February 4, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Since we moved to Virginia Junior and I have become pet parents of a number of pets. At first we had a heart to rescue these fur children because if taken to the pound they more than likely be put down. Through the ensuing years our love has grown for these precious fur children. We love both cats and dogs and we have a mix of them with 3 cats and 7 dogs. Last week we noticed that Red had not come around for a few days which was unusual. Our fur children are strays that have been dropped off on our street which is how we came to know Red. Our neighbor and us have been caring for Red for several years now and we love him. He does not come in very much because our dogs tend to run him off so he stays outside of the fence and we have a dog house for him to sleep in. Junior and I had pretty much decided that Red had been taken by someone else, it is easier to think this rather than he had died. Brendy our boxer loves Red along with Biggie so the 3 made a group of playful pups staying outside most of the day and away from the other 3 dogs. Brendy mourned Red not being around and became a needy girl following us around. After church on Sunday we were greeted by Red and we were very happy to see our boy again. He was injured which brought much concern to us. His back end was cut the Vet thought maybe he got caught in a fence. Monday we took him in to see Dr. Pat to make sure he would be okay. Dr. Pat sent Red home with medication and a cone and told us to watch the wound. I did not see Red get back into the truck so I was very surprised when he came around my side after we got home. The poor thing has a shaved ring around his injury. The fur will grow back and he will be the beautiful boy he has been all along. For now he looks silly. No muscle or ligaments we torn and the wound thankfully was not that deep. Through the years our love for these fur children has grown tremendously. Daisy came into my life when I needed a reason to move again. She is all of 6 pounds so I am able to carry her around with me. As my balance kept getting worse Daisy has been the counter weight I needed to walk straight. Letting Daisy in and out has gave me the focus I needed to begin having someone to care for, to move into a steady routine of daily work again. Each child loves on me in their own special way and I find security in having them near. This morning Junior got up late so Biggie and Grey one of our kittens decided she needed to be loved on and I obliged them. Both Junior and I have PTSD, his is from the war in Vietnam and mine is from a life of abuse. When the anxiety hits us these fur babies quiet us, help us to move back into the present. They lavish us with attention which is badly needed. We do not wear each other out needing to be comforted because the fur children are always ready to accommodate our needs. Taking care of them helps us to stay in the present and to attend to their needs. I am happy that we get a little more time with Red and that he is there for his little gang of dogs. I sense that God has brought us these special babies into our life and I am grateful because I felt we were getting to old for these fur babies in our lives. In God's all knowing power He made sure we had what was best for us. May God bless you and keep you, make His face shine on you. Love Janet.

January 31, 2017

Greetings My Friend, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak." This passage jumped at me the other morning. Jesus is talking with the disciples in the garden before He is betrayed by Judas and soldiers come to take Him away. Jesus wanted the Disciples to pray for Him and my devotional taught me a deeper reason to pray which is "Stay awake and pray that you will not enter into temptation." I learned that staying awake is associated with spiritual awareness and the Disciples sleepiness did not prepare them for Jesus' death. I discern from this that the time spent in prayer means that the Disciples may have been made aware of the events that were to take place and would not have been taken by surprise. We too can fall into temptation when we think we can pass up our day's prayer just this once. The problem is that day God may have wanted to tell us something important or how to deal with a situation we will face. Through the years I have read "Pray without ceasing," and it seemed impossible to do. As my prayer life has grown I find being in a prayer throughout the day easier than I had once thought. For me more than likely most of us we have a line of chatter working in our thoughts all day everyday. I have learned prayer is really allowing myself to change the chatter in my mind to a conversation with God. As with most of my faith journey this has taken me awhile to learn and then put into practice, it has grown in me. I do know though that I need to start my day in prayer and Bible study. When I do I find that the prayer without ceasing is much like my day with Junior. We visit with each other throughout the day, sometimes going back to a conversation we had earlier and pick up where we left off. I find my praying without ceasing to be much the same way. If I start with prayer first thing in the morning, with the Word God lays a passage on my heart, my heart seems to understand I need to use this lesson. I felt the Holy Spirit teach me it is important to stay connected to God in order to hear His voice and to know His will. The more I do this I find it easier to listen to God with my heart and then go and do what I sense He is directing me to do. I won't use up energy that is so little within me these days. I also will go directly to the area God is sending to me instead of trying several things before I know I am where He wants me to be. I am not young, I have disabilities that hinder my energy these days so a direct path is important for me. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 28, 2017

Greetings My Friend, Reading in Genesis, So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments." It is easy to think we don't have gods in our lives today. The more I looked at this passage the more I thought about the gods or strongholds in my life. One of the first thoughts I came up with is my strong attachment to routines. I can almost be obsessive with them. At times I had to do each step in the exact order so that I could accomplish all the things I had to get done. Being a woman of the '70's I bought into the idea of "bringing it home and frying it up in a pan," which meant I could work, make money, be a wife, have a family, go to school and volunteer. Today I see the craziness of this pace in life. Many women around my age also are struggling with health issues due to attempting to be all things to all people. My desire today is living the life God created me to live and I find He never intended most women to live that craziness. I am enjoying the simple life these days. My days are full and rich, cleaning, cooking, sewing and being a friend. In the late '70's and early '80's being an at home mother was a lonely way of life. Not only was it lonely at home mother's were considered rather dull and not so bright. Today I see the stupidity of all of this. We as women are generally created to raise the next generation which is a very important job in of itself. Another strong hold I have struggled with is thinking that having a clean house was more important than having a lived in home. If I were comfortable with the lived in look I would have taken time to play with my children and taught them the lessons of life and the soul, which I believe is Jesus. I find that some of the gods I have in my life are not wood, stone or metal but believing my worth is in the amount of money I bring to the table in my relationship. I also found Jacob admonishing his family to purify themselves to be a strange thought. When I first think about purifying I think of being physically clean. There is an importance to cleaning our bodies, I also think it is important to purify my thoughts, get rid of anger, malice, lustful thinking and such. When I clean out my resentments by asking God to forgive me I am able to think clearly, to focus on God, to find compassion instead of resentment. My faith journey teaches me that walking with Jesus sets me apart from the world. Many times the world thinks I am weird. I used to think I needed to blend in with the world, I felt comfortable blending in. The problem is it is hard to for the world to meet Jesus. With Jesus' love I find being apart from the world more comfortable now. When I am different from the world I am able to love more fully and more like Jesus. That is how people will come to love Jesus and learn of God's true and gracious love. God will accept all people good, bad, worse than bad and any skin color, or religion or denomination. God asks one thing in order to be saved by grace, believe He is God and accept Jesus as their Savior. From that point God takes the person on an awesome journey. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 26, 2017

Greetings My Friend, My hair is getting longer although there is a ways to go to reach my shoulders. I have been pulling my bangs to the back of my head with a clip and recently I decided to use a headband again. I really like the headband with my hair being longer and I may be using this to keep my bangs off of my face. I do not tolerate the hair on my face especially near my nose, it itches me so I want it pulled back all the time. Junior continues to make me feel like I am a beautiful woman, something I had not felt prior to marrying him in my 40's. I love that he likes my girly girl ways with me liking to wear bangles on my arms, earrings and necklaces. He knew that I would not be good with tools and did not push me too hard when he attempted to show me how to use them. Instead of working alongside of him, I attempt to make our home comfortable for him, making him lunch and dinner most days. I am grateful to be living this simple life that God has put me in. I received a text from a friend with cancer while I was writing so I took a time out to write her back. My friend is struggling with cancer. At first she was fighting against all of the help she was getting, sure that she was not receiving proper care. She procrastinated getting started on her chemo because she did not want to face the severity of her cancer. She has come around to seeing that she needs to go with the program. I believe her faith with Jesus has grown and she is drawing closer to Him which helps her so much. My friend is like many people, she did not want to feel the discomfort or to deal with this dreaded cancer. She has managed to avoid a lot of pain in life by blaming others and she has had to look at herself in the mirror and face the situation. I hurt for her so her more positive comments make me very happy. I also believe that all the prayers that have been lifted up for her by many in my church, by Junior and I and even others whom I do know she has opened her heart to Jesus. I see her learning to draw, to journal, sharing with her friends and talking on the phone. My friend has kept people at bay for most of her life and now she is reaching out. I found myself teaching my friend about being a woman. When she visited us I started telling her that it was her job to notice the changes we have made since her last visit. My friend has lived in her own little world for so long that she knew very little about interacting with others. More recently I have been teaching her to ask about others, not only to be so wrapped up in her own struggles. By doing this she learns that she is not all alone in the world and others understand her pain. I finally told her that with Parkinson's I have moments where my muscles get so tight that they hurt.She was surprised that I deal with pain. She thought my disease was not as bad as hers. It is different but it does not mean there is not physical and emotional pain. The other day she ended a text with "how are you doing?" She is learning and I am grateful. If God had not encouraged me to be a girly girl and to love the simple life I would never have met this woman. She lives a life completely different from the one I have lived. When Junior invited her son to help him and taught him how to work, she became my friend and I love her so much. She has allowed me to love her as Jesus has loved me. Just as when I attend a church the body that is the church includes people from all walks of life and we help others in the body of the church to be all that God is creating them to be. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 24, 2016

Greetings My Friend, The Holy Spirit spoke to my heart "Feed your soul with God's Word then ask God to bless you." I had been reading Matthew 20-21 when I ran across "And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith," Prior to my reading I wrote in my journal "Father I am grateful that my anger is gone. I know You have been my healer. I see more clearly the steps You took me through to bring about the letting go of anger, fear and even being acknowledged that I was abused. Healing I am learning is not always immediate or physical. Sometimes, many times the healing is spiritual." As I have been researching Parkinson's Disease I have learned 3 potential ways that you may get PD, it could be genetic, chemical or from a Traumatic Brain Injury. I have long wondered if all the blows to my head and neck I endured through abuse both as a child and an adult might be behind many of the things I am now dealing with and I believe abuse has led to my PD. I recall as a child that I had problems with tripping, as an adult I recall attempting to walk in a straight line only to start veering off to the right and when I got tired I often tripped over nothing. I felt that we all have these types of problems and gave little or no attention to this situation. In my research I also found myself learning that my acknowledgement of the abuse I endured to be superficial. I told people I was abused and I was always looking for someone to acknowledge that my abuse was real. Mostly I was told it was my fault and if I would quit being annoying I would not have these problems. I was told that people were concerned but I was never given support to get away so to me I knew but I was not sure. As my health struggles with my gait issues kept getting worse abuse was the 1st thought I had for my troubles and again I was not sure by the reactions I perceived from doctors. My research seemed to give me permission, the permission I have wanted to hear. In a strange way I finally felt the hug I needed. Sometimes when I kind of told my story I would see some concern in the faces and I also was pushed to "let it go" and to "move on" because I was out of the abuse then. Even my Mr. Wonderful reminded me often that there are 2 sides to every story. He was talking to me as he was taught in Divorce Recovery and I did need to hear those words but I also needed to be understood deeply. Through the years with Junior I think he has seen the affects of what was done to me, the fear I struggled to let go of. He reminded me that for 15 years he heard over and over. It was at that point I realized the only way I could let go was medication. My brain could no longer do it alone. He has also watched me deal with my physical problems and how I am struggling to walk, my hands shaking etc. Recently I have had a need to repeat what I learned in Celebrate Recovery, " I am a grateful follower of Jesus Christ and I am a survivor of abuse. Since Celebrate Recovery is about hurts, habits and hangups we each have our own thing we are surviving from, mine is abuse and co dependency. I find that God has been doing a healing in me for a long time. Part of the healing started many years ago when I was in Celebrate Recovery and that phrase has laid dormant in my heart for a long time until now. He has taken me on a journey of healing. Many times healing is a journey, because instant healing would not be lasting in our hearts. God loves us enough to help us be whole and instead of perfect one time healing we need a long journey of healing. I also am realizing that God is more interested in my heart and where it is at than giving into my every want. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 21, 2017

Greetings My Friends, I have felt for sometime that taking care of those around the world while many are in need around our own country is wrong. I have a heart for caring for the lost around the world and would love to reach out but I believe we always need to start caring first at home. In Matthew 15 today I see a situation where Jesus is speaking to a woman in need, "Lord help me?" And He answered "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." She said "Yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table." I hear Jesus teaching us that the Word first was brought to the Jewish people and then He came to open the door to all peoples. I learned to provide for your own first and then give to others along with allowing myself to be fed by God before I reach out to help others. Sometimes I skip this important step and I wind up way over my head with people I am trying to help. When I was younger I had the energy to minister to young people, to go on mission trips and so much more. Today my health needs to be front and center before I reach out to help others. The work I once did is not what I am capable of today. Each time I thought I was a used up nothing God showed me that there is much work to do only not what I once knew how to do. Part of my lesson has been how important it is to step aside to allow new believers an opportunity to serve and grow in ministry. When we step aside and open the door for new believers, younger believers we open our church to grow for another generation. Recently a church that is a plant of our church is quickly getting ready to close due to the fact there were no new believers to continue the church. It is a simple thing and yet we struggle to let go, to be in the background so the older generation often chokes the life out of the church. Many older churches have also put such a huge focus on attracting younger members to the church that the older members are left out. Church is important to both the young and to the old, to able bodied and to the disabled. That is the wonderful gift of salvation, God wants all to come to Him through His Son. If we follow God's ways and listen to the Holy Spirit the right balance will be a part of His church. We learned from Jesus, then the Apostles to love all people and when they give their heart to Jesus the work of the church corporately is expanded. A growing believer leads to reaching out to others who do various jobs to all believers within Jesus' church. Some are up front speaking like Paul or Peter, some fed the widows, others took care of the money while others sewed and provided for the needs of others. As an older woman who believes that God keeps reminding me He will use me up until my last breath. It was hard to let go of the familiar ways to serve but I have been pushed to reach new goals in ministry. I am a writer, I am a friend to many on line, I have learned much about building a strong Godly marriage through workshops and such. If I insisted on being a youth adviser I would never have learned all of these other skills. I am able to reach young people I meet because I act young and get them giggling so I still am able to minister to the young. It is not the formal ministry of a youth group anymore. I am able to relate to those that have been abused, struggle with cancer, invisible illness' and of course I minister with writing as well. I think we start at home and then move out from there. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet

January 19, 2017

Greetings My Friend, I am thinking about forgiveness today, it is raining as I write and I am prolonging getting my morning started. Part of writing to me is asking God and then reflecting on a few things when something settles on my heart I often ask God if this is it and then start writing, today it is forgiving myself. Just as forgiving some of the hurts have taken me a long time, I realize forgiving myself has been a long journey as well. It seems I needed to see what was done to me in order for me to grasp why I was the way I was. Again I mention my encounter with a counselor when I started talking about the things my Dad did to me and he told me that it was not that bad. I went for awhile before moving to another counselor. The 2nd counselor acknowledged my feelings and that was my turning point to forgiving my Dad. It took me a long time with forward and backward movement eventually I came to peace with what was done to me. I went through this process with several others who have hurt me throughout my life with the more recent letting go of my children, emotionally. As I opened up many of those wounds I also found myself seeing what a mean child, adult I could be at times, especially when I was stinging from hurt. If my Dad beat the tar out of me, I went looking for my siblings to take my anger out on. As an adult and a mother I got tired of all the anger and holding onto it along with the scars I had in my emotional life. Counseling helped me and then Jesus taught me to forgive my debts (hurts, grievances etc.) as I forgive my debtors (those who have hurt me). As I prayed asking Jesus to forgive me I realized I needed to forgive what was done to me by others too and inserting my name alongside of others I found myself letting go of what was done to me. I knew that my children lived in chaos, I grew up in chaos and I did much to get away from the chaos but it was always right around the corner. I felt if I followed a specific pattern eventually I would be forgiven for my part of the chaos and it has not come. One day my friend Marilyn mentioned that I had in my mind a perceived image of who I was which was a mother, that was a growing moment for me. I discovered that I need to change who I always thought I was and discover other parts of myself. God reminded me that I did the best I could and basically it was okay. I admitted my sin and God has forgiven me it was time to let go and let God work in my life and the lives of those I wronged. I have made amends where I could, changed my behavior, my desire for destructive relationships by learning new ways to relate and not allow myself to be abused. The comment I made to my Son comes back to me often, "I can't get better before I get better" meaning my process to healing has been a long and winding journey.I also need to remember that healthy finds healthy so my children's journey is their journey. Today my focus is on Jesus, Junior, my health and I am thankful for the people who come alongside of me loving me just the way I am. I am working on quieting my impulsive nature of saying what pops into my mind, I still ask a ton of questions and for the most part people are patient with this quirk in my nature. I love where my life's journey has taken me and I am learning to be comfortable in my own skin. God loves me just the way I am and then He takes me places I never knew I could dream of. May God bless you and keep you. Love Janet