyway? We move through each day in quiet, in conversation and sometimes we make something beautiful. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

August 13 2015

August 132015 Greetings My Friend We actually had a contractor stop by last night. Mostly they don’t show but this guy did. He walked through looking at what we wanted done and he was gone. I excitedly asked Junior how it went and he said “the guy did not seem interested in the least.” For 5 years we have been trying to find someone to come and look and then to take on our project and still our project is not done. I wonder “did I hear God right?” I felt God tell me “the project will get done.” As I pondered this I sensed God insert “it won’t be done in the way you think it will.” My mind asks “Do I keep looking for contractors, for mission groups to help?” I am trying to keep my wants out of this request and to lean into God’s will. It is hard for sure. A few nights this past week I have had a killer neck/headache. Thinking my way through it has been hard so I went to prayer asking God to guide me. First it came to me to use an ice pack and it quieted some. Next I used Frankincense oil and all of a sudden I woke up in my chair with a lot of relief. God is my comfort, my strength. I am attempting to keep an ongoing conversation with God about getting help for Junior for our renovating. I hear then I seem to drift off in another direction. I see Junior is getting tired and the 3 projects he most uncomfortable doing he keeps putting off which is the kitchen a master bathroom and master bedroom. God has also planted a desire to refurbish old furniture and we both are longing for the day to arrive. In my heart I know the projects will be done, we will begin our repurposing furniture days and in a way our true retirement will begin. Right now that seems forever but I also know I will be amazed at God’s answer in the end and even thankful. One of the recent lessons for me has been to quit visualizing a grand finish to the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. At first I had to have a walk in closet. The more I thought on it, no not really. I then thought a spa bathroom would be awesome and again as I thought on it I doubt I will ever truly care if I have a large fancy bathroom. I am more content to have a tub maybe a seperate shower for Junior to roll into with a wheel chair. In the end it is more about function than size and glamor. The same with the kitchen, it needs to be functional. I don’t need fancy, I am not fancy so if I have real countertops not particle board I will be happy. I think I needed to work all of this through. Now that I have I pray my requests will line up with God’s will. As I settle on not getting a showcase home I sense things will come together more so. I heard of another online page to try and find a contractor so I will work this angle out. I will ask the missions director at church if we are eligible for missions help and in the end if the answer is no I think I can accept it. At present though I am trying to line up my desires to match with God’s desires and frankly many times my desires are more selfish. I will keep refocusing my thoughts to line up with God’s will and I know in the end I will be content. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

August 11 2015

August 11 2015 Greetings My Friend For me journaling helps me understand life. I have been journaling as I do my Bible study and sometimes I find that what is on my heart does not line up with what I was reading. Recently I hear God say “ I will be your God and you will be My people” which is a passage in the Bible. This passage speaks to both my mind and to my heart and it comes to me as I am going about my day. I sense a deep longing in God’s heart is to have people who long to be with Him, to do those things that are good for them. I am reading a part in the OT where God has exacted judgement, a huge one on His people and I hear His longing for His children. For some reason today I keep hearing about my “heart”. I hear God wanting my heart, not only my acts of worship or service. I hear He wants me to do these things with my heart at the center of the project. Lately I very little energy. I have been waking up at night with major Chiari pain too. I desire to have energy to do my new normal and it is all I can do to move about slightly. I find myself at night pleading with God in regards to the pain I am having. My desire is to resort to using medications as a last resort. Many times I can calm the pain with ice, essential oils or even heat. Coffee works a whole lot too. So I talk to God and attempt to hear His guidance as I go through various things to make the pain go away. Again I come back to my heart. When I feel good I have a strong desire to reach out to other people in some form. I have a desire to be what Junior needs me to be as a wife. God often shows me the people He wants me to reach out to or a little something I need to do for Junior and over all I am content. Then I hit these I can barely think or move moments and frankly my heart is mainly attempting to function without being a burden. I realize that my taking my struggle to God keeps me focused on Him and His will. I also find myself in a rut of coping and fighting my way back to a level playing field. My mind is on my struggle and somewhere I sense that I am on auto pilot more than on heart pilot. I do sense God’s strength and comfort as I struggle too. The last entry I write in my Bible journal is “How can I serve others today?” To be honest some days it is all I can do to take care of myself much less reach out to help others. Sometimes I think my act of service is to not be cranky. Other times I strive to get back to my normal energy so I can reach out to others. And there are times I want to give up, sit in a chair and check out. I am thankful when God places a desire within me to work once more at getting better. As I start to feel better I am glad God pushed me to keep working. I am in awe of God’s awesomeness. I think I am learning to open my heart even in deep pain when I feel numb. I think there are so many ways to give God my heart and I learned to keep on working even when I would rather not. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

