June 16 2015

June 16 2015 Greetings My Friend Slowly my quiet time is coming to an end. I have talked with God, studied His Word and Facebooked with friends and enjoyed the quiet of the morning. Junior and I ate breakfast outside enjoying the cool of the morning. Daisy my little buddy has found that the other dogs hang outside more so she snuggles with me a bit more and soaks up the love. The groomer explained that Daisy’s limping is a hip problem so I have started giving her glucosamine. Three days and I am amazed at how much better she is doing. Junior found a contractor who will work with the Veteran’s Administration and soon he will come give us a price. I keep sensing Junior is growing weary of renovating so I pray that he will get the help he needs. Junior has extended more of the deck and now working at putting the roof up. I hear him drilling and hammering as I write. My heart melts because I know this is a gift he is giving me. The more we hang outside on the deck the more grateful I am that he has labored to give me this gift. I still would like the kitchen to be finished but now I am content with our summer respite spots he has created and is still working on. I am thankful for God’s guidance in loving Junior. On my own Junior would be irritated and have given up due to my constant nagging. His organizational ways are not my ways and I don’t understand. God has taught me to let Junior go and do at his own pace. God has shown me the deep love Junior has for me and that Junior will finish what he starts even though at times it looks like he will never get done. Junior also senses that God is working with me to be patient and understanding so he continues giving me his best. I am thankful for this because I would not have met the creative talent he has. He knew next to nothing about renovating but he has taught himself along the way not accepting shoddy work so he will take things apart as many times as he needs to until he gets it right. I marvel at Junior’s tenacity. These little learning patience moments are a marvel to me because in them I sense that our relationship continues to deepen and our bond grows stronger. In the process of getting back to being as healthy as I can Junior has come to know my tenacity and I sense that he is proud of the work I am doing. I continue to ask God to show me and God is faithful. I have learned that doing workouts at the gym are not the only workouts I can do. God shows me to bend to stretch and to do day to day things that help me. He has given me a doctor who listens and puts me on the right track and then God shows me that there are also natural remedies to some of my struggles. I sense that my balance issues will settle down, my COPD is better not gone but better and I am thankful for God’s guidance once more. As I finish today’s thought I will begin to enter into my day and find it to be an awesome gift of life. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 13 2015

June 13 2015 Greetings My Friend Each day I make a few decisions. I decide to believe God once more. I decide to love Junior, my family and life. It is easy for me to fall into despair and one way I daily decide to enter into each day is to walk through my Facebook feed. For many years I started my day with the newspaper. I wanted to have an idea of what was happening in the world so I would be able to relate to those in my life and have some ability to reach out to them. When I married Junior he asked me to not read the paper due to a strike since he was in the union. I did not realize my addiction to reading the newspaper was in my life until I walked away from reading it. Slowly I found other routines such as writing Junior a letter each day before I left for work. He started work 3 hrs. before me so this was a way I could hug him when he came home each night. I began exercising, reading my Bible and journaling and slowly I was choosing to enter into my day with joy. Junior taught me that I did not need a lot of pretty words to pray but he taught me how to open my heart to God. God did not mind if I repeated myself, was unable to form my thoughts well I learned He wanted me to be as open and honest as I was able. He taught me to keep looking deeply into myself and slowly I was able to form my thoughts and then take them deeper with Him. One day I understood a love that was so deep and so wide and about as awesome as it gets. In this love I was learning to love others starting with Junior. I began to love my children on another level a healthier level. In this process I learned what Agape love was - seeking another person’s highest good and it felt right. Agape love teaches me to love not out of need but out of good. That means I don’t allow dysfunction to continue for the sake of needy love on my part. Sometimes that means I have to say “stop, no don’t do that and not today.” God kept pointing out areas that I put others before Him. He showed me my neediness and the more I understood He was going to be there through all the fires of life the safer I felt. At this point I see the “journey” again. I can’t change completely with one “Forgive me Lord for I have sinned and Jesus please be my Savior”. It is that daily decision to keep God focused and attempt to love the way God loves me. So that means I need to decide each day to love and let the hurts go. God takes my hurts from me and reminds me I don’t need to keep putting up that protective wall. He teaches me to go further and deeper and life is so sweet. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you Love Janet

June 11 2015

June 11 2015 Greetings My Friend I am learning another lesson in “Be still and know that I am God.” I am learning to not tell each feeling, each thought I have to others. I am learning to tell God first. At times in my life it was for my good that I told everything that was done to me but today in safety I don’t need to keep a running commentary of each detail of my life. My friend taught me how to listen to the inner voice and to use it for writing. My first attempts were to tell the story, the pain, the joy of my life. I was once more a victim. Through the years I have had less of a need to feel all the pain because I felt God’s love in a way I had never felt love before. God has taken me by the hand and showed me that some things are between Him and me. He will “hear” my struggle and teach me to deal with it. The more I see God working with me and teaching me to walk away I am learning to not “tell” so much. When I first started writing my blog I read each one to Junior for a few years. Today for the most part I just write. I pray first “Father help me to write Your words, not my words.” Many times I go to prayer mainly the supplications for those I know and those I love along with some I barely know. This seems to clear my mind and opens my spirit. At first I reported how many page likes I had received and I was in awe. The more confidence I gained that was not needed. I found times when I wanted someone to know that God had truly called me to this ministry and would tell them the number of people that were reading my blog. God would ask me often “Am I enough?” I would respond “Yes.” The lesson I was learning was it is not important how many, who reads but how I respond to God. That need for acceptance in this world keeps growing less and less. God loves me and somehow that is enough. God also gives me so much, Junior, my son is coming back to me, my niece fills the daughter roll and our fur children seem to give me a reason to stay connected in my day to day life. I often saw how rich Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were and thought “money” was an indication of God’s approval. It is not. It is those little gifts that mean so much more. The first thing I do in the morning is get on Facebook. I scroll through the news feed giggling with the silly posts, growing stronger in my faith with the faith based posts and sharing life with others. Sometimes I enter into pain, sorrow alongside of another and sometimes I am happy for the joy they are in. Then I discover that many are walking beside me as well. Today I discovered my fear of being abandoned is leaving me. Today I don’t have to announce each accomplishment, each fear to the world. That feels so awesomely safe. I am learning to share my journey but not out of a need to be loved but out of a desire to show Jesus’ love to a sinner like me and the hope He gives to me to all of us. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 9 2015

June 9 2015 Greetings My Friend Another storm has passed and today is a new day to enter into the world with hope and joy. During this storm God showed me ways to live with nausea and vomiting. Essential oils and sea bands helped me to function and I am grateful to have discovered them. I had the stretching procedure for my esophagus and today I am moving through the day without a constant thought on keeping nausea at bay. I am going to continue using the essential oils and ginger tea to keep my digestive track in order as well. I looked back on my calendar and I notice that it has been 4 months since I have had bronchitis again all the natural things and medications are helping me a whole lot. Last week while I was away with Marilyn I found that going up and down stairs built up my stamina. I don’t have stairs at home but I will keep adding various forms of exercise to my day so that I can be more productive. I also know to stop and rest either for a little while or for a long period of time these days and that I am not a person that has a lot of stamina and that is okay. I can work within my abilities and in that I feel productive and useful. My routines have gone astray since going on vacation and having the procedure done yesterday. I have done these routines enough that today I will enter into them once more and our home will be clean, food will be made for us to eat and life will go on in its own rhythmic way. That sense of wholeness overflows within me. My wholeness comes from God who teaches me the way He has for me and shows me how to live the life He has given me. Spring, summer and early fall are my favorite times of the year so I relish the porch time so I can rest in between jobs. In these quiet moments I love smells, the sounds and the sun’s warmth as I sit in the shade of the porch. I again see God’s glorious creation and marvel. Life before I accepted Jesus was mostly painful and gray. Today I have struggles but they don’t overwhelm me like they used to. As I continue to grow in my relationship with God I know that He is not “going leave me or forsake me.” That passage alone gives me comfort beyond measure. In fact there are many more passages that help me to stay focused on Him and the gift of Jesus. I am thankful for the long hard look at the cross. For me at the cross I met the ugliness of sin, the love of God and the redemption I longed for but did not know I needed. I found courage at the cross as I hear Jesus pray once more “Father, take this cup of suffering from me, not my will but Your will.” I marvel at Jesus praying on the cross with a battered body “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus knows the pain of life the deepest pain and He is there right now interceding on my behalf. The struggles still come but today I know I am not alone and that is the courage I have to face life. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 6 2015

June 6 2015 Greetings My Friend It is once more that time of year I find myself stopping and taking a look back. I don’t plan on it but it comes anyway my nephew Doug died 24 years ago as a young boy on a field trip at school. With time the questions fade such as “What would?” In my mind he is still the 12 year old who left on a school science camp trip. I can’t even begin to form the teenager or the young man he would have been. I try to have anger at the school and it won’t come. It isn’t that I have a defeated attitude it is more like “he is gone, I/we miss him and time has covered the massive pain.” We have pain still but the pain is sad pain, I miss him pain and then with a sigh I let go and move into the day. Mom, Dad and Grandma’s anniversary of their death comes and I do take the “time out” to ponder and reflect. Dad and Mom died fairly young but not at a tender young age. They had their life story and I am able to recall the lessons and of course I am sad because we could not work out all that was between us. Same goes for my brother, I wish I knew how to fix such a struggle in our lives. My brother was young too but had lived to be in his 50’s so his life story is there as well. Doug’s life story was so full of promise and that is the hard part it was so short. He left an impact in those short few years though. Sometimes I hear from kids now adults that knew him and they often tell me what a caring young man he was. That feels good. I think of his sister Mary who was only four at the time and how she missed him, how she tenderly kept going to the casket to touch her beloved oldest brother and later how she carried a picture of him in her little girls purse. My heart feels for his sister and brother. I still feel his mother’s grief, his Dad’s grief. My own parents struggled too and I hurt for this pain again for them. Slowly as I walk through each of these moments I begin to reflect on his cousins grief before allowing my heart to move on. For some reason it is important to me to remember this young man to celebrate in some form the short life he lived. Today’s projects begin to fill my mind and I leave Doug again. I am sad because I am moving on and I am grateful to busy myself at the same time. I also find an urgency to talk about salvation to all I meet. The end will come and we will have had to choose Jesus or not either way we will have an eternity based on our choice. My desire, my love compels me to reach out with the love of the Gospel the best I can. I am not as concerned as I was for years that I may offend someone. I care too deeply to let it hinder me these days. To me I love people so much that I don’t want anyone to find themselves not in heaven walking with Jesus for eternity. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 4 2015

June 4 2015 Greetings My Friend “And they walked with God in the cool of the day.” For some reason I am pulling this passage up a lot on these warm spring/summer like days. It seems like the cool of the morning or the cool of the evening I have quiet thoughts and make plans and live my life. In the heat of the day I do my work of loving Junior, writing, cleaning and cooking and in the cool I slow down or start out slow. This year I have given up worrying about my flabby arm look and I am wearing tank tops. With these on I am dealing with the heat so much better. To add to my comfort level I am able to put my hair up in a ponytail, small as it is. This too helps me deal with summer’s heat. The next thing I am learning is to move slower in the heat of the day and to hang out on the covered porch waiting for the coolness to venture out into the yard. I am enjoying summer like I have not enjoyed it in a long time. In the cool quietness I find myself talking with God about the littlest things such as how awesome our flowers are looking, the awe of hummingbirds visiting us again and the beauty of rolling mountains of green trees and patches of colorful flowers. In this quietness I sense God telling me again that “I am precious in His sight. The plans to prosper me not harm me and He will never leave me or forsake me.” At the start of my faith journey I kept hearing how important it was to memorize Scripture. I felt so sad when I could not memorize passages I picked out. I did notice certain passages that felt so tender, reassuring and speaking to me. One day as I was struggling I recalled a passage, part of it but enough that spoke to my spirit and gave me strength to face the challenge I was going through. Today I sense it isn’t about being able to memorize Scripture for the sake of memorizing it to quote to others at the drop of hat and show how much I am able recall. I think it is about learning those moments while reading that speak a lesson to me and remembering the lesson and even the words. Those are the passages that stay with me. I am a check it off my list kind of a woman so I felt that I needed to recall chapter and verse word by word. When I can let go of my to do list though I find myself absorbing and recalling much more than the rote memorization of word by word passages. One of the first Psalms I was introduced to as a child and even semi memorized was the 23rd Psalm. Today I know it more in the Revised Standard version that was around as a youngster. Now that I am reading newer versions I marvel at the different lessons I have learned from the same familiar passage. Still in my time of need I pretty much remember it the way I first learned it. I am finding that reading from different interpretations helps me understand the more difficult passages. I started my journey with the NIV Bible, went to the Chronological Bible for several years. The Chronological Bible helped me to understand the order in which things happened. When we moved to Virginia I started using the ESV Bible since our Minister read out of it at church and I am settled in that version for now anyway. A lady in our Sunday school class uses the Living Translation and will often read that as we work through our study each Sunday. It helps us too. Memorization comes when you commit to reading God’s Word and allowing the Holy Spirit to teach and guide you. Once more I also learn that the Holy Spirit is that quiet whisper on my heart. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

June 2 2015

June 2 2015 Greetings My Friend As I write I am spending time with a long time friend. We have been enjoying each others company for several days now and I appreciate the times we have had and will have even more so. After my divorce I had very few family and friends that still stayed in touch with me. Marilyn has stuck with me and allowed me to explore what went on in my life as a child and in my marriage. She was my sounding board and I am grateful that she did not get tired of hearing me ask questions and then ask again until it began to absorb into my being. Today we rarely talk about my past or her past. She also has shared her struggles with me through the years. We both had a crazy family life as children and we had struggles as adults we have worked through. Since my divorce and remarriage I have made new friends, healthier friends and they too have helped me a lot. My friend Debbie is helping me understand essential oils and she doesn’t seem to mind that I “hear from her” and then I relearn it again later from someone else. Being accepted and understood has been so helpful to me growing out of my dysfunctions. I have had to put words to the things I did not like. I learned to find what I did like. The more I learned to have likes I was able to let go of hurts, anger and resentment. Through the years I also accepted that those I loved and hurt had their own demons to deal with and they too were victims. When I can look at their struggles I find compassion in my heart. I am able to let go and to move on. This process has also taught me to seek healthier relationships. My counselor taught me that “healthy find healthy.” The more I absorbed this fact the more I attempted to be as healthy as I could be. It has paid off because overall I am in a healthy marriage, have healthy friends and I no longer enable as I once did. I enabled out of a false sense of love. Deep down I was needy so I would do whatever I could to “help” people even if it was not good for me or them. Part of my ministry for God is reaching back and befriending women who have walked down the road of life that I have. I for the most part don’t enable the person but in a roundabout way I am teaching them the skills I have learned. Some do use the skills I am able to teach. Some don’t and I am learning to not enable dysfunction. Sometimes they walk away. At one time I would have felt like a failure. Today I understand that the lessons I was able to teach are all they can receive at this point. I liken this to planting a seed. I may plant the seed, someone may come along and water the seed and eventually at the right time God will open their hearts to Him. Growing in God to me is all about learning to be in relationship. The stronger my relationship is with God the better I am able to learn how to be in relationship with those that are in my life. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet