January 30 2016

January 30 2016 Greetings My Friend There I was, preparing to do my morning devotion, Bible study time. I can hardly wait for this moment most mornings and I miss it when I can’t get to it for a day. I finish my wake up time on Facebook, check out e-mails, eat breakfast and have a cup of tea. (Coffee does not agree with me lately). My mind is beginning to engage and I am able to think so I enter into my Bible study time with excitement. I pull up the day’s Scripture reading from an on-line study guide for the ESV Bible. I write out the headings for my journal starting with “What is on my mind today.” I like this part because I am able to journal for a bit about the things that are bothering me or I find interesting etc. The next heading is “What can I talk to God about today?” Sometimes I talk to God about a problem, sometimes I am thankful and sometimes I have a prayer request. The journal is teaching me that even the littlest things are important to God. I am learning that much of my walk with God is not going and doing, He likes to be alone with me to give me rest. I am learning if I am still and quiet I will know what work He wants me to do and I am able to let go of frantic activities for the sake of doing. My walk is becoming more focused. In the jumble of my thoughts I come back to the thought “I have a need an urge to study, to learn and to grow. I have a need to be a student.” I again notice that I derive the most enjoyment out of my study in the Word. At first I did Bible studies written by others and I enjoyed them. Our move to Virginia seemed to dry up study guides because where we are at. I went online but I made the most headway when I found the current journaling format on Pinterest. Recently I have liked the idea of scrapbooking so I did another check on Pintrest for Bible studies using the scrapbooking idea and I found one. I am just starting to add this to my journaling. Some do the scrapbook idea to their Bible. Since I have started journaling I felt this was where I wanted to scrapbook. I have been learning to do some crafting and I find that my crafts seem to taken on my passion of faith. I believe that I am making a commitment to walk with God with the expression of faith I use in my creating. I wear jewelry that reflects my Christian walk with Jesus not to brag but to remind myself to the decision I have made years ago. I am learning to give God my all. I recall growing in God’s ways more and more and then one day God asked if I would give Him more of myself to Him? My first thought was “I am!” The more I reflected on this I discovered how hard it was to say “yes.” I began a discussion with God that went like this.”But Father, I ….” God told me, “Just do it.” He was not allowing me to use any excuse. Finally I told God I would and that is when the anxiety started to leave me. Next I discovered that I was not worrying as much about what so and so thought. I was more worried about what God thought. After a lifetime of attempting to please people it was becoming less important. I know that I have many more lessons to learn, a lot more work to do and I am excited to continue my education in God’s university of life, not man’s. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Jane

January 28 2016

January 28 2016 Greetings My Friend I see the vision more fully. One section of the wall still needs to be torn down. Junior has started moving partially finished cabinets over to the window. The new gas stove over there. The microwave has been moved and the rough look is taking shape. Add to the scene is newly fallen snow covering the trees in the woods and on the ground. It a beautiful scene from our kitchen window. Les calls Junior often and the men talk for long periods. Junior has learned the art of puttering around the kitchen cleaning while talking on the phone so the chaos he generally works in is not so cluttered. I am dealing with things being moved around again so finding where the silverware is or some pans is still confusing. The good thing is the confusion is not as drastic as has been. I am dealing with it better. With the cold weather Junior has had to stop to fix a few frozen pipes and then insulate them. This time around I am not frustrated or annoyed. I get the process. Five years into this process I finally understand. It helps that I see the vision and with 3 rooms, the front porch and the back deck under his belt I am excited to see this new creation take shape fully. We have been married 18 years in a few weeks and I see how we are meshing our individual ways of doing things into our relationship. Junior likes to toss his trash as he drives into the back seat or on the floor in the front seat. I was always searching for a way to keep the trash to a minimum. We have had car trash baskets and they did not work. I even devised a way to hang a cloth bag between the seats to toss trash into which kind of worked but not really. One trip we stopped to get fast food to eat. As we pulled the food out of the bag I opened up the bag and placed it on the front seat floor. We threw our wrappings in the bag and any other paper that needed to be discarded. The next time we stop we take the bag and put it in the trash can. In my subtle way I have organized my man and he likes this idea. Junior has taught me not to be so rigid about my routines. He shows me things still can get accomplished even though we got a bit side tracked. I have learned to work when I can and to start over from time to time. Sometimes the unplanned distraction or starting over has taught me a new way to do a job that is better than the way I have always done it. With another room being worked on and seeing an end to it I know an end will come. It may a few years away and I am good with that. The renovating has been helpful to me even if I did not always understand it. I have learned to work differently with my disabilities. If things were done more quickly I don’t think I would not have been able to allow myself to learn new ways to do old things as easily. I started out slowly reentering doing housework again. The more my energy returned I was able to work into doing housework in retirement mode. I no longer needed to hurry through my work which was hard for me to let go of. Slow re-entry to housework has allowed me to see the need to work in a measured way. I found myself relying on God’s guidance which amazes me at how much He understands me so fully. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 26 2016

January 26 2016 Greetings My Friend I hear it and I can not believe such mindsets. “if you believe then God will heal you...completely.” This is said to someone who is more than likely never heal all the way. I hear this thought process with finances too. “If you believe you will be rich.” God can heal completely, allow people to be financially secure. The Apostle Paul teaches us “to be content in all things.” He teaches that he has been poor and he has had wealth and regardless of his circumstances he has learned to be comfortable where he was in life. I even see passages where Paul is in prison and he and another believer with him are singing. He is singing praises to God. The apostle Paul was stoned, whipped and beaten for his belief in Jesus. The Bible teaches that believers will see adversity because the world hates believers. Even Jesus did not escape tremendous abuse. He even died for His belief. My faith journey shows me that many times a full body healing may not take place but a spiritual healing will grow within me and in this I learn to live with my disabilities. The learning to live within my limitations has taught me that I have a strength I would never have known otherwise. I learn to rely on God and to go back to God to keep helping me to handle my struggles. The more I rely on God the more I see myself accepting my limitations. I am running into another thought process lately as well. I have an invisible illness, in fact I have a few. When others see me I generally don’t look like anything is wrong with me. Right now I am struggling with a person who won’t take my “no” I am not committing to a group due to the unpredictability of my illness’. When I did a review of the past year I noticed that I was showing up less than half the time. I will not volunteer to do things because I was not sure I would be able to be there. I decided at this point I will not attend anymore. I told her upfront I thought and she is not taking my reasoning. She reminds me she has chronic fatigue too. She has a major hip problem so I thought she would understand. At this point I think she is a person who will push herself extremely hard. The thing is I am pushing myself and I know if I continue I will decline quicker so I choose to slow down instead. I am hearing of people with these invisible illness dealing with family members who believe they are making up their illness and decide to walk out on them. At a time when they need more support they find themselves more alone. I think again about how God is presented as a complete healer and these people don’t see themselves getting healed. I see these people believing that God is uncaring. It hurts me because the witness presented to them is off the mark and a chance to give the good news of Jesus is not received. For me I see that Jesus went to the undesirable people of His days on earth. The people who were well are not in need of healing. At times I think the church today is not much different than the Jewish religion on the Bible. The leaders put such burdens on the people making it difficult. With the thoughts people have of believe and you will automatically be healed is much the same. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 23 2016

January 23 2016 Greetings My Friend We have been in this house for 5 years now which means we have been renovating for that long. I remember being excited about making a home with our own stamp on it. Right away I found an intense interest in DIY programs and through them I have come to understand more fully the hard work of being in renovation mode is. At first I felt that each area would be done in no time especially when I thought we would hire a good portion of it out. When it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to find a contractor that would work with us Junior then decided he would do it himself. He knew very little about doing major construction work. This alone meant that he was learning as he went along. I still felt that chaos would be short lived maybe two years, not much more than that. I could cope I thought. Coping was difficult regardless for me. I found no order to life and in that I was overwhelmed big time. When I could not figure out how to work behind Junior I sat, watched TV. Chronic Fatigue plagued me, depression and anxiety for a variety of reasons began to drown me. I took all of this to prayer. God first had me work on my health issues. Those first months of constant chaos were good for me. I had to begin thinking again which meant I looked for a counselor, a family doctor and I was talking to God a lot. I learned about my past hurts and how to let go, my health issues needed to be taken seriously and I was learning from Junior how to work within my limitations. Progress no matter how slow is still progress. I was still operating from a mindset of a healthy body with few limitations. I wanted to get up get the house in order and then take off getting a part time job and volunteering. Disabilities taught me to examine the way I always did things, learn new ways to do old things. I learned I still had value even if I myself was different now And That is Okay. I learned to ask God to open my eyes and heart to Junior and in the process his very unorganized ways were becoming tolerable in fact I began to see the process he was using and it started to make sense. I learned that he has a wonderful heart and he loves me. Somewhere in there I was learning that 10 years would be fine to renovate. It is what he needs and this process taught me to be more flexible and tolerable. The main living areas of our home are renovated for the most part. We have order, neatness and cleanness. The floors will still need to be finished, the ceiling redone and the bathroom reworked but it all is homey and comfortable. Some days the kitchen sends me into confusion and I struggle to cook any great amount. When it gets real bad Junior will step in until I can come to grips with where things are located once more. This huge process has taught both of us more about each other. Today Junior mentioned he now understands my confusion better. He has also seen me fight my way back to a level of health and now intervenes when he sees me pushing myself too hard. I know he will always struggle with being a clutter bug so I help him keep on top of his piles. If he sits down to a pile of stuff in his recliner he knows to put it away and not restack it somewhere else. He is finishing waxing the floor, my morning quiet time comes to an end and my spirit is quiet, calm and ready to face this day trusting God’s direction. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 21 2016

January 21 2016 Greetings My Friend I feel that pinprick stick in my thoughts. I am in my morning study time and this passage speaks to me. I am in Luke reading about the ruler who approached Jesus regarding his sick daughter. The daughter dies but Jesus goes to the ruler’s house anyways. But taking her by the hand He called saying “Child, arise” And her spirit returned and she got up at once….. The part that pricks my thoughts is “And her spirit returned…” This passages shows me again that we are spirit and flesh. I am intrigued about our spirit. On one level I know deeply that we are spirit but at the same time I can’t grasp it at the same time. I know flesh real well. I love chocolate, soft sheets and hugs. I can feel these things and in feeling them with my body I know them. I am an emotional woman. I have had to train myself not to relate to the world through my emotions. It has been hard, today I am able to move past the emotions better and make better choices. At times I think my emotions links me to my spirit. It does not. My spirit is deeper than this. I begin to overthink my spiritual side and in frustration I often let go of trying to grab it and know it. Learning to live in the present has been a hard lesson for me too. I was adept at reliving the past hurts in my life. When these hurts came roaring into my mind it was like the hurt was that moment again. I remember the facial expressions, the words at times even the smells and sounds of the incident. Through a long process of counseling, prayers and finally with medication I have moved from the past to the present. On the way to the present though I had a tendency to jump to the future. In the future I saw a worked out life, the problem solved and everything was awesomely wonderful. This happier thought process did not really help because the present was still an uproar in my mind. It was during a Bible study that the phrase was coined that helped me I had wishing hope not real hope. I was wishing my life to be that beautiful picture. As I learned to “talk” to God about my pain God was teaching me how to let go and move into the “now.” I felt myself growing and changing but I did not relate to my spirit. I think I truly met my spirit out here in Virginia. I remember God sending me to the porch to porch sit a few times. On that porch I watched God’s creation unfold before me. There were deer gracefully wandering by on a walk stopping to graze, a rabbit or two hopping around and humming birds gliding in for a drink off of the feeders. As I watched I forgot the things that were rolling around in my thoughts and a quietness engulfed me. In our new house I have porch time and as the house becomes more finished I find a quietness to my soul more so. I have lot’s of windows to look outside on. With the opportunity to decorate I meet my comfortable decorating style. I have a calmness with “the simpler time” in decorating. There is lace, an old family Bible on an end table and a casual tone to our home. “And her spirit returned to her” speaks to me. My spirit seems to say “Here I am, that quiet acceptance. Do you know me now?” I answer back “Yes I do.” The flesh seems to say in words that echo the spirit it is not the “stuff” the “emotions” it is that deep down quiet. And in this I realize I have also been with the Holy Spirit. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 19 2018

January 16 2016 Greetings My Friend Good vs. evil, what is good and exactly what is evil? Sounds simple enough on the outset but the more I dig into it the harder it is for me to truly discern. For instance I remember back in the day when someone wanted to smoke weed, do drugs that what difference did it make as long as they did not hurt anyone. Sounds good on the outset until I started to see the effects on the family and loved ones. Weed is harmless I heard. I even smoked some but it became a problem when weed was more important than having formula for the baby and I did deal with this issue. I quickly decided I was hurting my young ones if I took time outs to unwind. I needed to be in my right mind and gave up this lifestyle all together. If you ask me what we choose to do does affect others. Today I was reading in Luke the passage “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit or each tree is known by its own fruit.” We are known by our fuit. I mull this a bit more and I see that others see what we do and we are known by what we do. My son and I were talking recently. He is in his late 30’s and as we discussed the craziness of our family life he recalled when he was very little. He remembered me rocking him, singing to him. He remembers the comfort that action was. I remember doing this a lot. There is something soothing about rocking a baby or that moment the rocking begins to settle the baby. A young lady contacted me on Facebook. She wrote me a note about when she was little and stayed at our home how she loved the way I read the kids a bedtime story. I felt that was a parent’s job, I even enjoyed reading to the children. It is what I did and nothing more in my mind but to another person it was special. Then there is Michele my coworker who was watching me. Her husband had died and after a bit she started dating, invited the man to move in. In short order he went from the attentive adoring man to an angry man. She knew my story, she watched me as I dealt with my struggle and at the right time she approached me for help. We went to Celebrate Recovery and she has not entered into another abusive relationship. My journal entry for “What does the Holy Spirit say” is “God’s idea of a good man and man’s idea of good are not the same - choose God. My next entry “How can I serve others today” reads “love as I am loved by God.” My enabling tendency is to excuse bad behavior because, and I have such a long list like handicaps, addictions, bad day…. God loves me where I am in my dysfunction but He does not allow me to stay there. He lets me suffer the consequences of my actions (sin). When I reach out to God with a sincere heart He then takes me by the hand and walks me step by step away from what my dependency is that is shutting me off from God. That stronghold leaves me and then I find God sending me out to do good. God is my example of good. On my own I come up with a dysfunctional way of being good and I am of no help to the other person or to myself. Evil abounds but through God’s love evil can be concurred. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 16 2016

January 16 2016 Greetings My Friend I am encouraged with the forwards that cross my feed on Facebook. Sometimes I giggle, sometimes my faith is deepened and sometimes I find encouragement when I need it the most. I forward a whole lot of these status’ throughout the day as well so I can encourage others. I had one that took me back to a hard time in my life. In my pain I wanted an apology I never received. The status read “ I never knew how strong I was until I had to forgive someone who wasn’t sorry, and accept an apology I never received.” By the time you get to be my age there are numerous times that you either forgive and accept the fact an apology will not come or you will sink, not move forward. I have learned that being justified by the wrong done to you won’t allow you to heal no matter how right you are in your hurt. I met a lady after my divorce who was so hurt that her husband had left her for another woman she was still raw with the pain of it. I was shocked when I learned that at that time the woman had been divorced for 7 years. Right then and there I made the decision I did not want to hang onto my anger and hurt for that long even if I felt justified. Divorce Recovery and Single Point also taught me that I must grieve before I can truly learn to let go. I remember Junior telling me often about someone we knew who was so angry and bitter when they first started coming and now how good they were doing. From this I learned the importance of allowing grief to move in me. I was surprised at the grief I did feel too. By the time of my divorce I had experienced a few deaths of loved ones that were close to me. The hardest one was my 12 year old nephew. I understood the need to allow time to work itself out in my the bleak days and then feeling guilty when I was not sad and finally I learned that the person is always near even though they are gone. At first the anniversary dates hurt but through the years the birthdays, holidays and such still will make me sad for a moment. January and April are the hardest times although other dates come through the years these 2 months are the hardest. Mom and Dad were married January 1st. Grandma’s birthday is in January and my son’s birthday is in January. He is still here and I am grateful but when he was young I recall the huge attention to this time of the year. Thanksgiving, Christmas, anniversary and birthdays all were part of the season. Then one day the hustle and bustle of each of the dates are dwindled down to a snail’s pace and in place of all the days is sadness at what once was. The same thing goes with divorce. Our special days as a couple and as a family are now dramatically different. I find myself “remembering” as each anniversary date comes and goes year in and year out. Over time I learned to forgive the wrongs done to me, to forgive the wrongs I did. I longed for the light bulb to go off in those that hurt me. Slowly over time I knew I was not going to get that acknowledgement. I learned to work out the fact, worked on my apologies to myself and to others the best I could. I still am sad that we could not work out our life. I am also very content with my life now. I believe I can be content because I did the hard work of accepting that I would never get that apology and accept the forgiveness from someone who wasn’t sorry. May God bless you and forgive you make His face shine on you. Love Janet