November 15, 2015

Greetings My Friend, Junior has decided to sign up for Facebook and I am challenged by his upfront, blunt statements. I know him, that his heart is right with God and his goal is to get people thinking and talking. I also know that some people can get aggressive when they are challenged which makes me want to soften my approach when I speak about what I believe. This is not Junior's way at all, so my desire to "fix"him is met with irritation. I learned many years ago to be thankful for your spouse, I decided to write Junior letters before work for many years. In the letters I only wrote what I admired about him, mainly for myself for the times when I got irritated with him. The letter writing imprinted on my mind all his good points and drew my thoughts from a constant nit picking I am more in tuned to. After we moved to Virginia I was dealing with changes not happening very quickly in the renovation process and no clue to how hard it is to work with a broken body. The time frame in my mind was not nearly enough time for him, I tried to understand and not having a broken body at the time I was unable to fully understand his struggle to get things done. One day I found myself irritated again so I took my struggle to God. God laid on my heart to ask Him to open my eyes and heart to Junior, that opened my understanding so much. I started to watch Junior work and I saw a labor of love. He is renovating this place as a huge gift to me, to us. He wants it just right and will tear things out many times until it looks just right and done correctly. God also keeps bringing another picture to my mind, it is a mission trip we went on to Wales. We were learning street evangelizing, each day we went in a group, a person took out a huge pad of paper set it up on a tripod and began talking and drawing. While the talking and drawing was going on we started conversations with the people that came by to watch. Junior is not able to stand for long periods so he went to the bench nearby, ate his lunch and began conversing with people that sat near him. One time the group finished up and there was Junior in a crowd of people talking about his faith journey. These people were not the well dressed office workers that stopped to see the picture being drawn, they were rather rough looking and speaking, Junior had their attention, there was a back and forth going on in the conversation. As a woman I want to fix my man, God reminds me that He will do the fixing, it is my job to respect Junior. Junior read something he wrote to me, I cringed and God convicted me to accept what he wrote. Junior writes like he talks and his grammar is less than perfect, I cringe at that too. Again God reminded me Junior is not "me", he has his own way of reaching out to others. Then I understood that Junior will attract those that he can relate to on his Facebook account, they will understand his grammar, his strange way of spelling words and know that his heart is right with God. I am learning to just say "sometimes you challenge me" to Junior, this gives me the opportunity to let him be himself, allows me to be challenged but to let him be him. I always find that genuine heart of caring and concern for others in Junior, that is what I fell in love with and I am still deeply in love with him. I am grateful God keeps convicting me to leave Junior alone because the work he does for the Lord is uniquely beautiful and wonderful. God gets the glory even if Junior's words are rough, his grammar is less than stellar and at the end of the day Junior has given Good New's to some of the undesirables just as Jesus did when He was here in the flesh. After all, isn't that the whole goal, to offer hope to all people, the sick, the lost, the lonely and the hurting? May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 12, 2016

Greetings My Friend, Today is Junior's 70th birthday and I have known him for 19 years now, being married for 18. His birthday and our years together makes me think about where we were when we first got married and where we are right now. For both of us we were in a previous marriage, we both were divorced and I was new to Single, Divorce Recovery where Junior was a facilitator and a member of the singles group. I looked up to him to find my way around ,he was my facilitator in Divorce Recovery. We did not date while I went through the workshop and Junior fought with himself to let me learn the ropes of being single and the desire to date me. I wanted to practice dating but I learned that I needed to give myself time to heal, to mourn the break up of my marriage. I was married for 24 years, Junior was married almost 20 years, the way he tells it 19 years, 11 months,3 days and who's counting how many minutes. We were falling in love rather quickly and we knew our chances of making it were lessened by me being divorced for such a short time and him being my first boyfriend after divorce. We finally ran off to Toledo OH and got married, from then on for several years we learned all we could about building a Christ centered marriage and all the pitfalls 2nd marriages bring. We started praying daily for a good 10 years together, we were in an accountability group, attended remarried workshops, retreats and Bible studies for couples. Retirement hit for Junior which started changing our patterns slowly, like praying in the mornings he had retired due to back problems which meant he was not functional for a long time in the mornings. Six months later I found out I had breast cancer and I wound up sleeping around the clock. I worked for another 4 years before I retired, by then Junior had figured out retirement for him and how to work with his back problems as for me I began a rather spiraling decent into many health issues. He practically moved us by himself from Michigan to Virginia when we felt led to move. Once in Virginia I kept getting worse for another year or two when I began working my way back to some sort of energy and health. Praying and Bible study had gone out the door and we both did our own reflection time but that was about it. Our home did not need renovating but an overhaul which means there has been a lot of chaos as we worked on bringing order to the disorder of the place. When we moved here we had a bedroom for the TV room and a room to go to bed in that is about it. Slowly though more rooms began to take shape and we found ourselves returning to some sense of normalcy and routines. Still missing though was our time in prayer and God's Word. We talked about it here and there, we wanted to but we also liked our private time with God. Next I started using the wheelchair and going to Sunday school with Junior in the same class. Periodically we would pull out the weekly study guide our class uses and go through it and then we let life get in the way. We started again last night studying the lesson after a serious talk and I am praying that this is the start of getting back into the Word together. We discovered Sunday evening is not a bad time and I believe it is going to stick this time. We rest most of the afternoon on Sunday before heading back to church for a Bible study and we believe we can come home and study the lesson for the next week at this point. With the craziness of the world anymore I have a need to keep drawing closer to God as an individual and as a couple. Once our Bible study time is a habit I am praying we will begin prayer time again. Not only do we learn God's will we also learn what is going on in each other's heart and I believe this will help us face my disease of Parkinson's head on but I will know what Junior needs, how to be a united front as we face the community and world around us. We both know that a marriage needs constant attention for it to continue to grow deep.May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 10, 2016

Greetings My Friend, I am writing with a heating pad on my back. I have met the rigid muscles I have read about full force. Back in the spring I was introduced to a back that seemed to freeze up, at that time I did not know I had PD or what rigid muscles were, today I get it. I noticed in the spring that if I bent forward for long periods of time that my back froze up. I thought I was out of shape real bad, I recall deciding to not sweep the floors with a broom because the constant bending over stressed my waist and back out too. Yesterday it seemed my entire back decided to go rigid and the process of thawing it out was a very long one. After a rest of a few hours I got up to move around only to be met the rigidness again. I do not have a bathtub to soak in so I need to find other ways to quiet the overly stiff muscles down, right now the heating pad seems to be doing the trick. My concern this morning as wrote in my journal was how can I be pleasant in light of serious discomfort. I have met many cranky people who were in major pain so I understand the crankiness. I want to be a pleasant person overall especially when I am out shopping. Retail people put up with all kinds of cranky customers and my goal is to be a bit of sunshine in an otherwise difficult day. When I got to the part in my journal about what I wanted to talk to God about I asked Him in a round about way how I can bring Him glory especially when I hurt real bad. I made much the same choice after my divorce as well, I had seen women who were so rough due to what went on in their marriage and frankly I did not want to be like that either. The world is ugly enough without my adding to the darkness of a bad attitude where ever I was. So far I am tolerating the discomfort and I am able to be quiet as I deal with it. Usually I will mention to Junior what I am dealing with so he knows to leave me alone and he does. I appreciate that a whole lot. When I am able to be friendly I open up to my generally cheerfulness again. Now that this rigidness can strike me out of now where I am concerned with how to deal with the huge discomfort I can go through and still be pleasant. I more than likely will not be wanting to be silly or overly chatty but at least I would want to be pleasant. I believe that God will help me through this process of trying to be pleasant just as He did when I got divorced. I had a few moments of craziness but in general I was decent with most people. I do admit I got testy when I had to deal with my ex, there was a lot of hurt and anger I had with him. Once again I find I reach my older years the time when I thought life would be good, no major new lessons to learn since I thought I had learned them all by now only to find that life is a learning lesson until my last breath. I am grateful I have had to learn how to be flexible with the moves and a new culture in the south. My new lesson now is asking God to show how I give Him glory by teaching me how to react with great distress in my life. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love

November 8, 2016

Greetings My Friends, I sense God wants me to write about my faith journey and I have been doing this now for 8 years. In my morning Bible study time recently I was drawn to a passage that reminded me to be truthful in my journey of faith. "....but let your "yes" be yes and your "no" be no...." In sharing my faith I need to admit those times that the road I am on is a difficult one and right now the journey of Parkinson's disease is a rather scary journey. I journal my daily Bible reading and I am finding it so helpful, today as I wrote about what is on my mind and wrote my prayer I found myself focused on the end stages of PD. I will be an invalid, not able to care for myself at all and that is scary to me. The more I move into this disease I will regain my tremors only it will be with both hands along with other body parts, this too concerns me. Recently I have found how to live with so many things and at present I am living life and enjoying it. I am in a safe relationship, I am gaining confidence to do new things and learning how to do old things in a new way. I have emotionally accepted life right where it is at without some people I have longed for in it. Life is good other than my gait issues. I have medication that keeps my hand tremors down which allows me to write (well print), to keyboard, to sew and so many other things. I have accepted the wheelchair use which is only when I am out in public since I am unsure of my gait issues and falling. Last week I received the diagnosis of PD and part of me is fearful another part knows God is with me. After I wrote out my thoughts and prayer I read the Bible's daily reading. My reading program reads out of 4 different books each day which helps me stay focused and absorb better. When I finished I had the overwhelming thought that I needed to focus on today with an each day attitude. Today I can do all of the things I mentioned and I need to be thankful, even grateful that I am able to be where I am. I need to read to understand and then seek to find ways to stay on top of my disability like doing balancing exercises, building my core muscles and learning new things. When the perceived concern which is really fear for me tries to entice me to focus on the negative I need to lift that moment up in prayer asking God for support. I need to have an attitude of gratitude even if I am struggling. At the end of the day I find the more I lean into the struggle I will find a strength I never knew I had and without Jesus I would not have had. I need to live with the hope I received the day I accepted Jesus as my Savior a hope of one day receiving a body that is not broken and afraid. Right now though lessons are preparing me strengthening me for a day to come. Next I find myself looking to the cross again. God had me do that when I first began my faith journey and I balked at having to look at all the pain Jesus went through. I finally gave in and my years of praying through Jesus' last moments helped me grow in endurance and strength. I found hope instead of wishing. I am going along real positively right now and the thought pops into my head "what about..." Right after that I ask God to help me not go there and I forgot what the last part of the "what about" was. Jesus was afraid, he was anxious with the disciples and was sweating blood as He asked Father God "take this cup of suffering from me, not my will but your will." Jesus did not want to go through all of that but He did. I see Father God sending angels to comfort Jesus and I know I will receive comfort in my journey of PD. When Jesus came back from the grave, He was not angry but very loving, He showed the disciples many things and I find that if Jesus was okay with all that He endured I will be good too. For now though I am on a journey that is scary at times and I will do my best to share how God is working in my life and to grow through each stage of PD. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 5, 2016

Greetings My Friend, My niece Alicia called me this morning, it is the first time in several months I have heard from her and it is always a joy to talk with her. She is married, has a family, works full time and is going to school so time for her is limited. We keep up with each other in between phone visits on Facebook or Instagram, we like different statues and it is a way to touch in between phone visits. When I found out I had Parkinson's Disease I texted her and we chatted for a bit that way. She was at work and does phone calls for her job which means we talked between the calls. Today I got to say it to someone who loves and I was surprised how easy it was to say. I also moved off of the need to talk about it rather quickly which surprised me. In my older years I love being checked up on from time to time. I need to know that my concerns are real and my life is important to someone. Alicia has been able to put up with moments of rambling when I hurt and rejoices over my accomplishments. Alicia also calls her mother more often than me and this too makes me happy, she understands the need her mother has to hear from her. Many young people do not seem to understand this need but see the older person as a drag on their time and energy. That is sad too. I admit that when I go out and come home most days I go over to the phone to and check caller ID for a potential phone call from my children, which is rare to never anymore. My heart grieves for a moment and then I get busy with loving the fur family Junior and I have adopted. I find myself thanking God for the family He has started placing in our lives. We have Debbie and Boogie, our church family whom we love to pieces and our fur family and one day I discovered that life is rather enjoyable. The move from Michigan and the 2nd move from Haysi has upset my balance in life quite a bit and now that our home is more of a home these days that unbalanced feeling is leaving. Junior and I have been happy with the cooler weather so we can take Daisy and Brendy along for our errands. The girls give me company while Junior runs into some of the stores without me and we feel like we can spoil our girls with little treats. When we get home we have a brood of fur children waiting for us to be loved on. Roscoe our rescue cat is slowly working his way out of the spare bedroom to mingle more with Junior and I. We seem to have made our little family which gives us comfort, someone to care about and for and it even helps us with our PTSD. Since we have been in VA I find the setting, the fur family keeps us calmer and quieter these days. I see that God has had us move here for many awesome reasons even if getting settled seems to have taken forever. My lesson is that God has invited me into the Family of God and if my earthly family is distant I now know that my heavenly family is always near. Ruth sent me a reassuring message when I missed church a few weeks ago and it meant so much. My on line family encouraged me as I faced the diagnosis of PD and a trip to the ER had people praying for me. God has taught Junior and I to reach out to others more often in acts of service and in the process He has shown us His faithful love. With each lesson learned I find myself growing and loving even in the hurts of life. God is all I truly need. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 3, 2016

Greetings My Friend, Today I thought I would work most of the day pinning the quilt and after 2 naps I started the long process of pinning. Some of the process is taking out the teeny tiny stitches that went off course when I tried to sew the seams on the new sewing machine. It took me a while to learn how to set the tension so the stitches were tiny. The line of stitching was hard to keep straight and after the 2nd row I knew I wanted to do something else. A little Youtube and Pinterest research I found a process called tying off a quilt. To get a better idea I asked Susan at Fabric House in Pound and she was a patient teacher as she showed me how to pin first and then the process of tying off the quilt. I am able to stand and I do fairly well leaning into the table as I pin but I do tire out so I need to take breaks. I am working on Saturday after a week of baking, sewing and having an over night visitor. As much as I rest during the week the weekend means I am tired which is why it took 2 naps before I could get going on my pinning project. Part of me wants to ditch the pinning routine and tie off the quilt in the center of each block but I will not I want to do the best I can. I am not a quitter in general but there are times I walk away never to return which what I did with sewing years ago. I messed up a skirt I was working on this week. I finally gave up because I when I realized I needed to make a full panel to make the skirt fit I had cut up the last piece of material so I could not make a panel. On another day with a lot of conversations with God I made another 2 skirts, one fuller by adding a panel and one more streamline. I have started asking God to guide me with this quilt, with other sewing projects. Actually it came to me to ask God for help after trying to figure out how to do it on my own. With the quilt I have been talking to God since the row of machine stitching went off track so I need to take out stitching, some I am able to leave alone as I move into the project. A few nights this week I sat watching TV ripping out some of the stitches. Today I pinned and ripped out stitching while working at the kitchen table where I have the quilt laid out. This is the standing I have done on and off for a few hours. Right beside me is Daisy wanting her share of loving on as I work. I love it as I talk to her fussing about it in baby talk. She gives her little bark when I have not fussed with her in a while. It makes me giggle as I rub her. I do not get upset because she is keeping me focused and calm in this endeavor. She quiets me a lot. Junior is my encourager too, he believes in me and frankly that helps me so much. Forever and a day I only heard that I was not capable, was too dense etc. so all of this encouragement opens me up to keep going. I am learning that I am capable of so much more than I ever dreamed of and at times I see I began my journey of venturing into new projects was that long ago dance with God when I learned that I was loved and had value. He also pointed me to state my thoughts and not blend my words into the woodwork of life, be upfront even if others do not agree. I still have moments when I want to blend back into the woodwork of life but today overall I try the harder projects, say the harder to hear things because I am accepted as I am and for what I do. I have given myself permission to make mistakes and this quilt has a few spots that are not "just right" but that is okay. I am trying which means it is not a dreamed about project never started. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 1, 2016

Greetings My Friend, "let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil:hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Out do one another in showing honor." I stop first at "let love be genuine", mainly the word genuine lingers the most, I think on this and I come up with do not be fake, do not love for what you can get but let love be genuine. I love with all my heart I think and then I am convicted, no I have loved because I was afraid to be alone, not wanted and basically I gave my soul away to whoever showed kindness to me for a minute or two. I had a desire to love someone so that the broken pieces in them would respond to my love and appreciate me all the more. Once more I hear "let love be genuine" and I realize that even though I thought I was full of love the genuine kind, I truly was not as loving as I thought I was. The is a sobering moment! That was the past I think so I do an introspection of myself and I ask "is my love genuine now?" To be honest I do not think I ever met true love until I met Jesus in the pit of my life. The strange thing is Jesus told me that I am special, I matter and by the way I love those warts you possess too. Wow! I remember those things that were dark and hidden down so deep I was barely aware of them. One day brought that secret sin up and boy was I ashamed. I did not want to face God with that sin but God told me to trust Him and He reminded me that He loves me even with that secret sin, "okay, I thought?" The strange thing is God took my hand and began a journey with me walking away from that dark and deep sin that plagued my soul. Later when I reflected I was amazed that the desire for that sin was gone and in its place I had an admiration for God and His power. Soon I started looking into my life and lifting up those other dark sins I had and God graciously began walking with me teaching me how to give them up and showed me the destruction that they played in my soul. The more I was accepted and the more I walked away from, the more my idea of loved changed. I saw my need to be a co-dependent, enabler and that these traits were not healthy at all. I learned Agape love "seeking another's highest good" and wanted to learn how to love in this manner. God has been teaching me this wonderful trait and I have so much more to learn, to last me a lifetime. God showed me what He did with His chosen people and told me to write, to warn and I have tried to stay faithful to this. God told me to use my life and write about His saving grace in my life of the hope of Jesus to all people. God has given me courage when I had to write things that are hard for me to do. In the process I keep loving God and His love keeps reflecting back in my heart. As my thoughts return to where I started I see the difference between loving in the flesh and never finding that empty space in me filled. Next I see that my desire is to enter into each day loving as I have been loved by God. Today I love all people and I learn to not love in dysfunctional ways. I like that. I find again God's ways are the best and the Holy Bible is a valuable book for each of us to read and get to know God be thankful for our Lord Jesus' strength. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet