June 17 2014

June 17 2014 Greetings My Friend, My breathing is under control, prayers have been said and I am ready to take on the rest of this day. My daily walk did me in today. I am overcoming bronchitis which means my breathing is a bit of a struggle. Still I was able to get out and do a few minutes and for that I am grateful. The quietness of prayer time and now writing is giving me the energy to do more of this day. I will go to Circle at church in a little bit and associate with other women, believers. Again I find having a church family is so important. Sometimes we hang out and are the women we are. Sometimes we encourage one another in the work the Lord has called us to do. Sometimes we help a struggling believer to stay strong. Going to church and Sunday school help. I also find that being in a group or two also gives me an added boost throughout the month. I had two walkers and last week I remembered a friend who doesn’t have great insurance so I took her the extra walker. It felt good to be able to help her out. Today on my FB page I wrote about being an encourager. I wrote about Junior having such a hard shell at times that people aren’t sure of him. Underneath that shell though is one precious man who loves Jesus with all he has. In Jesus’ love I have met a man who truly loves me and seeks God’s guidance as to the way he should treat me. The more I commit to God the more ways I find to be about God’s business for my life. I am a writer. At one point journaling was what helped me face day to day life. In that I found a depth to my personality that longed to share what I learn. These days I do that with my writing. God has walked me through a long process and now I am about the work He wants me to do. By doing what I feel God wants me to do I find life to be rather pleasant. There are the deep hurts of life that still crop up. These days though I don’t feel so alone and I have a strength to face trials because I am not alone. It is awesome. When I began this journey I recalled a passage that God wants “all” of me. How I wondered can I begin to do this. God in His wisdom has taken me step by step and today I marvel at how much I turn to God all day most days. He is my first thought when I wake up. He is on my mind during the day and He is the last thought I have at night. I spend a bit of time in prayer once or twice a day. The rest of my prayer life seems to be what I call popcorn prayers. If I am feeling extremely thankful I might spend a bit of time just saying “thank you”. Sometimes I list different things I am thankful for and sometimes it is an overall awe of thankfulness I was sick so I could not go with Junior to the audiologist yesterday. I did pray for him as he was gone that he would be safe, that the doctor would find what is wrong. When Junior came home safe and had some answers I found myself in that thankful mode again. Now we can work on what needs to be done. As I take my walks along the country lane out here I marvel at creation. Today the house down the road has been abandoned. A boat and a car has been left behind. The greenery is growing all around these items and only the tops are seen at present. God reclaims what man discards, including the lost and lonely of this world. He reclaimed me when I felt used up,worthless and of no value to man. God said “I love you and I have a job for you.” He has taken me step by step to teach me what I needed to do the work he called me to do. Today my life revolves around writing, being a housewife, loving my children, my husband and grandchildren. Life is full and sweet. My life is not the way I imagined it would turn out to be. At one point I would have been depressed to no end. Through the last few years as I felt rejected over and over slowly God taught me to keep turning to Him. As I trusted God with more and more I found myself being content. People came into my life that enjoyed me, loved me and encouraged me. My life still isn’t what I had wanted it to be. Frankly at this point I have more than I ever imagined. I have a healthy marriage, my husband is my best friend (after Jesus of course). The house we live in is amazing to me. It isn’t a designer home but it fits Junior and I so well our needs and our tastes. We have so many fur children I am amazed. All of them are good kids….so they drag the oatmeal box off the shelf and rip it open and it is all over. Sometimes I get irritated but soon I am laughing at their antics and I learn to put things up higher. I’ll take this faith journey any day, the hard days and the days of blessings. I’ll learn the lessons and find I am grateful. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 14 2014

June 14 2014 Greetings My Friend, I am extra winded today after my walk. Junior found a large rock he wants for our yard so he put it on the seat of my walker and I pushed it back to the house. For the most part I did not notice the extra weight although my breathing got harder and harder. That last hill was about all I could do to get back. I’m down another pound. My hope is that the weight fluctuation is about done with. First I went through menopause and then cancer and the medication I took put me back in menopause. My Chronic Fatigue and health issues kept me from my walks so weight stayed on as well. Being on the other side of all these things I hope to stay a constant weight once more. The good part about putting on so much weight for me was learning that Junior truly found me beautiful no matter my size. I had always thought men only wanted a beauty and when we gained weight they were turned off. That had been my experience. As Junior continued to love me and accept me no matter my size I grew more comfortable in my own body. I still would like to be a healthy weight though. I strive to be healthy and I’ve strived to be healthy my whole life. Entering into old age for me means more of the same. I want to travel, be active for as long as I can. My walks last anywhere from 30 to 50 minutes these days. I love the time spent soaking in the beauty around me. I love snapping pictures of different scenes. I love the dogs getting all excited as I get ready for my daily walk. I can’t make the bed anymore with all of their excitement in following me until I am fully ready. I also think I honor God by being as healthy as I am able to be. By being as healthy as I can my health stays fairly constant to a point. I am showing the signs of a long life and decline at the same time my own Mother at my age could not walk across the room due to a lifetime of smoking. So I do what I can for as long as I can. Our errands yesterday wore on me so today I will not go with Junior to his doctor’s appointment. We did a few things before we went to Lowe’s and at Lowe’s Junior needed to figure out what he needed to install the stove top we have. It took him a long time and at one point I knew I had pushed myself far enough. Daisy and I went back to the truck and waited there for Junior to find what he needed. I find that Sundays tend to be my catch up day. I sleep most Sunday afternoons for an hour or more. Monday I am back to my routines with the work while I can and sit when I can’t way of doing things. While we were at Lowe’s I found an organizer for tin foil, plastic bags and such. That is my goal today is to organize that stuff into a neat fashion. The organizer for the pans is working out well. I am trying to find a way to keep a few of our coffee cups by the coffee pot. Junior isn’t interest in my idea but I am working on it anyway. Part of my gift to God is being organized. This allows me to have time for ministry no matter the shape that ministry takes. Being organized allows me to write, reach out by the internet, a phone call or a trip to town. I tend to be thinking about gifts I give to other people and to God a lot lately. For Junior I tend to make sure the house is in order, food is prepared for when he wants to eat and being available as he takes his breaks. As a friend I try to be available to hang with, to listen or whatever. Some of the gifts Junior gives me are the flowers from the garden at my spot where I eat in the morning. He tells me to go sit when he sees my fatigue on my face and his enjoyment of what do or cook for him. The older I get the more I appreciate these types of gifts over store bought gifts. Not that I am upset when Junior picks up a pair of flip flops from time to time just because. The little I am thinking of you gifts are precious though. Have you thought about the gifts you give to others? Are you trying to buy their affection or do you give because down deep you know you are touching that special spot? May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 12 2014

June 12 2014 Greetings My Friend, Time for me to catch my breath before entering into this day. I like this new routine. I’ve finished my walk for this morning with a shopping trip this afternoon I will get in more walking at the store with a buggy. When I catch my breath I will eat lunch and do a few things around the house before we take off for our errands. Junior will need his nap. He’s been busy with the kitchen renovation for most of the morning taking time to go on a walk with me. I love when he tags along. I love the dogs tagging along as well. Today I saw some wild roses, an unusual stump so I took pictures along the way. That is always fun and as my balance is off sometimes I sit on my walker seat to take pictures. It works out real nice plus I get a quick rest before moving along. Today I hope to get back on the deck and start painting the end table I’ve been working on. I want to paint it buttercream yellow and then use a stencil of butterflies and do that in a dark green. Junior and I were working on it yesterday. He was teaching me how to use solvent to get the stripper residue off and to sand it. He said since we were painting it we didn’t have to do all that but it was a chance for me to learn how to do these things for the times we will stain the wood instead of painting it and it doesn’t hurt the painted project to do a bit extra. I truly sense our day is coming that we will work together on projects like these and even sell them since we can only hold so much furniture in our own home and we like this type of project. I love Junior’s gentle voice as he teaches me and his patience as I flub up a few things. I even feel Junior’s excitement of working alongside of me. It is such a freeing feeling to feel this safe and wanted. One of the pictures I took was one of our outbuildings that Junior has made into a shed and hooked to another outbuilding/shed. Piled all around were logs, a ladder and plain ole stuff. Stuff everywhere. At first I cringed as I took the picture and then I relaxed. This is a work in progress and frankly stuff is strewn when work is in progress. The old me would want to clean up after I finished putting everything away. Even now I tend to do that so I can start with a clean slate the next time I work. Junior has shown me that the work will get done, the mess cleared away in due time. He isn’t about making things all nicey nice for the sake of others to see. I’d say my clean phobia is for a show. I don’t want people to think I am a slob. In reality how many times have I seen work projects all askew? A lot really. I do need to make a clean starting point so I can refocus when I get back but to put each and everything away...it isn’t necessary really. I think old age and my faith journey has helped me to look past clutter and to see the heart of a matter. If people don’t think I am neat then nothing I can do will change their mind. My ex pointed out how sloppy I was all the time. After the divorce I was surprised by all the comments from co-workers and such about what a neat person I am. Then I meet Junior. Compared to Junior I am a neat freak. Junior has opened my eyes to be comfortable with things the way I am comfortable and go with it. People will like me or they won’t and how clean I keep myself to a point isn’t relevant in the scheme of things. He is neat in his appearance, he is clean as well. I appreciate that. When I got tired of seeing Junior in dirty, painted work clothes all day and whenever we went anywhere I told him so. He loves me enough that he will change into neater looking clothes when we go out in public. I appreciate that and his work clothes around the house are fine these days. Two imperfect people come together. The first time around we tried to change each other and both of us resented it. This time my husband and I seek God daily on how to be what the other one needs and there is a comfort level in our marriage I never knew before. We don’t try to change each other and frankly that is a freeing feeling. I am accepted and loved for being me. What more can I want or ask for? May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 10 2014

June 10 2014 Greetings My Friend, I did another walk to the end of the road and back and shaved off 5/10 minutes from the last walk. I’ve learned to slow my pace down thus not needing breaks as often. I am learning to slow down and it is a challenge for me. As I learn to slow down though I see new things and feel new to me feelings. In slowing down I am able to connect to Junior and others on a deeper level. I love “deep” and have tried to go deep my whole life. I also learned to keep life near the surface and to close my heart off so I won’t be hurt. Old age is requiring me to slow down and to smell the roses. I am safe these days since I have begun a serious faith journey with Jesus. Junior has proven to me time and again that he does not want to hurt me ever. I believe him more with each passing day. The more I trust there is wonder as I meet the world again with a quieter set of eyes. The first thing Junior taught me was “boring.” Later I learned that the right word really is “stable” but never having met “stable” I thought it was boring. I had to learn to not be dramatic over each moment of life and it was a struggle. That meant when he did something that I was not comfortable with I had to ask him to stop and thats it. I did not have to curse, sound tough, demand him to stop. I only had to ask him to stop. The calmer Junior remained with me the less need for drama in my response back to him. He tried to show me how to use some man tools one time and I was so afraid I’d do it wrong that I did do it wrong. Junior was patient with me. I found myself learning to vacuum the floors when he was around in the same room even. Lately my walks tend to have my camera phone on hand. I stop along the country lane and take pictures of the sights all around me. I am in amazement of God’s creation over and over again. Daily I feel peace seeping inside of my being as I walk along. I have a sense of accomplishment as I set goals and reach them. The inhalers, the walker on wheels has opened up my life so much more. I noticed that the last clash I had with someone who tends to challenge my every word that I basically I told her that “You do you and I will do me.” I told her that she has a right to tell me what she thinks and I have the right to accept or reject her opinions. I did not let myself sink into despair as I had been doing. Junior and I have always loved being near the woods way more than near the beach. For us we find God daily as we stroll along. God is there as I wake up and as I go through the day but the walks tend to remind us of God’s gloriousness. At first I started my day off with God in prayer and Bible study before I cleaned and went to work. Some days I found that I talked with God sporadically throughout the day as I had a problem but to be honest I was focused on my job more so. I did ask myself often throughout the day if God would like what I was doing but seeking Him was not what I did. As I retired and my health took a nose dive I found myself in prayer over the smallest of things. I found times where I wanted to talk and Junior wasn’t up to hearing a lot words. I found I’d tell God the silliest of things just to have someone to talk to. As my health issues have been dealt with I find I still talk to God on and off during the day. I pray as I go to sleep at night as I wake up during the night and finish as I get out of bed in the morning. I then have prayer time again in my comfy chair around lunch time. This is my time to repent, to praise and ask God to teach me to be Junior’s wife with a lot of thank you’s thrown in. FB, e-mails and such tend to find prayer requests as well. The news often brings stories about disasters and such so more prayers go out. As we travel if we see an accident I pray again. My heart asks often throughout the day where God wants me to be. Many days often go by and it seems my job is to love, learn and grow then one day events seem to fall into place and I realize that at this time I need to minister to someone. There was that Sunday we had decided before church we were going to go out for breakfast. In Junior’s Sunday school class was a new person who was questioning everything. We went to breakfast and he was our server. We talked as we could some more and we may have only planted a seed but I feel we were where God wanted us. Slowly I learn to discern those moments and I find God isn’t wanting me to say His name all the time in the hopes of spreading the Good News. Learning to slow down and listen though I find God’s direction for me more and more. Do I miss the days of mission trips with teens? I do but these days my direction seems to be writing, loving, learning and sharing my testimony. My body is not what it once was but for some reason I’m OK with that. Life is full and filled and God is good! May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 7 2014

June 7 2014 Greetings My Friend, I am back from my morning walk. Today I reached another goal and I made it to the end of the road and back. I have learned to slow my pace down requiring less rest periods. I have a killer hill and two medium killer hills to get to the end of the road and back three on the way and the three on the way back is a lot of hill overcoming. The walker with 4 wheels helps me a ton. I use the hand breaks as I go down the hills so I won’t start going too fast. My theory is as I pump the breaks I am also working my hand and wrist. Not a bad added benefit if you ask me. When I get back I am winded big time so I use the resting to write. I am enjoying this process a lot. When I am done I get up and start working around the house. I won’t do much today other than sweep the floors since we will be running errands this afternoon. I have the front porch cleared of clutter and I am keeping that swept. I need to work on the porch by the kitchen now. The deck is fairly much cleaned up so I can start working on painting and stripping various pieces of furniture. My life is filling out with plenty of projects that I can change to keep my brain active. That makes me real happy. As I was getting my first cup of coffee I noticed that the kitchen table was stacked high with stuff again. I remembered in our house in MI Junior had a room that was his office. That room was cluttered all over the place and when Junior was in there he looked so content. When we had guests over I closed the door. I realized that we need to work on a space for Junior to clutter to his hearts content. With all the renovating we’ve been doing the cluttered look has filled most of the rooms. As he finishes an area and we begin living in it I am once more into organizing and keeping order. I don’t need perfect order but I don’t handle total chaos well either. Our marriage has been a meeting ground in the middle. It isn’t something either one of us knew prior to this marriage. We both had moments of learning to accept. I believe the more we take our marriage to God the more we find that middle ground. We have not let the big issues turn into major problems because God has taught us ways to deal with our own personal struggles with the other one. I realized at one point that Junior is too good of a man to let his clutter/hoarding get to me. If I let it get to me and we did the awful “d” word….I would have missed a gem of a man. I realized that if he became a total hoarder I would find a way to tolerate his eccentric to me behavior. Since Junior cares about me he works hard at his cluttering ways. He will never be free of clutter. He reminds me of the cartoon character on Peanuts, Pigpen. Clutter seems to follow Junior around much like dirt did for Pigpen. Junior respects my need for order as well. He filled the table with the stuff on a shelf in the dining room that he had been collecting. He cleaned the shelf and by the end of the day most of the things on the table will have a new home. I thank him and he beams when I notice his hard work. Once the kitchen and dining room are completely refurbished then order will reign for the most part. I am filling some shelves with kitchen products and when I stop for a “thinking” process sometimes Junior continues my train of thought. I appreciate that he studies me so well and organizes fairly much to my standards. Junior and I are a good team. I love that about our marriage. He boils noodles and I make tuna and macaroni salad. I sweep the floors and he mops them. He loves doing laundry and I let him. We both fold and put clothes away. Somedays he makes his side of the bed up before I get up. Then I make my side up when I get up. I truly love this team work we have. Junior’s first thought each day is “Would God like what I am doing?” He asks the same question throughout the day and at bedtime. Because he keeps God at the center of his heart Junior is sensitive to me and my needs. As I learn to keep God at the center of my heart I find myself being sensitive to Junior’s needs. Not a bad way to do marriage in my way of thinking. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 5 2014

Junes 5 2014 Greetings My Friend, I can feel all those little circuits connecting inside my brain. I’ve been hard at work all morning learning Google Chrome. My computer has some issues and this is a back up computer we have. It insisted I sign into Google Chrome and now I am learning new things. Not all bad really but I do feel a bit over challenged at present. This laptop is smaller than the other one I was using which is easier to move back to the spot I keep near my chair. I even like the feel of the keyboard a bunch too. I may ask Junior if I can make this my main computer and use the other one as a back up when things go astray. My write program I am on right now is somehow connected to the Google Chrome which means that I can send my things to the internet where I want it to go I think? Prior to this I would write my blogs in a word program and then copy and paste into the blog. If this works I may even start writing my Letters From Janet Facebook page on here and then I can have it go into my comments when I am ready for the next status update. I’m not sure but as I said I am learning and those little wires are moving a mile a minute. It is a rainy day so my elliptical was my exercise this morning. I did 20 minutes and was a bit winded even though I used the inhaler. It is what it is. After I settled down I attacked a shelf in the dining room to add a rack which will hold baking pans. I had a 2nd rack that I wanted to hold lids to the pans in but that isn’t working out so the rack will find another use I am sure. I am moving back and forth between the computer and housework. I was hoping to clean up the yard some more today but that will have to wait until it is dry once more. The deck is taking shape again. Junior is clearing out the things he stored there during the winter so I can use it once more. He is setting up a spot for me to paint some pieces of furniture I’ve been wanting to get to. I am excited about this new addition to my routines. I cleaned out the inside of the car last week which felt nice. This is something I had done for years and after retirement it became too hard for me to do. With more oxygen in my lungs my energy level is better. I still manage to crash on the weekends but these days that feels good since I’ve accomplished things during the week. Picking up the trash in the yard was a challenge yesterday but I was working out a system. These days I need a cane or something to keep me balanced. I got out my walker with the seat and used that. When I was tired out I rested in the seat. It was near as I needed something to balance on. I am learning to live within my limitations. The string on the light for the ceiling fan came off and I am too short to reach it without a stool. Balancing on a stool is hard. I grab the vacuum cleaner pull it beside the stool and I hold the handle while I pull the string for the light. It works. At one point in my life this lack would have depressed me to no end. Today with God’s love on me I tend to find ways to keep going and I am happy. The best lesson for me is” learning to do when I can and sit when I can’t” Since discovering my ADHD tendencies I am retraining myself to jump from task to task like I did when I could run from project to project. The computer is my friend because I can jump to different sites as I need to. Add “work a little and sit a little” to this and my overactive mind keeps busy. The chalkboard is helping me as well. I use this to make a list of things I want to get accomplished. I erase each item as it is completed and I have that sense of accomplishment I need. I also put up a list of things I’d like Junior to accomplish, call the doctor, the investment counselor and such. I don’t keep saying it outloud and he knows what needs to be done. He doesn’t get so irritated at my repeating myself as a reminder. All through this process I kept asking God to point me in the right direction. At times I needed to figure out how to day to day stuff and God gave me ideas. I have always asked God to teach me to be what Junior needs and God comes through time after time. Sometimes I misplace things and as I ask God I tend to find what I am looking for. Sometimes it will be a few days but I usually find what I need to find. God has also taught me to cherish what is in my life and to quit mourning what is not. It has been a long process but these days all I can do is be thankful for all that I truly have. In 60 years I must admit this point in my life I feel the most content. God has taught me to give all of me to Him and the more I do the more settled I feel on the inside. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 3 2014

June 3, 2014

Greetings My Friend,

I'm back from my morning walk and needing time to catch my breath so I am writing. It works! I'm learning to slow my pace down even more so and I don't need as many rests along the way and I walk further. My thought is movement not time is important at this point.

Since the heat of summer has hit I've begun a new routine. I do my usual wake up on the computer time, write on FB and write a post for my 2^nd FB page. I am getting a good response as I tag different friends. I find that their friends tend to check out my page and often comment on what I wrote.

It finally clicked yesterday at church for me. They were requesting for volunteers to help with VBS. I love children and I long to help on different programs. I wear out too easily these days and every attempt to help at church seems to not work out. I have helped at the other churches on different ministries and loved the time I spent helping.

I feel like as a member of the church I have a responsibility as well. Yesterday I realized that God is calling me to ministry outside the church proper. My ministry is writing, being a wife to Junior, working at building relationships with my family and within the community.

J and A come to mind. They were instrumental in starting a few ministry outreaches at the church we attended. They were the start up team and would run it for a few years. They then would start another outreach and run that. In the last year they have gone into the mission field overseas. They are in their late 60's and starting another outreach.

So they within the church proper for years and now they are expanding their outreach. I'm starting to see this may be the direction I'm being pointed to. I don't see overseas mission work due to my health issues but outreach in my community that seems real nice.

A young man went to Sunday school yesterday. He came to Junior's class for young men. He is an atheist and I felt he was exploring. Anyway we went to breakfast yesterday. We had decided we had not been out for a while that we would go. Ironically the restaurant we went to was where this young man worked and was serving tables.

We had a very interesting chat with this young man. Junior gave him a card we had made up with our phone number and such. He told him if he wanted to he would discuss our faith with him. So we were in ministry and we wanted to go to breakfast, the young man came to Junior's class and....to me God set this up for us to enter into.

There was a mistake on our order and we mentioned it. Both the server and the cook were upset. They were trying to make things right and we mentioned that we just wanted them to know and help clear up any miss-communication. A wonderment is if we were presenting a Christian face that may have been needed. I'm not sure but it is a thought.

In the past few years Junior reached out to a 2^nd generation welfare young man. He helped Junior and learned a few skills. A few months ago he enrolled in a truck driving class. He now has a job and the transformation is astounding. His Mom has been on disability for 30 or 40 years now. She hurt herself real bad in a car accident and working was out of the question. She has been my friend now for several years and we have stepped in where we could.

Our nephew is another one we have reached out to. I keep seeing that God is placing us in certain situations and we need to be ready to step out in faith. Being tied to organized things is not helpful and I am finding that is OK. Our focus is in a new direction.

For the first time in years I am not grieving being involved in organized ministries. I am where I need to be doing what God wants me to do. I feel a weight lifted off of my shoulders. God is happy with me doing what I am doing.

Are you listening to God's calling for your life or are you just trying to do good works? I know I still get caught up with “showing” my good works at times.

May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you.

Love

Janet