November 29 2014

November 29 2014 Greetings My Friend, Thoughts rolling through my mind. I am sensing a theme in life from the Bible. I find that my faith journey often follows the same steps as I see happening as Abraham steps out in faith and goes to a land he has never known. I go back to Noah even when he is building the ark and others won’t listen to God’s warnings. So goes my faith. First I believed God was real but did not know Him. I learned the truths but did not understand. I see Abraham believing God going to Canaan forgetting that God had provided for him and trying to do it on his own only to find that God was able to take care of all his needs. In the end Abraham and Sarah did have a son when they were well past their childbearing years. I see Isaac and Jacob and the Israelites all taking the lessons and growing in a deeper faith journey. My faith journey has gone in much the same direction. I asked God to “help me” and He provided only to forget soon afterward. I found God’s provision and began to slowly absorb the lessons that God is always there. As the Israelites left Egypt God gave them the 10 commandments and other laws. They were to circumcise the male infants. It is a cutting away of skin. It is painful but if I understand right it is also healthy for the male as well. Next I learn that I need to circumcise my heart and I see the correlation in a physical removal of skin to cutting away layers of gunk from my spiritual heart. In the beginning of a faith journey we are not able to understand our spiritual life with God thus He teaches us through the physical life. As we absorb these lessons from the Bible we can begin to walk in faith. I don’t know why it was taught to us through years, centuries in fact but I find comfort in reading about these actual events and then applying them today in my life. I am thankful to find people who struggled as we do now that were able to learn, to grow and to be forgiven. It helps me to keep going even in the hardest darkest of days in my life. Many people talk about the wrath of God of the OT. For me I see God’s great love and patience and perfection in teaching us to be in a relationship with Him. He gave us choice and we chose to sin so now He teaches us to chose Him. It is a decision we all must make. Many people have to hit bottom before they find their way to God. That is how it happened for me. As I have accepted Jesus as my Savior I find I am growing and changing. So God took me right where I was and then in love He has taught me and I am changing because of my love for God now. Last week I understood eternal life a little more fully. When we truly accept Jesus as our Savior and repent with a sincere heart we begin to enter at that moment into eternity. For years I felt I was learning and growing for eternity and that is true but I also have entered into eternity so at my death I am still in eternity. Some won’t accept Jesus and repent their eternity won’t be pleasant but in accepting Jesus I learn I will live with God forever so I’ve started this journey this side of heaven and will continue on. Next I see Jesus after the resurrection. He has a body, He talks, walks, eats and moves about much the same way we do today only He does a few other things, like walk through walls. That uncertainty I had for a long time is leaving me since I understand my physical body and heaven means I will still move like I do today only in a body that won’t decay. All this sounds good to me so I will continue on in faith learning, growing, loving, serving and giving. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 27 2014

November 27 2014 Greetings My Friend Today is Thanksgiving Day, a day to give thanks to God. I learned in school the pilgrims were thankful that first year that they had made it. The Indians helped them grow corn. I learned that the Pilgrims came to America to have the opportunity to worship God the way they wanted to. When I look at this holiday in that context I see a deeper understanding of being thankful. Many pilgrims died that first year. The journey over was difficult. In all of this sadness and struggle though the pilgrims found much to be thankful for. I learn this lesson day in and day out even today. My holidays are generally not surrounded by close family members for a variety of reasons. This makes me sad but in the ensuing years I’ve learned to enjoy the holidays with or without the perceived “family” Hallmark moments. I’ve met Jesus on a deeper level. Usually we go to church and for some reason in church I meet God on a more intimate level. Many holidays Junior and I go home and I make us a nice meal. We talk to family on the phone and at bedtime we are happy to have had another year together. It works out real nice. Through the years I have learned to take Thanksgiving day into my everyday. In the early years of my faith journey I started writing out 10 things I was grateful for each day. As I learned to pray I made part of my prayer time about thanking God for the largest and smallest things of my life. We have a home, have had one. We have heat, air conditioning, an income, food to eat, clothes to wear for each season and it is hard to feel so all alone and unwanted. I am also learning that God gives us what we need. I am learning the difference between wants and needs because sometimes I think my wants are needs. When I break down the wants and needs I start to see that the smallest things in life are so much more important. I may want a big house but I don’t need it. In my older years a big house would soon become a burden to keep up and pay utilities for. A small house is just right. I may think having a nice diamond is a sign of my husband’s affection for me. I learn that the ring isn’t the true sign of love but it is the little things he does that means way more. I have an idea about how part of the house should look. My husband listens to my idea, implements it and by doing that he is showing me my value. That means way more than a fancy ring. As I learn to differentiate my needs and wants I find the truly valuable things in life. It is those little tiny moments and things that bless me the most. I grow even more in my thankful journey as I learn the difference. Today when I want something and it does not come to pass I know to look deeper to see if it is a want or a need. The Holy Spirit helps me to learn the difference and as I accept this difference I find peace in having my needs met and I am able to let the wants go by the wayside. God also has given me a want from time to time and I learn I am able to let go if need be and enjoy the needs more so. God only wants our best and in the end the needs of life is truly our best. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 25 2014

November 25 2014 Greetings My Friend, I woke up with severe hip pain yesterday. I could hardly walk and I decided it was time to go to the ER. Before leaving I asked for prayers on Facebook. The ER is 40 minutes from our home so I would peek on my cell phone from time to time and I saw the “praying” etc. comments which helped me. After the x-rays were taken and looked at the doctor came in to tell me that there were no broken bones. Just that fact alone made me happy. He prescribed a muscle relaxer and a moderate pain medication. I spent the rest of the day in my recliner sleeping. Today I am fairly much pain free. I am stiffening up a bit as I write so I am sitting on a heating pad which seems to help also. As a last resort I may take another muscle relaxer, we will see. I woke up this morning full of energy. I’ve cleaned, swept, made fudge, a crock pot of soup and now I am relaxing and writing. Junior finished the end table and shelving unit he was making and has them in place. My agenda was to organize and make pretty these two units. I found some crocheted doilies to hang over the edges of the shelves. Next are baskets filled with things I need like note paper, bedtime medications and a tea cup of pens. It looks real nice and I am so proud of my work. This is the latter part of my day so I am in wind down mode. I now sit in my chair taking in our home. I have a contentment with the decorating part. Junior builds and I decorate and it works out rather nicely. I consistently tell Junior what a great job he is doing and he in turn tells me how nice the house is looking. We are giving gifts to each other in this remodeling and decorating mode. I like to think that I am doing a good job of making our home “pretty” and “comfortable.” He likes building me/us a home that says “Junior and Janet” all over it. Learning to give gifts has been a wonderful journey. For the longest time I felt gifts were tangible objects. Lately I see that the best gifts are the ones given from the heart and don’t necessarily cost a lot of money if at all. I give Junior a gift of my health by exercising and he does the same for me. Our goal is to have the best quality of life for as long as possible. I give Junior home cooked meals often to nearly daily anymore. The good food sustains him as he works around our home. Junior gives me the gift of washing dishes since he doesn’t want a dishwasher and I am sensitive to the soap. These little gift giving moments are precious to me and I know Junior likes them also. He loves picking flowers from the garden and placing them in a vase next to where I sit. His face beams when I notice and thank him. Through the years we’ve bought each other presents as well. I know that Junior loves tools and flashlights so I get these for him. He likes to see a certain style of clothing on me so he picks out clothes from time to time and frankly I love them. He has learned it is not the price tag that matters to me as much as the thought. He is happy that if he finds something on a discount rack that I will be happy. It is the little things in life that truly make life sweet. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 22 2014

November 22 2014 Greetings My Friend Junior finished making the end table that is now between our recliners. He has an edge built up so the landline phone won’t be knocked off as easily. There are shelves underneath to store things we use frequently like our remote etc. Once more I am excited about what Junior has created and the impatience of wanting things done already is gone. I have learned to accept progress as it comes and not worry myself that it isn’t being done any quicker than he can go. I am thankful that this impatience in me is gone. I realize a lot of my desire to have things done quicker was to have others see what he/we have created. Today all I truly care about is our enjoyment. At times I wondered about some of the work he insisted on doing. To me he needed to concentrate only on the inside. A year ago last summer Junior built us a deck off the back of our house. I spent many days out on the deck soaking in God’s creation of woods, wild animals and such. I learned to sit out on the deck and each time I came into the house I found myself doing a little something. That was the start of my recovery in the energy department. It has been very slow progress but today I am moving about and resting a bit less. I can’t work for hours anymore before resting now I can work a good half hour and some days a bit longer. I now sit rest and then start again. The deck was what helped me get started. This past summer Junior started adding to the front porch extending it some more. At first I wasn’t all excited about it. As he extended it though I found myself going to the porch more to watch Junior, to find areas where I could work and create things. The kitchen has some rough cabinets in place and a stove top built in but it has been stalled. These days it resembles enough of a working kitchen that I am able to cook more efficiently so I’m good with it. After the windows were installed on the enclosed porch we saw a new idea start to form in our mind. We saw that a wall could be torn down and our kitchen space could be expanded. At present he is thinking about changing the footprint of our kitchen. Junior has given me a good working space in which to cook. The countertops are not in place as of yet only a rough wood top is in place. Right now I line the tops of the cabinets with glass cutting boards so that I have a clean surface to work with. The stovetop beats a burner plate anyday. I wait for the day the kitchen is finished but not impatiently as in the past. I have a good portion of the house looking comfortable and clean. I’ve decorated and organized to my hearts content. I am able to give Junior a comfortably clean home to stop his day’s work and relax in. I call him in for lunch and dinner most days now. He likes that a lot. We have set up comfortable alone time routines and come together time routines. We also take off on errands together once or twice a week. All of this works out rather nicely. Someday Junior will finish the house. As homeowners most of our adult lives we also know that once the renovation is done that there will be things to do each year to keep our home in good condition. This should not be as intense and it will keep Junior busy enough. We heard a comment from someone as we moved in to this place that they would not want to do all the work that this has required. I believe that God knew what we needed and gave us this job for a few reasons. Junior wasn’t ready to retire so this has been his job. Once it is done I think he will settle into retirement more so. God has allowed health issues to overtake me and today I am able to be comfortable staying home and finding enjoyment in being a housewife. I have a part time job of writing and I love it. Chances are if I had not been made to slow down I’d never have fully gotten into being a housewife like I am now or even write. I’d be off and running until I collapsed at night and I’d not have the satisfaction I now have. So in the end I see that God always knows what each of us need and will put us on that track if we are willing to listen to Him. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 20 2014

November 20 2014 Greetings My Friend, During the last year or so I have that familiar feeling I found from time to time as a child. The memory is something stored way back in the past. Our bedroom is the memory of a bedroom from long ago, not mine but my Grandmothers. I also fast forward to my mother in law’s bedroom. These rooms were clean, neat, the bed made. I never knew such neatness in my own childhood home. I strived to recreate that neatness in my children’s home, I wasn’t able to bring the peace into that home. It was fairly clean, I had smells of baking but the peace wasn’t there. Today as I walk by the bedroom I understand that comfort I felt way back then and I know it deeply now. Our home is clean again now that I have overcome. I don’t have the rushed feelings of keeping things in order that I did when I worked, went to school and raised a family. My heart is deeply satisfied being a homemaker today. I love making life comfortable for Junior, even our fur children. I know the fur children could live in chaos and not mind but I love that they have a picked up home, food to eat and lots of love. I believe this is the deep seated need within me to nurture. I have traveled a long way to get to this point in my life. I no longer think that by being clean I will automatically have love and devotion. I felt as my children were growing up that they’d relish the smells of their childhood and clean sheets on their bed every week. Those things were lacking in my growing up years so I tried hard to make sure they had that. I learn again that life isn’t learning the things I do but the deep giving from my heart that is felt. My children had more than I had financially. I was afraid to leave abuse partly because I feared poverty more so. I lived in both and poverty scared me more so I stayed and fought and cried and life was miserable. I did not know what peace looked like or felt like. I knew that I did not feel happy at all. For some reason I thought I was too stupid to figure out such a simple thing, how to find peace. My peace truly came when I gave up and quit trying to figure life out on my own. I gave my broken pieces to God and one step at a time God taught me what love looked like, healthy love. He taught me that quiet times are okay that it doesn’t mean a prelude to another bout of hurt and anger. These days I can sit quietly next to Junior and I don’t panic. I’ve truly learned that men don’t tend to have a constant dialogue going in their brains. They like quiet. When I get to be rather talkitive I wear Junior out. I have learned to use up my words throughout the day in other ways. I have conversations with Facebook friends, I have phone conversations and there have been times I just talk and talk to God. He doesn’t mind that I haven’t used up all my need to use words so I give Him my excess I can’t hold. I sense He laughs with me, pats me on the back and sends me into the next moments. God doesn’t mind teaching me a lesson more than once. He doesn’t call me stupid or berates me. He mainly repeats Himself and I begin to “hear” and change or learn. Next God put Junior in my life and he teaches me much like God does. I love that Junior also looks to me to teach him some things. He doesn’t only tell me that I am smart or pretty he respects me in a way that I know he believes what he says. In some ways I am a late bloomer and that is okay, I’ve learned that I have value and worth and those that did not see it in me have missed out. I go forth into life with confidence, not mine but confidence that God knows more than anyone else my worth. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 18 2014

November 18 2014 Greetings My Friend, I want what I want when I want it and how I want it. I’m still learning that what I want may not always be the best for me. I am still learning to “let go let God.” When we upset our whole life’s routines and moved not once but two times in two years I found myself wanting to feel the warm rhythms of a routine day to day life again. As we found the house we bought I wanted to renovate for a certain amount of time and then I wanted it to be done with. Oh then the disabilities were glaring me in the face and I wanted to do the right steps to get back to that point that I once was AND that did not happen. Slowly though life began to settle and routines again found their way into my rhythm of life. Each day was awesome again even the hard days were so worth living and dealing with. I felt the familiar again and found myself moving and doing and loving life. I was in awe of God and His hand in prompting us to move to a place we’d never even thought of moving to. I saw how it is “just right” for us. I saw that all the changes opened my eyes to doing things in a new and different way. I felt so secure once more. Then God asked me if I was relying on Him or on my routines and the rhythms of life. I felt I was giving my “all” to God and trying hard to live His way. I was and I was not. For me routines define me. I don’t mean for them to but they do. With a mind that can spider web, go into all kinds of distractions and such routines help me keep order and to accomplish things. Without order and routines I am a rabbit going off on any trail that pops into view. So Monday’s I tear apart the furniture to clean behind them, Tuesdays I clean the bathroom and my week goes along in its routines. Our home is looking good these days, there is order, meals are being made regularly and I am even growing in my faith. It feels real good to be honest. Then one day God seems to say “Can you change the time frame of writing and doing household chores?” Now I don’t just answer sure I begin a discussion on “It is working and I like the feel and what harm am I doing….” God says again “Can you change the time frame?” I repeat what I just said and all of a sudden I am in a writing time frame and no words are coming and I feel panicky and I get up and tear apart an area that just isn’t working out right yet. I work at this, make lunch, eat lunch, take a nap and say some prayers. I wake up refreshed and ready to write. Surprisingly the “words” begin to fly as I type and I am amazed at changing the time I write with the time I do some housework. Routines are good in fact they are great but for me anyway I can get too caught up almost obsessive compulsive about them. I inadvertently begin to rely more on my routine than I do God and here goes a new lesson to learn. God took all my comfort levels away and I found life to work out and then He gave me my comforts again. This time though I learned to “stop” a bit quicker even though I went through the “questioning” I did stop and do what I was directed to do. Hopefully the next time God wants me to do something new and different I can “just do it” without all the back and forth. If not God is patient and will stick to His reasons and I know that in the end I will do what He tells me to do. He only wants my highest good. Sometimes my highest good means change directions even for a moment or forever. God is always right and in the end that is such a comfort. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 15 2014

November 15 2015 Greetings My Friend, One of the things I find by reading the Bible daily is when “a teacher” teaches me something that is not in the Bible I now know it. To be honest I’d rather hear the “feel good messages” more than the reality of what God says at times. I have been taught that “hell and Satan” don’t exist. I’m sorry but Jesus talked about both. He even spent time in the wilderness with Satan. Satan kept tempting Jesus with things of this world and Jesus rejected those gifts for God’s truth. Jesus also taught from the O.T. and I find so many rich lessons by reading the O.T. I meet King David each year as I read the Bible and I learn that he messed up big time. He slept with another man’s wife, had her husband killed and when Nathan the Prophet called him on his evilness, King David repented with a sincere heart. King David had to pay a price for his actions but he stayed close to God and God stayed close to King David. To me King David is very real and in that reality I find peace. I find that God loves me, will keep me and also show me how to walk away from things that truly can hurt me. I do have to have a sincere heart to grow and learn and even to face my faults. I learn this lesson in both the O.T. and the N.T. When God says He doesn’t like certain things I know He means that. I also learn that if I agree with God no matter my sin that God will show me how to walk away from those things which hinder my relationship with Him. That means He does not like an adulterer but will forgive and adulterer if they seek forgiveness and walk away from that choice. It is hard for sure but over time the need to commit adultery goes away and a life of seeking to walk a more Godly life begins to consume the person. God doesn’t like the sin but He will forgive the sin if you are willing to face it, admit it and seek to walk away from it. If you justify it then you will find yourself knee deep in the ugliness of it. God has given us a choice to do life His way or our way. There will be a time you will have to pay for the choice you make. I learn these things from reading my Bible. I also learn how to be Junior’s wife by reading the Bible and prayer. If you read the Proverbs 31 woman it can be intimidating. Through the years I find that no two women have to be exactly the same. We need to care for our families in ways that work for us and with God. The norm in my childhood years was for women to stay home. In my family Dad had polio. Mom went to work to support the family and later when Dad was able he found a job he could handle. He made less money but he worked to help support the family. In the Proverbs 31 woman I see a woman who will work to provide for her home also. So staying home with a family works for some families and both parents working also works. I am grateful that Mom did go to work to support our family. I learned to let go of only one way of doing life, the wife at home and entered into the workforce as needed. Today I am a wife retired and at home. I can’t do the amount of work I’ve done in the past but I am able to keep the house in order, a warm meal on the table for Junior after he works hard. My time as a wage earner is not needed now. My health won’t let me either. So I work for my family in a way that I can. I also learn that I want to be “loved” and my husband feels loved when I am respecting him in the work he does. The Bible teaches me the things I need to learn and to ask God what He wants me to be and do. When I am in tuned to God’s Word I hear him so much more so. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet