December 31 2015

December 31 2015 Greetings My Friend “Am I closer to God at the end of the year than I was at the start of the year?” For a few days I have started sifting through my thoughts to see where I stand in my faith journey. Today I fully contemplate my faith journey in detail. With the start of 2015 I was discovering that the deep pain of strained relationship with my daughter was not eating me alive anymore. I feel like I gave it the one more look and I see that as hurt as she is I know that I did my best during her growing up years. I could not leave craziness until I knew what stable was and what it looked like. When the time came to leave I did so with a satisfaction of “I tried everything I knew to try” and it was the end. At that point I began a new journey of faith and growing. I learned what love truly is and did my best to love as God was loving me. I mourn these days but like in death time passes and the memory never fully leaves but somehow life continues on. With this new nugget growing in me this year I have found my mental health better than it has ever been. After a few years of deep introspective work I understand my limitations more fully and I avoid triggers as much as I can. I have learned to do old things in new ways so I don’t feel limited by my limitations. At the same time I am open to keep digging into my my introspective thoughts so that I can keep growing within my limitations. The heat of summer brought the usual struggle with asthma. I have learned to lean into it, allow myself to sleep, to move slower while coping with congestion. As summer gave way to fall my congestion was leaving but I struggled more so trying to move about, I had a weakness that was making me weak and walking on my own steam was giving way to using my walker. It hit me that I had another problem besides asthma and finally went in to see the doctor. A short stint in the hospital to rule out heart trouble my doctor then gave me another medication. This medication has helped tremendously. I continue to be on an upward swing. As I look upon these events I see God’s hand on me. I can say God has given me the courage to keep on going, to face the scary moments with courage and fear is kept at bay. When I was in a panic state my doctor noticed and gave me medication to quiet my concerns down. At this point I struggle to overcome panic on my own and only with prayer. I am on medication that helps me and I feel God has put this medication in my path because some of “wires” in my brain have been permanently damaged so the medication keeps those “wires” in check. I have been asking God due to concerns about medication. To be honest I feel so much stronger these days and God’s blessing that this is what I need. My comments to a few close friends in recent days finds me telling them that for the first time in my life my emotional health is the best it has ever has been. My day to day life allows me to be, do and make decisions without the constant questioning of myself as I have for most of my life. I am older and I am okay with this. Junior and my relationship is closer and we both keep taking our marriage to God. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

December 29 2015

December 29 2015 Greetings My Friend The question was “What would you give Baby Jesus?” On my Facebook page “Lettersfromjanet” I thought that I would give Agape love, to seek another person’s highest good the same way God seeks my highest good. For some reason this question is still rolling around in my mind. I recall a long ago conversation with my Father that he often quoted to me, “It is better to give than to receive.” I bought this concept for many years and I am not opposed to it either but somewhere during my lifetime a new thought came to me. I often repeated the “it is better to give than to receive” thought to myself. I thought of the years that we as a family were given to because of Dad having polio and assistance was not easily gotten since we moved back to Michigan which at that time meant you had to live there 6 months. It was made harder because Dad’s parents refused to help us because of reasons beyond my understanding. I grew up married had children and at times life was a struggle. I recall times reaching out to neighbors or friends and at other times neighbors and friends reached out to us. It was during a back and forth of reaching out that the new thought started forming. It took a while but one day the thought had words, “if no one received then no one would be able to give.” I saw that in order to give thier needs to be someone to give to. My thinking started to delve into the idea that at times we need to receive in order to allow someone else to give. Along the way through the years I met many people who felt that they were to be given to and they did not need to give back. We all know that many organizations have a group of people who make the circuit in order to receive. They take and take and take some more and then when they get a “no” they are offended. When I knew that this was a problem I struggled with “how much should I give to someone” and when does trying to help begin to hinder that person’s good. Around this time I learned another thought, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” With this thinking I understood that sometimes giving means opening doors for the person to walk away from being in need to helping themselves. Giving just to gives tend to create a climate of “entitlement.” I myself have run into those in my circle of acquaintances that started to expect to be able to have a portion of my money, time and possessions. I quickly knew that if I kept giving all that I would not have enough to sustain myself much less have enough to give to others. This did not make sense to me. Slowly through the years I have learned that God does not require me to give to each every person that crosses my path that has a need. More recently I find myself asking God if I am to give and God is faithful and teaches me when to give and when not to give. I also find myself going to God when I am in need. Many times my talks with God is enough. Sometimes though God brings another person into my life to walk beside me, give to me in my need. In time I find the moment that I can move on and once more I am able to reach out to give again. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

December 26 2015

December 26 2015 Greetings My Friend Today is one of those days I feel the student in me responding to my Bible study lesson. I am reading in Psalm 139 “ Search me O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. I wrote the above passage in my journal under the heading “Scripture-What does God say. Each word as I wrote was speaking to me to write it down, to mull it over. I felt myself longing for God to search my own heart. I wanted to open myself deeply to God. The first entry was for me a sense of feeling and desire. I read on as I listened to the day’s reading going on to Job 28, Isaiah 50 and finally to Revelation 10. I am following an ESV study that is working for me right now. When the reading is through I take my pen in hand again. I ask the Holy Spirit the next heading in the Journal, “What does the Holy Spirit say?” I “hear” some words that come and go and then I hear what I am to write down which is “Keep my heart open to God and hear His correction-know that correction is His love seeking my highest good.” The next heading is “How can I serve others today.” I pause when these words come to me, “Don’t live in the past. Don’t live for the future. Live in today and relish today even if it is hard.” When I finish writing this statement I know that for most of my life I have lived in the past and then floated to the future hardly if ever stopping to rest in the day. I kept trying to resolve the past, to fix it. When it seemed impossible to fix the past I would jump to the future with dreams of how peaceful and good life will be. It was a major struggle to stay put in “today.” “Today” was as painful as yesterday was and I thought if I could go back and fix the past then today would change and my future would be bright. That long ago day on my bed one night crying to God with all the pain of a lifetime I finally met today. I prayed my prayer asking God to be in a good marriage, asking for a man who took his faith seriously. After the prayer I went to sleep. I got up the next day and entered into that day. I left the prayer somewhere deep inside of me and just went through each moment. My trips back and forth became less important as I struggled to live, to make a living to support myself, to find some new friends. I did have my moments of the back and forth living but at a snail’s pace it was leaving me. Today almost almost 2 decades later I realize that I no longer live in the past or the future very much. I remember my past, use it from time time to learn a lesson and then let it go. Today is exciting in its own self that the future waits to unfold of it’s own time and will. I see the healing in all those tiny little steps and marvel at God’s wise teaching. One of the best lessons for me in learning to live in the present was learning to be thankful and tell God why I am thankful. Thankful prayers today take place writing down things to be thankful for. Each time I go through a list of things to be thankful slowly I find myself marveling at all that I truly have. I am able to let go of those long ago hurts easier and the more I take myself through these moments the easier it is to stay in the present. The more I read my Bible the more I see how God taught His people to do this, to remember the good things God has done. Today I take myself to a thankful mode when life is handing me a load of lemons. This thankful moment soon leads me to coming back to the present, to remember other times has helped me and a quietness comes over me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Jane

December 24 2015

December 24 2015 Greetings My Friend The anticipation grows as I attend services and begin the journey to Bethlehem. I anxiously wait for the reading of the accounts of Jesus’ birth and I can feel the excitement as the angels sing about God’s Son birth this very night. Each year I long for this moment of celebration. I feel the hope that comes with a child’s birth. I remember the hope I had at my children’s birth. I remember soothing them with tender words as they cried their first cries upon entering the world. I remember unwrapping them from their blankets looking at their tiny fingers and toes. I marveled at their grip on my finger. I see these moments when I look upon the birth of Jesus. Through the years I absorb the fact that Jesus lived our life in the flesh. He knows all the emotions, the trials of life. Once more I ask God to forgive me from all those years ago when I told Him that He did not understand. I know I have been forgiven but I understand deeply now. Jesus knows. The Wise men bring Jesus gifts and I believe this is why we give gifts. In recent years I see gift giving differently. I have loved opening gifts and have had many moments I was sad because it was not what I had expected. When God was teaching me “to be content in all things, to be thankful and that God gives us what we need not what we want.” I felt a circumcision being performed on my heart. I felt my self absorbed ways diminishing and a desire to love as God loves me grow in its place. When Junior and I were first married I told him I wanted gifts for my birthday, Christmas and our anniversary. I had felt neglected with these holidays and I wanted to feel wanted. Junior has been faithful and supplied gifts for these special days. He has even given me gifts just because. As I felt his love the need grew less. Sometime during the days leading up to Christmas I see that the Baby Jesus grew up. I see people flocking to Him with love because He truly understood and made God’s love real. I see religious leaders resent Him and begin plotting to kill Him. I see the people excited on Psalm Sunday, the betrayal in the garden and a gruesome death. I grieve with the disciples at His passing and rejoice again at His resurrection. For me Christmas needs to be appreciated in light of Easter. I need my Savior that tiny baby born in a manger all those years ago. He is risen! He is risen indeed. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

December 22 2015

December 22 2015 Greetings My Friend My new found energy is wonderfully profound. My days are filled with more activity, my thinking grows even more clearer. The free fall into chronic fatigue and in the midst of chronic fatigue I longed for energy and days of sleeping and feeling exhausted to move about the house started to feel normal. I still don’t know to what extent I will continue to gain and retain a decent energy level so I move into life with caution. I overextended myself recently thinking I was going to pay the usual price of extreme tiredness. I did pay a price but not tiredness. I was over wound up where sleeping was impossible. I was able to keep moving and doing well into the night. Sleep did come eventually. For some reason I found myself sleeping in segments throughout the day. I even was able to do housework, run an errand or two and work on crafts. The next night I was able to get to sleep at a decent hour. I was awake very early the following morning and so far I have not needed to take a nap to make up for lost sleep. I don’t know where this day will take me so I wait to see. In the meantime I am finishing up my morning quiet time rather early and I have extra things I want to work into this day if I can. My lungs feel clear and I don’t know how my asthma will behave. I continue to find ways to avoid my triggers. For the first time in my life I am more aware of ways to cope through my allergies. As a child us kids were not given much attention to our illness’ They were not acknowledged unless it was major. I had bronchitis for 6 weeks and it was one of the few times I was allowed to be sick. The same pattern was present in my first marriage. I tried to tough out my illness and ignore them. I usually got to the point I could not function so it was then I stopped to deal with my struggles. Through the years I started to learn to stop at the first signs of illness and I discovered that I overcame the illness quicker. Allergies though are vague and figuring out the triggers has been a lot of work to discover the source. I believe I have had symptoms of asthma through the years and I was told if I thought I had it then I would get it instead of learning to pay attention to triggers and eliminate them from my life. I have for the first time in my life learned to eliminate some of the triggers, like carpet that collects many of the allergens. I know dust is a major struggle for me so we now have air purifiers all over the house. I take an allergy medication or supplement daily, use my maintenance inhaler daily and I believe some of my regained energy is because of the work of eliminating my triggers. I also think that my doctor helping me discover other problems that I am dealing with such as my balance issues and tremors is helping me gain energy too by the medications, the aids such as a walking stick and use of a walker as needed. Using these aids allows me to not tire out so much. Knowing I need to do various things for my health and following through means I can stay active for a bit longer. Knowing when to slow down and even stop helps as much as eliminating things from my life. Once more I reflect that God’s healing may be trusting to follow His instructions one tiny step at a time and to quit waiting for the huge miracle. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

December 19 2015

December 19 2015 Greetings My Friend This time next week Christmas will be over with. The gifts will be opened, the celebration will be over with and then we will focus our thoughts on the end of this year and the start of another year. For weeks it seems there has been a frantic urgency to prepare for gatherings, buy gifts. When I had a family with small children I loved to bake. Between the baking and cleaning and shopping I also attempted to have my children make some crafts for gifts. One year we made salt dough ornaments to give to relatives and friends. My son painted each ornament black which I loving called “his black period.” This was my attempt to teach my children about giving. I was honored when the grandchildren came along the first Christmas and I received a set of cookie cutters. My children informed me that they wanted me to make gifts at Christmas with their children like when they were young. Our family was dealing with divorce, my divorce. Many things needed to be sorted through and little did I know at the time this sorting process would take not a few years but take a long time for healing. In fact things are still not figured out yet. My children did do the same thing we did with their own children though. Christmas holidays were difficult learning to divide time up even more now that we were divorced and sometimes we did not seem able to hook up. I admit to lots of pain and anguish throughout these years. It was during one of those years I was given a wonderful lesson that planted a seed of healing for me. Our minister taught us to do a review of the year. I continue to do this review after Christmas and through the first few days of the new year. He asked us, “Are you closer to God than you were at the first of the year.” Today instead of thinking on “New Year’s resolutions I now reflect on my relationship with God to see if I am growing or stagnating. For me this gave me the opportunity to remember the times God was my comfort, the times I was able to deal with a situation calmly, say the right words etc. The remembering of God’s provision showed me how God always shows up, not necessarily in my time but in His time and I can count on Him. Seeing those moments helped me to go to prayer quicker and to be in prayer more routinely. One year I was beside myself on Mother’s Day. I felt like a complete failure and cried to God most of an afternoon. I told Him of my pain more than once and it seems like at one point I was spent and quieted my spirit down. At this point God started showing me some of the games that were being played on me. The more I absorbed this fact I understood that my parenting was decent and it was often undermined. With this understanding I felt a new strength along with an acceptance of the past. I also saw why God had pointed us to move from Michigan to Virginia. Distance helped me to let go and to understand. If we would not have moved my pain would not have been eased as quickly as distance made the separation final in my mind and my heart. This intimacy with God was profound which encouraged me to keep seeking Him. My talks with God continue to grow me, to help me see the sin that is hurting me and God then walks with me as He shows me ways to let go and I lovingly understand the next part let God more profoundly. Each time I am able to turn around from my wilderness wandering to see a lovely garden of growth in my life. I want to keep on top of those weeds even more so these days. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

December 17 2015

December 17 2015 Greetings My Friend I walk through the house and I see the shine on our wood floors. We wanted to finish our floors right off and were told it is best to do them last. We were keeping them clean but with the house being 90 some years old and all the people who were “rent to own” and never did stay the house fell into disrepair including the floors. The polish had worn off years ago and a few floors were down to the original wood. One day we had the idea of waxing these floors at least there would be some protection on them we thought. The floors have been kept clean but looked dingy soon with the wax the floors did not look so dingy. Several coats of wax the floors started to shine and we started to see the original color of the stain that was used back when they were new. Recently Junior and I were talking about how to build the kitchen as to where to place the things in it. Later I walked out on the front porch and had that familiar sight of clutter that takes me over the edge. I had not seen Junior inside working on the kitchen very much in recent weeks and felt this project was side tracked again. The clutter both on the porch and the kitchen overwhelmed me and irritation was rising within me. When I mentioned the porch Junior started talking in a manner I have not heard in awhile. He was telling me that he is indeed working on the kitchen by not being in the kitchen. I understood when he was insulating the porch floor that is now a part of the kitchen and there were other days he was underneath putting up wires for the kitchen but the porch I could not figure out. What I learned is getting the porch cleaned off will allow Junior to move things around while he works at remodeling the kitchen. As he removes things he will then have a place to move more of the kitchen pieces to the side porch and open the front porch up for his saws and tools.. From the start of this renovation project this aspect of Junior’s style of working has confused me. I often thought I was helping him by mentioning ways to organize himself, it only irritated him. After a few tries on my part I found myself just sitting. Since I was so fatigued it worked out for both of us. As I started gaining some sort of energy I began asking God to teach me to be what Junior needs me to be, to open my eyes and my heart to him. As he had an area of the house that was livable I began working at keeping it clean. He organized the kitchen to some extent which then allowed me to cook for us. Pretty soon I had a good portion of the house that was neat which allowed me to work at gaining energy. I also saw Junior enjoying our home clean and organized. I have kept up my praying asking God show me how to help Junior. The more we settled into a renovating mode we both were not as anxious. We understood each other’s questions more so. This time I asked Junior to tell me his game plan and he did. I am not anxious for him to get back to the kitchen so I don’t try to point out his to me distracted way of doing things. I see the plan and I now know what is going on. At first God taught me to sit. I needed the sit time due fatigue and mental confusion. The more I gained my health back I kept praying and we were both adapting to each other’s needs. I don’t have that sense of panic these days, I feel useful even though I can’t use tools and stuff. Junior enjoys my gift of cleaning and cooking which makes me feel like I am his partner. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet