November 29, 2016

Greetings My Friend, I am learning a lesson from the Holy Spirit. This lesson I have understood through the years in regards to "stuff" and being swamped in too much of it not in regards to the memories I have had with certain pieces of furniture. For sometime now I have felt overwhelmed with attempting to keep up with dusting. I have a love for nick knacks and the stories they have in my heart. I am particular to old things, to crosses and pieces with the birth of Jesus. I have something on every flat surface in the house. Some of the flat surfaces are crowed which means pulling each piece off, dusting it and then putting it back has now become a major chore, I have finally realized my memories are starting to own me instead of me owning them. Another problem with dusting is finding a way to get rid of the dust without over waxing the furniture. It came to me, more likely from the Holy Spirit to use a bowl of water and Castile soap which has olive oil in it. The soap is not as rough on my hands as other soaps and the oil nourishes the wood. I have spent several days going from room to room and part of the process has been to get rid of some of my treasures. I have filled up a couple of laundry baskets of things so I am proud of my work too. I will donate most of these treasures to Brother Wolf, an animal rescue thrift store in our town. Last night as I was working on our sitting room it came to me again I think I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to say good bye to some pieces of furniture I have. This endeavor was a bit harder to let go of but I did and I am happy with how much less crowded the room looks. Junior and I are thinking about getting a recliner love seat for the sitting area so I set the 2 recliners we now have on the wall under the mirror. I took out Grandma Chearheart's old shelf unit, the end table with snack tables underneath the table and placed the snack tables beside the 2 chairs. I took the glider out of the corner, put my sewing machine in that corner with a little person (like my size) rocking chair in front of it. The whole room feels good and looks a lot better. It was hard to let the shelf unit and the end table go. Grandma Chearheart was my encouragement as a youngster and a young wife. She knew when I was getting severely depressed and told me to stop thinking those thoughts. I loved her glistening eyes whenever I came in the door, someone loved me for me so letting go of this reminder of her was hard. God started a conversation with me around this time as I was feeling lost without these old reminders. He pointed me to look at Aunt Rosemary, the hoarder in our family and how lost she was when we asked her if we could get rid of an old raggedy piece of clothing. He showed me Mom and Dad's hoarding where it was hard to find a path in the basement, the smell of the old shag rug as I slept on it the night Dad died and brought to mind Junior's willingness to move piles of stuff so he could clean the floor and then move the same pile back to the same spot. The last memory struck me the hardest with the collecting of nic knacks and memory pieces that I had in my life. God next brought to mind the sense of loss I feel with family and seemed to ask me "who was my family?" My heart replied, "The family of God". As I thought this thought I understood it was time to fully accept the family of God as my family, that is where I feel wanted, valued and useful. The past is gone, it was what it was but it is time for me to live in the present, in the family of God celebrating what I do have. I also sensed that God was not telling me that I needed to live with totally modern things but to be blend my life into His. I have a love for variety, a tendency towards a time gone by blended with the comforts of today. I felt God was saying that style was okay but don't hang onto things. There is a season for everything and the season of remembering another life is now over with. At the end of my conversation I felt I was good with letting Grandma Chearheart rest in peace. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 27, 2016

Greetings My Friend, I am almost done with pinning the memory quilt and once more I ran out of pins. Afterwards I decided to work on a sheet blanket since I had 2 sheets to work with and a woven throw. It will be a warm blanket for watching TV or to use as a warm blanket for the spare bedroom if we have company. I like the one I made a few weeks ago a lot but I did not have a full sheet set to use so I made the blanket too narrow. Pinning the memory quilt and then pinning the sheet blanket quilt wound up making my back muscles to tighten up. These days I am learning to stop when my muscles begin tightening up on me. I used to try to work past the discomfort but I learned that if I kept pushing I wind up having pain instead of discomfort. I am able to quiet my muscles most often with resting, I also find that doing the other exercises I have learned are helping me too. Today we went to town to pick up a few things so I used my walker at 2 of the stores we went into I did fairly well. I do believe the medication is helping me regain some of my mobility again and that feels awesome. Right now I am using the walker when I am out, at home though I do not need the walker. The tiredness associated with trying to work my gait normally seems to have left me. I am also looking on line at some of the natural supplements to see if they can help me stay on the lowest dose of medication longer. The exercises are helping too, I am amazed at my energy level over all and the things I am able to do again. I almost feel like I have been handed my life back which is exciting. Of course down the road I will more than likely decline again, I understand that so while I can I want to do all that I am able to do with Junior. I am working hard at making meals again to have ready to eat at lunch and dinner. Breakfast he is on his own. My goal through out this disease is to not allow discouragement and despair to over take me. God continues to be my strength in all of this in that I find the courage to keep going, to be thankful for the small steps forward and accepting when I am in decline. At this point I am grateful to know what is wrong with me and not trying to find the right combination of things to do for energy, how to walk straight or why my gait is out of whack. It is the unknown that has been the most difficult to deal with, so knowing is better thank not knowing at this point. Along with sewing I have been working on dehydrating food and right now I am trying my hand at dehydrating cranberries. I decided to give them a try since they are around for the holidays and I am developing a taste for them more than raisins when cooking. My first couple of batches have been on the fairly dried to a crisp state. My struggle is I put them on and forget that they are drying until they are crunchy dry. They need to dry from 12 to 24 hours so I believe I need to find a way to remember. Learning new things helps me too and since I have always loved to learn I have many things to learn. In all of this I find that I have not lost my hope and when there is no hope there is no desire to keep pushing past the the struggles of disease. God reminds us a whole lot in the Bible to not worry, to trust Jesus and for some reason it helps me to face life, disease. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 24, 2016

Greetings My Friend, We paid off the wood,coal burning stove yesterday and it will be installed early next week. We should be able to heat the house more evenly this winter than we have for the last several winters. The old stove was just that an old one we picked up cheap, to see if this was a good way to save money on our energy costs. We have found that around here we can buy loads of wood rather cheaply although with 9 acres we will be able to get our own wood with the woods we have on our property. I am thinking we also will use less propane as well this year. The nice part is the propane tends to be a back up system for times we are away and such. The other nice thing about the stove is it has a window in it for us to see the fire. I admit that I have just about gave up on dusting, for some reason I do not enjoy it like I once did. Anyway, I have been waking up rather stuffed up lately when it came to me that the dust is playing havoc with me. As much as I did not want to dust, I decided if I wanted to breathe then dust I must so I decided to try another route to dusting. I used Castile soap and water and the more I wiped down the more I found myself liking this idea better than using a spray to pick up the dust. Castile soap has either coconut oil or olive oil in it which also helped not dry out my hands along with the oil nourished the wood. I got half the bedroom done so I need to finish the other half today but I did wake up so much less stuffed up and clearing my throat and all of that yuckiness. I have a tendency to like nick knacks a little too much and I have decided I may work at dusting better if I got rid of a lot of the things setting out. At one time in my life I loved taking all the pieces, wiping them, the tops of the furniture then putting everything back. Today this whole process seems so tedious to me which is why I am contemplating putting all the nick knacks away then when it comes time to dust all I have to do is remove the doilies and dust. I am grateful Terri introduced me to her sister Sharon who has Parkinson's Disease as well. Having someone to ask questions helps a lot. After I attempted to walk a trail with my wheelchair as a walker the other day the calves of my legs were not happy. I had a nagging discomfort in the calves of my legs so I sent Sharon a text/email asking her how to quiet this discomfort. Sharon responded for me to lay on the floor and rest my legs on the wall up in the air. This trick settled down the discomfort I was having. I learned from both Sharon and Terrie to ride my incumbent bike/ellictipal whenever I start getting tired and to make it a habit to do it most days. This too is helping my stamina a lot and a quick ride often revives me when I am starting to wane on energy. My Chiari friends have taught me much about having a support network of friends who understand your struggles and they share between them different things they find that help them. I have also learned a lot about having invisible illness' in regards to the effect that people often do not look sick. We all have the idea of a handicapped person displaying physical signs of inability to do things. The fact of the matter is many with disabilities have no outward appearance of struggle. The Chiarians have headaches that resemble migraine headaches only they are worse. Mostly the headaches are due to CSF in balance. Not only do I have PD, I also have a few other things wrong such as asthma, oestoporosis, PTSD due to abuse and anxiety more than likely associated from a lifetime of abuse. Today I have walked away from it but the effects still are there. I believe that is why Junior and I have so many pets. In my heart I believe that God has guided Junior and I to seek alternative energy for our home, has guided us with our marriage, my illness' and our PTSD. I find myself grateful that I do not have to face all these struggles on my own, God holds me, comforts me, sends me friends like Sharon and reassures me that Junior is here for the long haul. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 22, 2016

Greetings My Friend, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." What sticks out to me right now is the last sentence, "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." I used to think abundance was having lots of things, stuff and maybe a loving family beside me. Today I do not see the abundance of what God gives me in material things. I see abundance in a day filled with work that I love and for me it is caring for Junior. I am so content calling him in to eat, making him good food, taking time to be as healthy as I am able and admiring the work of his hands. I am content watching our home turning into a comfortable place for us and to invite friends in. I am content that I have finally said good bye to the painful life I once lived. Jesus helped me get to this point, a lot of counseling and a little anxiety, antidepressant medication. God said to leave Michigan and bit by bit the life I lived there is truly in my past. I have my little family of fur children that are always happy to see me and are never embarrassed to accept me as their Mom. Life is good. Today abundantly is this quiet unassuming life I am leading. I have an answer to why I stumble over my own feet, why my hands shake when I am not on medication to control the shaking and the heaviness in my chest is asthma. It is distressing that I have these things but at the same time I accept it and enjoy what I am able to do. Sometime soon I may not be able to do for myself at all, I think about it some. I know God is guiding me to do things to keep my body as stable as I am able with medication and exercises. At the end of the day I rely on God for just about everything anymore. I want to think I give God all of me and if I am honest I more than likely have a few strongholds somewhere deep within me. Today though when God tells me He wants another part of me I do not argue with Him like I did for a while. At the end of the day I have learned it is for my good and I will be grateful for giving that part of me to Jesus. I have walked away from a huge amount of pain, I have done things I never thought I could do and now I am living an abundant life, a life I dreamed of for most of my life. I have accepted that I am not the same as most people and I am good with that too. To God I am to die for, a daughter of the King. Junior treats me a lot the same way, I am the wife he longed for who wants to be seen with him and enjoys his humor, to us it living in abundance. Believing God is the Father, Jesus is the Son and because I believe the Holy Spirit speaks to my spirit showing me how to walk into the pasture and rest in the green grass. God is good and I am thankful for this life. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 19, 2016

November 19, 2016 Greetings My Friend, We recently celebrated Veteran's Day. I have learned in the last year or two how important these holiday's are to our military. We ourselves took advantage of Applebee's offer of a free meal for veteran's. Junior understands that many veteran's are there feel lonely and not appreciated. Junior takes time to walk around and talk to fellow veteran's while we wait for our food. My heart see's the need of being able to talk to another veteran so he talks to them. I believe Junior receives something from those he talks with, this need is deep. We have a friend who is often at home alone for these holiday's and he reaches out to Junior wanting a chance to be accepted. Unfortunately the Vietnam veteran's came home to a country who was rude to them and shouted out very ugly statements. What the general population does not know is that this ugliness resonates deep in a lot of veteran's from that war to this day. They still feel the lonleiness and disrespect. Many veteran's also feel bitterness toward our government because the rights to care is difficult to receive or a problem acknowledged. PTSD has been around under different names for years and more often than not the veteran's are not made known what is going on with their strange behavior. Some spouses have given up on the military spouse due to extreme anger and depression. Some have nightmares that are so vivid that the veteran wakes up back in a battle they fought, holding their spouse captive. Other spouses may stay but leave emotionally, they may make their own life with family and friends excluding the veteran. Then are the spouses that hung on for the ride and stayed with the veteran with time eventually revealing the struggle the military veteran was dealing with, such as PTSD. The VA knew that Junior's good leg was going to get worse, more than likely he would need a knee replacement and his back would suffer due to the amputation throwing his back way off. Junior learned this when he needed to retire due to back problems. His work also required a heavy demand on his back, if he had known he might not have taken on such a heavy load to his back. Equal rights were coming into focus around the time Junior came back from Vietnam and he was turned down for job training because his disabilities were not the focus of equal rights at that time. Finding a job was difficult for him, getting training to better himself was difficult and he wound up taking a job in a factory making paint. He wanted to move on but his PTSD made it hard for him to be employable in most work situations. Today I understand how veteran's feel more fully, some want to be acknowledged while others are happiest just being accepted for the gift they gave to their country. I do know that the men and women relish the military holiday's and feel lonely when family and friends take the holiday lightly like for the long weekends or picnic's without time spent in reflection of the price of freedom on our military. I sat eating by myself at Aplebee's the other day while Junior walked around talking to other veterans and I was thankful for my husband's need to reach other's. My goal now is to allow Junior to reach out as he needs to so other veteran's can have a chance to remember, to let go and to live more comfortable with the war they fought. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

November 17, 2016

Greetings My Friend, In Malachi God is having a discourse stating "Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you?'Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need." God is challenging us to bring our offerings to Him. He wants to bless us and will not bless us unless we trust and obey His commandments. God instructed Israel to bring their first fruits to the Temple. When Israel did so the Priests were fed, the people received plenty of rain and their crops grew. When Israel slacked off their giving then their ground dried up and produce did not grow. Along with the physical blessing there a spiritual blessing when you give from your heart. I bought into the idea for years that all we did when we brought our money to God was to make the church grow fat, the poor and needy were neglected. As I settled into adulthood though I started to see a lot of good that the people's giving did do. I was the recipient of some of the offerings made to the church when I was a child. It has stayed with me the kindness of the heart of a church family helping a family in need. Junior received from organizations as well when he was growing up. People felt inclined to give to groups like Salvation Army and his family had clothes and food. We do give money to the church and often times we give of our excess to organizations that help others in the community. In my journey of giving I have learned to give of my money, my time and of my excess. God bless' us if we have a heart for giving. As a young woman our income was tight so I started giving of my time at church by being a Choir Mom who helped put robes on the young ones or sit with them during the service. I went from doing that to other things within the church and I grew in confidence and faith. When I married Junior I learned about giving to organizations the things we no longer use but are still in good order. We have a bin to throw things in and when it is full we donate the items inside the bin. The giving spirit is what God is teaching us to desire and the more we learn and grow in this the more blessed we feel. Giving of my time on mission trips usually finds me being blessed by those that I am giving to. It is the most wonderful moment on each trip. I am sad my health no longer allows me to go on mission trips although I have found ministry of giving right in my community today. My blog is a ministry of giving and sharing, so is my Facebook page. We live in an area where the economy is usually down which means we have the opportunity to encourage, drive or some other type of giving. Sometimes we need to be given to as well, this was hard for me to grasp. I was in the wheelchair at the grocery store the other day and I had picked out a package of frozen vegetables and went a little further only to discover a larger package so I was trying to turn myself around and put the first package away. A lady saw me struggling and offered to help me. I was grateful and accepted her help. She had an opportunity to minister to me. I struggle because I think I am supposed to always give and not receive until one day it came to me (more than likely the Holy Spirit convicted me) Sometimes we need to receive so another person can give from their heart. Receiving and giving needs to be fluid and we do not always need to be on one end or the other all the time. When I was young Dad had polio and our family was in a lot of need. We received gratefully and as our parents were able to get on their own feet they no longer needed all the gifts from the church and from many others. They taught me to take when in need and then to give back when our period of need is over with. One of the first things Mom and Dad did that I remember was they gave Dad's wheelchair to the church. They had a supply of medical equipment that was available to others in the church first and then the community at large. Mom and Dad also gave of their time and talent a whole lot since their income was tight for many years. Finally when their income grew after Mom finished college they gave of their income more fully. Giving from the heart is giving back to God what He has already given you. It is a wonderful journey growing in giving from the heart. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

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