August 8 2015

August 8 2015 Greetings My Friend “I will be their God and they will be my People.” Each time I run into this passage I find myself stopping and absorbing this message. I find it a comfort and a desire deep inside of me wants to keep searching for God’s love for me. I read this passage often as God sends His people Israel into punishment. They are exiled from their homeland and after announcing judgement He tells them He will forgive them, heal them and in the end He will be their God and they will be His people. The more I read the Old Testament the more I see God trying to teach His people to follow Him and not the ways of the world. I see God putting up with their flagrant disregard for His ways and finally I see God punishing His people. I sense God would rather not punish them but He can’t tolerate their insolence forever and He has to exact judgement on them. I often hear people say “The God of the Old Testament was an angry God.” I sense that these people don’t seem to see how many times God asked His people to repent and turn back to Him. I somewhat relate as a parent myself. How many times did I have to tell my child “no” before I had to back up that “no.” Eventually we pay for the consequence of our actions. As I hear many people teach today that “God is a God of love” I don’t hear that God will punish evil behavior. If I am honest in my walk I realize that God is a God of love but He will also one day hold each of us accountable. I learn that if we accept Jesus as our Savior then our sins will be forgiven. I also hear Jesus teaching “go and sin no more.” I see Jesus having compassion on the worst of sinners. It is those people that seem to “hear” when Jesus says “repent, go and sin no more.” At one point I hear Jesus say that the sinners are going to heaven faster than those that know the law. I learn that following a prescribed set of rules won’t get people into heaven. Again I hear Jesus teach that our walk with God must be from our heart not just our actions. For me I love to do ritualistic things. They are things I can see and do and mark off of a list. That won’t help me grow though. When I learn to confess a sin, ask God to forgive me and then ask God to show me how to walk away from that sin that is the point my growth begins. At first admitting my sin was so hard. I was waiting for God to punish me so hard. I began with a general statement “Forgive me Lord for I have sinned.” One day I sensed God asking me “Exactly what was your sin?” I thought of a small to me sin and told God. I was surprised when I started to let go of that desire to sin. Today I can name my sins easier and I find a calmness in my spirit as I name it. My prayer at present goes something like “Lord teach me my sins so I may know them and then in Your power teach me to walk away from that sin.” I realize God doesn’t want to beat me up with my sin but wants to help me move into peace. It is worth naming my sins. May God Bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

August 6 2015

August 6 2015 Greetings My Friend We have air purifiers in our home. Each week I take the covers off and vacuum the filter. I am amazed at the animal fur, dust and such on each of the filters. These filters help pull the allergens and germs out of the air. I have had allergies for a good portion of my life and I am still learning how to deal with them. Recently we’ve taken up the area rugs to help me and I feel the difference. The rugs trapped dust, fur and dirt even though we swept the rugs daily. Again I see that filters are a way to cleanse my life. While reading my Bible today I thought a lot about filters as well. As I read I recall times in my life where my thoughts were in the gutter, were angry and I could relive hurts like they just happened. I started to see how the Holy Spirit has been teaching me to filter my thoughts and focus on the good things in life. A Christian Counselor taught me the ACTSS prayer format and it has helped me so much. By learning to give God Accolades, confessing, being thankful asking to be of service to God and by asking supplications I sense that is how I have been able to learn to be “content in all things.” It has been a slow process sometimes I was making a lot of progress and sometimes I kept falling back into old habits. I sense the Holy Spirit has gently prodded me until I find that I attempt to not fear each day or step I take. I think back to the air filter again. Once I vacuum it I see the filter clean and free of dust, debris and fur. One week later I pull the lid off and again it is full in need of cleaning. My faith journey seems to go along this path as well. I need to be vigilant in order to stay strong in my faith. I can’t say I believe and then do nothing. The longer I walk in faith I also am learning that I can’t get to that comfortable spot in life and not continue to clean out the filter of my mind. I must work at it daily or one day at a time I will find myself walking away from the Lord. When I first began my journey of faith I found writing out my sin, my request and then nailing it to a cross helped me to keep my struggles at the cross. I liked “helping” God help me. God kept asking me “Where did you nail the struggle?” I replied “At the cross” He would then tell me “then leave it there.” Sometimes I had a hard time quieting my mind down so I found repeating the Lord’s prayer over and over helped me. As I have moved along in this journey today I find that I don’t need to nail the struggle to the cross literally but I do say often throughout the day “Not my will but Your will Lord.” I sense that the Holy Spirit will teach me other ways to stay focused, to let go of the ugly things in my life and to be honest I like where my life direction is much more so today. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you Love Janet

August 4 2015

August 4 2015 Greetings My Friend I understand the strangeness of PTSD more so. I knew when I was afraid years after the divorce that it was my fear that took over. Recently I see other strange subtle things that seem to play into it. Only in the last year have I felt comfortable enough to clip my nails in front of Junior. I could not let go of the absolute anger my ex had whenever he heard me clipping my nails. I knew it wasn’t rational but I could not let go and do it. Eighteen years later I have finally pushed past that silly struggle. I realize that my cognitive abilities had slipped but it occurs to me I have struggled on another level as well. Junior has worked hard at attempting to find a contractor for some of the work he needs help with. I have insisted he do it and the light bulb went off that I was afraid I would do this wrong too. I listened to Junior attempt another call yesterday and I realized I could do this. I spent a few hours calling and such and hopefully this week we will have a guy stop by and talk with us. Next I saw I could be a huge help to Junior by doing some research calls on propane services for us. This realization hit me as we were at the bank transferring accounts. The loan officer was helping Junior with a set up and a coworker with something else. She dialed SS and asked me to wait on hold. I did so and when someone came on the line I was able to answer the questions without much effort. I realized I used to do this sort of thing in my job and frankly it felt good. When Junior called a contractor he had the speakerphone on and it is at that point I understood that I had the ability to do this. Sometimes Junior gets a little over upset about a small thing and this too shows me that PTSD is not always rational. I understand on a different level now. As I reflected on these things I saw that getting out of my dysfunction was a long time in coming. It was so slow it may not have been seen by many at all. For me I knew I was unhappy but what did “happy” look like? I began going in and out of counseling. I would feel better for a minute only to be depressed a short while later. As my divorce happened I once more was in counseling and this time I made it a priority to stick it out. That helped me especially since I was seeing a Christian counselor who kept bringing me back to seeking God. I stayed with him for a few years and then I was good for many more years. Junior and I joined a support group for remarrieds and that also helped me. After retirement I found I needed help again and counseling wasn’t doing enough. Praying was helping but I knew I needed more help. I asked my doctor about some medication and along with my faith journey I have been going great guns. I learned that once we burn up those little synapses they stay burned out. Medication works as long as it is your system but once off the medication you will be depressed again so I stay on it. With childhood abuse, an abusive marriage I believe I have burned those little things out thus I need extra help at this point and I am okay with that. I can hear God more so now and that is my comfort. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

August 1 2015

August 1 2015 Greetings My Friend The dogs are fully fenced in now. I missed them snoozing on the porch as I went out to eat my breakfast. I am grateful at the same time to have them enclosed on our property. Mindy has been gone for over a week and at this point I don’t think she is coming back. I miss her so much and with them closed in my thought is no one can stop and take them or even a coyote attack them. They still have the doggie door to come and go through but now it only lets them out in the fenced part of the yard. I still let Daisy out the front door since she is blind I know she won’t wander too far. I also take her with me out on the porch and I find a peace with her at my side as I eat and watch the birds. Yesterday it came to me to clean up around the cat’s area more. Slowly we are working at my allergy triggers and this was an area I have been lax on. Mainly they aren’t around me so out of sight out of mind. Junior is taking up the area rug today and as I keep getting my energy back I am once more sweeping the floors regularly again. With all of our attempting to keep the fur and dander down to a minimum I think that I will struggle with seasonal allergies, dust and mold so at this point I am not ready to let the animals go. They are our fur family and we’d be lost without them so I/we work at cleaning up after them. I have struggled for several weeks with heat and humidity I sense that I am moving past the exhaustion and deep congestion. Part of it is the efforts we have been putting in and I wonder if I am not building myself to a higher tolerance of the heat and humidity. I am only going out early in the morning or later in the evening when the pollen, the heat is less. I think it helps too. I still get tired but not like I was. My chiari also lends itself to brain fog or it could be all the sleeping has brought it on. This has been a battle too trying to think, be silly and be my usual “Janet” self. I learn again that either extreme of summer or winter is rough to deal with anymore. I still prefer summer’s beauty of color though. Being stuck inside and seeing the hummingbirds, the colorful array of flowers and the green that abounds is so much more appealing than winter’s white or muted colors. I have known a few people who have had a major struggle with asthma and today I have a deep respect for their struggle since I have known it more so respect. I think I have struggled with allergies and even with asthma on and off for a good portion of my life and did not know it. My reviews of late have shown me that my complaints had fallen on deaf ears and I learned to dismiss my struggle, I coped and told myself it was nothing for so long. I am thankful for Junior because he seems to “hear” and then we both go to work at my problem and he lets me enter into helping him with his struggles too. Junior prefers to deal quietly with his problems so I help him when I don’t over mother him. He also appreciates that I am learning to deal with his very slow way of getting things done. Part of my learning is understanding more fully the struggle to work through health issues. May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet