The Story Continues

John 7: 16-17 "Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

The Story Continues

The story continues. As you know I've been having side effects from Herceptin; pretty major ones too, and I was fearing to go to the doctor. Earlier in the month I had my issues, Hubby had his unending cold/pneumonia, the road crew had their issues with digging up the roads after the flood and my house had its problems with the toilet leaking water all over the floor, in the basement and also the roof needing a major renovation, not having been done in twenty years or so. Then there was the sale of the property and the takeover by the new landlord. Whew, what a month of May, and it isn't even over yet.

The month May blew in with winter still hot on its heels. Yes, winter, meaning 35 degrees at night, meaning heater clicking on during the day, meaning cold in this drafty old house. I don't even know what issue to tackle first. How about small to big? 

The flood. Washed out roads all over Nebraska and we being way on the outskirts of town saw our road dwindle and wash away. The graders who tried to grade the road saw there was nothing to grade so a new plan was in place and that was to the pave the old dirt road after I don't know how many years. I know it's been a wish of mine for some time. That was at the end of March and beginning of April but storms and cold kept them from work. A month later in the middle of May, we're now seeing signs of the paved road and people can almost go back to normal. Almost...still a five-mile detour routes and we wait.

The house sale. Sitting at my desk my husband turned to me from his desk announcing, "Well it looks like it's been sold." I knew he was referring to this, I think it was 124 acres of land, out here for sale with our houses on it. I didn't know whether to be happy or relieved that someone might finally come and take care of the place. 

Let me refresh your memory. There's my neighbor, who has a nice house but seeing she is hoarder, that niceness gets swallowed up by what we might deem as trash. Then there is the trailer she once rented but kept for her, at one time four dogs, which all have passed except for one. But pallets and empty blowing flower pots, cars and trucks ruin that of ever becoming anything but a trash heap. Hopefully, someone saves the dog.

The landlord came and introduced himself a week later and he seemed like a nice enough man with his wife in tow. I'll just call them Jed & Josie. Good Christian folks too. I don't know, there is something about Christians that exude a living God and well by no mention of religion but casually mentioned they attended church on Sunday, I felt they were good people. He said he'd like to have our dilapidated roof looked at right away before it ever becomes a problem. I like him already!

Year after year each time an internet guy went on the roof he informed us to inform the owner of the bad roof, but nothing was ever done. The old landlord would come around and plow the grass after it got waist high, and trim trees, but year after year the grass and trees came back in full force.

Not this year, this year would be a different year! It would be the year of floods, rain, cold, and nothing but my Salvia flowers survived. That's how cold it got, everything froze under there. May 19th finds us rising to 40 degrees with 38 windchills and our small space heater coming in handy. Mind you it was in the eighties all week.

And wouldn't you know it, this was the week that the toilet would leak, through the roof, to the basement and an ensuing mess followed. This landlord was not concerned with a patch job on the toilet, like the previous landlord had been for years, no, he wanted to rip up the floor, have the toilet fixed and new tile laid! He wasted no time!

Now the roof. What should have taken one day to redo, they were met with numerous patch jobs from the previous owner, and had a four-day job on their hands! They were going to come Wednesday but changed it to Thursday. Thursday at six am. they arrived. By afternoon it was quite obvious the job would not be done in a day and by Sunday after much death of plants and destruction of what little garden I had, was now gone.

And to top it off, the owner on Saturday decided to rip down thirty-year-old trees that were breaking up concrete in his huge shed. The trees needed to come down. But on the day of the roofers? My anxiety hit an all-time high and an attack ensued. I was being picky, wasn't I? I had tolerated the barbaric treatment of my garden for three days but this day hubby had to work. 

I was good the other days sleeping through much of the chaos but Saturday, the neighbor who was now roofer, allowed his kids over and the screaming kids and hollering men mixed with hammering, banging, and heavy machinery moving trees, yanking trees out by the roots, and 100lb. me in a wheelchair. The pain was at an all-time high, everything happening blindly overhead and the curtains weres drawn tightly closed so as not to see the animosity surrounding me. Hubby came home around two pm. to make sure I was okay and I wasn't. Full-blown anxiety attack!

I won't share the ugliness of it all but by Sunday I was feeling somewhat better, but guess what, by the end of Sunday it started to rain and they were ALMOST finished. Really just a matter of cleaning their mess which they would tie down and come for on Monday. Monday came...and they didn't.

The owner came Monday, in the rain and had his Bobcat move a lot of the material tied down, and a bucket to the roofers' other piece of equipment. One trailer still smashing my plants and garden ornaments stayed (about twenty-foot long) and another sits out in the middle of the lawn smashing the saturated grass.

Chin up, Joni! Two doctor appointments today and one tomorrow, you NEED your strength for the unfinished paved but muddy roads. The Lord has tossed me a cyclone and I'm making a small tornado out of the situation. I have no choice. I'm sick, the events are upon me and I have to move on. We still have two more days to get through and the weatherman says about two-and-a-half inches of rain before all is said and done, on a state that has already declared flood disaster. Lord be with me NOW!

Prov. 4:10-11 "Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.

25-26 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established."

Salvia

The Chemo Journey

1 Sam. 1:15 “And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.”

The Chemo Journey

Preparing for the inevitable chemo Herceptin was an anxiety driven road riddled with potholes. First with the, “We need to see if your heart can handle this drug,” to “Come in the day before treatment to have your blood drawn.” All while having to say my goodbyes to the wonderful young lady who brought me this far in my Physical Therapy recovery and her team that I had grown to know and love over seven months.

A rollercoaster of emotions that I’m still not sure I’m doing the right thing but I was powering through like a champ. The heart test was tedious; take my blood, wait thirty minutes, put my blood back with some kind of drug that would identify if my heart was pumping. Into a tube after putting those lovely sticky nodule things on my chest and into the tube for twenty minutes of picture taking. I wouldn’t find out the results until chemo-day.

Even the day of drawing my blood was filled with anxiety as the lady who drew my blood was not the regular lady and it kind of hurt this time with the wiggling of the chair's arm. My arm was at an awkward position, thus the needle hurt going in and when she was done, she pressed on some cotton that didn’t feel too good but again, I was pushing through the day. Test results wouldn’t be available until the next day, chemo day. 

Chemo day arrived and my anxiety had hit an all-time high. There was no form of meditation or prayer calming me that’s for sure but again, trudge through, rain and all. I did want to go to the Mall and the Pretzel Palace where they make fresh soft pretzels. The day before we went there and met up with my son and he said he'd like to do that again on chemo day if I didn’t mind. Mind? Hubby, son and a soft pretzel equal heaven to me! And an FYI, NO, I'm not supposed to be eating it but at least I passed on the melted cheddar cheese that you could get with the pretzel. It was definitely comforting food for me in a hard time.

This was also the day the flood waters began to show signs of keeping us from getting out of the house. Hubby had been having troubles with his truck and hadn’t driven it much this winter and there was no way our already previously flooded out driveway would allow our car through. The water was rising, the substation across the road was covered, surrounded by water as I’d never seen. I was ready to cancel.

Hubby, determined to get me the doctor on Chemo Day, tried his truck, it started right up. He revved and revved, turned it off and on a couple of times and he was good to go! I wasn’t ready but he and the truck were.

As we swerved around the bend to slosh our way to the entry of our driveway, we saw what we were in for. The water around the substation was now crossing the road. The truck stalled, rev it up, stall. “Let’s go back,” I said anxiously. But instead, the next rev of the engine had us swerving on our way, up the muddy dirt road, where the ditches were almost level with the road beside them. On we went.

I had texted my son that we were on our way and would meet him at the mall at the Pretzel Palace. A relaxing visit that eased my anxiety and found me not in tears heading off to the Chemo that I was still against but trudged on anyway.

Arriving at the set time, slumped over and sad, I could feel my smile was a frown. I was not happy to be there and the thoughts of being a small child being led into a gas chamber weighed heavy on my mind. The weigh-in was grim. The hellos were stilted and the waiting for someone to come in and tell me what was next was like waiting for a dentist to yank out a wisdom tooth! I was so glad to have my husband by my side, but I could see that he too was tormented with confusion and uncertainty.

After a forty minute wait, the twenty-minute idle chit chat of the PA sent me off to ‘pick out a chair’ and they’ll set you right up. The room with the chairs was like looking at coffins to pick out. All looked like nice comfy recliners with chairs beside them for guests, but the recliners themselves looked like a deathbed. I feared that room from my very first day of diagnosis and now here I was, a victim to be sat in ‘the chair’.

As I, with a head of thinning hair sat and looked around, there was elderly bald folk hooked up by a port to get their poison. A thin young bald guy awaited his blood to be drawn and another lady waited for a shot in the stomach. Oh, the torture. I was about to cry when my doctor appeared saying he had a cold so he wouldn’t be shaking my hand today and asked if I was okay and had any questions. I had hundreds but shook my head no, tears now brimming my eyes. More idle chit chat that I didn’t hear and the nurse appeared with a needle. “You don’t have a port?” She asked quite shockingly like why are you here?
I told her no and she proceeded to stick a needle in my ‘bony arm’ and the juice flowed. For ninety minutes, with my back already in pain, I would sit as the poison flowed into my veins. I was now a victim of chemo. Outside the window, the sun briefly shone. Days on end of clouds and rain and here I was on my deathbed and the sky opened up and let the sun out to dance for a while.

After the ninety minutes were up, the nurse came back to flush something in my arm and I’d be there another ten minutes. This was almost a three-hour visit! I was hooked up to a blood pressure machine also, as this form of chemo affected the heart and they wanted to monitor me. I watched my blood pressure go from 115 to well over 140 by the time I left.

I rose to leave. Weakened, I almost dropped. My back in utter pain. Walker in hand, I made a beeline for the door, with my husband in hot pursuit. Walking past the front desk smiley receptionist says, “Is that all for today?” I wanted to tell her to go… nevermind… “I’m fine, thanks.” And walked out the door to be met by dark clouds, a chilled swift breeze and a mist starting to fall from the sky. The sun had run away too!

The chills, the pain, the anxiety, the sadness, the fear, the glazed watery eyes, the mud-puddles pretending to be roads all made their presence known. I will wallow in self-pity and figure out what I do now. Where does one go from here? 

TO BE CONTINUED…

There will be the REST of this story.
Please, no harsh criticism.

Pss. 18:4-5 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.

What Portion Do You Believe

Pss 103:3 “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;”

If you’re a believer, then you believe without seeing. You believe because you read your bible and you believe the Word to be the truth. But how many believe that it is the full truth? Or do you only believe in portions? You believe God created the world, that Moses parted the sea, you believe Jesus rose from the dead, was it because the bible told you? You sit there believing He’s coming back again. But you have trouble believing Pss.103:3 where the bible states: “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;”

It says he heals ALL thy diseases but we only trust Him to heal a few? That to me makes no sense. People can tell me until their blue in the face that ‘we need doctor’s to heal us’, but in my eyes, doctors are for treating symptoms never really addressing the underlying CAUSE. I believe God is the healer of the cause. You might find that one rare doctor who is willing to assist you in finding the cause but essentially it is up to you and God whether you find actual true healing. Maybe your doctor is guiding you in the right direction but I myself don’t believe God is a God of drugs.

“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;” If you don’t believe He heals ALL diseases, in my eyes, you only believe a portion of the bible. It is so hard to truly trust the Word because we’ve been so conditioned to believe man for all he says and all that he offers. We take his word at face value and it holds solidity to our belief system. Then and only then do we truly rely on God’s word to heal ALL of our diseases. 

You might believe wisdom comes from man but wisdom cannot come from man it can only come from GOD! You might glean knowledge from books but wisdom to discern is solely from God; from the Spirit that dwells in you, the same Spirit that has you trusting in Him completely. Either the bible is true or it’s not. I don’t believe the bible lies in some places and suddenly exhibits truth in other places. Either the entire bible is the truth or none of it at all.

I mentioned yesterday that disease is first spiritual in nature not physical. This statement might need some clarification. Some children are born with diseases; obviously, they had no mind to spiritually bring about disease upon themselves. It is quite obvious that the environment, the foods that no one knew were toxic, the metals, the inoculations that toyed with our very cells all were in there playing a part of what makes our insides tick. Scientifically, DNA plays a small part meaning what your mom and dad did (ate, drank, breathed) formed the very strands that brought you to life.

I’m speaking of the cause of your (my) own disease; by holding tightly to false beliefs (fear, doubt, and shame) it enabled an attack that neither you or I were ready for. Anxiety, at a very young age, started us on the path of fear that you (and I) began and no drug is going to take away what we spiritually placed on our path. God did not place fear and anxiety on our path, God is not to blame for a disease taking over your body, only WE can blame OURSELVES for the CAUSE of any illness that holds us captive.

I think what happens with our anxiety and depression, mine anyway, is that we dwell and linger. We linger in past places that hold us prisoner and sometimes we’re not willing to let go because we’d rather remain bitter and angry than find healing; at least that’s what we tell ourselves. Yes, that was me for YEARS, for most of my life.

This disease that I brought upon myself basically is my wake-up call telling me it is time to change now or I will die. I can’t read myself into a healing place. I can’t keep telling you over and over of the bad things that happened in my life because that is my way of clinging to what little memories I have. I have to honestly and truthfully let it go! Reiterating my pain over and over is a way of not releasing the very things that got me to this point in my disease and remaining a prisoner of the past.

I know I’ve spiritually found a healing place. I sent my anxious thoughts away and replaced them with good positive memories. Here’s an example, on the 26th of April my daughter would have been fourteen years old. In previous years the grief strangled me to tears and led me to rehash her death over and over. The same goes for my son who would’ve turned 35 years old in December. This year was different, I only thought good of her and him and when my mother wanted to rehash the past I point blank told her, I’ve dealt with that pain already, I really have let it go, so please stop rehashing. I’m glad she remembers my son and daughter whom neither of us had a chance to know, but I don’t cling to that part of my past anymore. I’m in a healing point and it feels better than all years before!

I’m healing from the emotional baggage of a previous marriage. I’m healing from the child abuse, the molestation, I’m healing where things clung and tightly held on, and I’m releasing them from my present. This disease isn’t just about what has my cells in an uproar, it’s about forgiving all the wrongs in my past and not just at face value. I cannot heal just a portion of my soul just as I cannot believe just a portion of the bible. 

I myself cause my stress and anxiety by clinging to the embedded emotions that have no right dwelling in my being anymore. Being around positive influential people bring about a healing presence just as the negative influences bring about the non-healing ability. If you find yourself never healing from emotional stress, you’re not releasing the whole portion of events; you’re still clinging to the past. Don’t blame the medicine for not working. Don’t blame someone else for your retentive behavior because we are the sole heirs of who to blame. Our parents, siblings, and exes may shoulder some of the blame but they are not the reason we are so determined to allow the occasions to destroy our immunity.

You know, I hadn’t thought that my internal loving relationship with God could grow any further. I had become comfortable in my reading and believing and practically complacent with all I have learned over the years. Sometimes we think that memorizing scripture will bring us closer to God, or reading and studying so hard we forget what we came to the Word for. We came to learn and GROW right? Not to sit like an idle robot in one place repeating the same actions over and over again. No, to heal we need to understand the health benefits of the Living Water flowing through our veins on a different level that will carry us to our healing spot. The area where the past has no bars and the pasture is an open fortress to gaze at, not take up residence with. 

I am choosing to heal by believing the full portion of the Word in its entirety, not just a small portion. He said He will heal and I believe Him. He said He will return and I believe Him. I know I’m listening to God and not the enemy. How do I know it is God speaking to me and guiding me? Because He said so!

All praise and Glory to God! 

John 10:9 “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”

John 10 is a very powerful scripture in its entirety.

The Truth Hurts

Gen.1:1 “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

The Truth Hurts

Well, yesterday was a good day even with summer rearing its ugly head to let me know it hasn’t gone too far away. Sometimes summer does that, it holds onto the season until the very last day and sometimes longer not wanting to let go and release the cooler temperatures of autumn!

After a quite refreshing couple of days in the fifties, eighty degrees raised the bar yesterday. Sure I stayed inside and did my work but I could feel the warmth tapping on the closed windows wanting to heat the house. Then last night we had a thunderstorm that washed away the heat in a light show beyond comparison. Flashing across the sky, lightning lit up the south, west and northern portions of the sky, the strobe light blinked in red and bluish hues. 

You could say I got a wake-up call yesterday in speaking the truth, right or wrong? I called my mother like I normally do at the same time every evening. I was in a relaxed mode as we had settled in to watch our movie but I pause the movie every evening to call my mother back home.

I could sense harshness in her tone but I shrugged it off as the conversation continued. She had said that she had a bad day, I knew what that meant but I prodded for more info and maybe I should have just ended the call by saying maybe a better day tomorrow but  it’s my mother, I needed to know if she was okay. 

A little back-story might help you with where I’m going with this. My mother lost her best friend, her husband of sixty years and she misses him intensely! A bad day means she just sits there thinking about him, his illness, his hospital stay, and most heart-wrenchingly, his death. As is to be expected, she has her good days and her bad days.

It hurts me to no end that I can’t be there for her but my calls have got to be enough at this juncture in my life and MY healing. She went on how my sister took her out to lunch and a little shopping. I know it’s good for her to get out and that is her healing mechanism, to shop. It always has been.

She told me about a book she read (this is where the conversation went downhill) about a young boy who died and went to heaven and came back and told this story of meeting Jesus in heaven and his deceased sister (that he had no knowledge of before the coma). The story Heaven Is for Real is the book she was referring to. 

She went on to tell me that because of THAT book she believes Heaven is for real and that ‘I’ should read the book to see for myself. I told her I READ a book that tells me heaven is for real called The Holy Bible. She retorted, “Oh, I’m going to read that one too.”

But then her tone became one of anger and she started berating me, “Why do you always have a conflicting response? Everything I say, you always try to correct me!”

Calmly I spoke and said, “I think I need to call you tomorrow.” I was not going to allow her bad day to leak through the phone and cause ME to have a bad day (too late) also. It already had in ways you don’t want to know. 

Was I wrong in telling her the truth? Should I let her believe Jesus is up there with a rainbow crown prancing with unicorns? Was I wrong in directing her to the bible? Should I let my mother holler at me like a two-year-old because she is grieving? I did and ended the call and afterward, I cried.

I told my son what had happened because he had overheard me, after talking to my mother, very loudly vocalizing my hurt from the phone call and then suffering a chest-tightening anxiety attack. 

His response? “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” 

Yeah, I spat that at him more times than once, now it was his turn to fling those sentiments at me. Boy, I'm batting a thousand in the feel good vibes!

I explained to him that I respect our difference in beliefs; I don’t force my belief on him, I already lost that battle and he is his own person believing what he wants. But no one wants to respect MY beliefs. So now here I am…

Tears roll down my cheek as I wonder if all of this is in vain. Am I writing the truth, yes I know it is MY truth, to believers or non-believers? Do the non-believers think I’m an overbearing, pompous, bible thumping donkey? Do believers believe the same truth? Prayer…lots of prayer time for ME coming up in the following weeks, I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I know grief has no time limit. I understand the mourning process. I have lost all four grandparents (not the same as a husband), I’ve lost two children (not the same as a husband), I’ve lost a father, along with aunts and uncles to illness or suicide (not the same as a husband); so maybe I don’t understand my mothers’ grief. Maybe it IS normal for her to buy my father's cologne so she can inhale the fragrance he once wore. 

I don’t understand the loss of a husband and truly hope I don’t have to ever cross that bridge but one thing I AM certain of is Heaven, FOR ME! I’m not certain if my father is there, I don’t know if my mother will wind up there, I don’t even know if I’M going to end up there but… I DO KNOW HEAVEN IS THERE! I will strive to reach heaven, long for it, and always feel it within my grasp. 

Maybe I should just shut my mouth and stop my fingers now.

Matt. 18:3 “And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Heal Today...Gone Tomorrow

Fort McHenry cannon looking toward

the Francis Scott Key bridge

where my uncle took his life

Pss. 30:2  “O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.”

Heels today… gone tomorrow

You ever have one of those days where everything is going along fine. Then you see something and reality smacks you upside the head? We’re doing some fall cleaning here; we get to the cluttered closet and there sits a box of shoes. Heels that I’ve never worn. 

I said, “I have to get rid of that entire box.” 
He replied, “Well when you can walk again, we’ll pull them back out of the box.”  

Tears filled my eyes and kept on filling. The reality is…I’ll never be able to walk normal again. Just thought I’d share that with you all as I release some of this anguish I’m lugging around.

I used to love wearing high heels, not real high, just a classy kind of heel with jeans or a skirt; then about four years ago, with too many Omaha trips (eight hours round trip) high-heel wearing came to a screeching halt. I remember going to the doctor and she sent me to the hospital for some x-rays and a day later it was explained that I had lower lumbar facet joint arthritis. Sure, some meds and a highly paid chiropractor could offer some relief, but that's just it, a false relief, not a healing plan.

Here I was, still enjoying my youth and am told that I have arthritis and as many of you know, that is a chronic disability that doesn’t just go away. I had tried to wear my lower heels and even they were awkward to walk in and the limp in my stride didn’t sync with a low heel. I was relinquished to tennis shoes and even they were getting uncomfortable mainly in the summertime heat. I did buy some comfy sandals by Earth Spirit (yes, WalMart brand) but don’t ya know, I can’t wear them in the winter now can I? 

I have my up and down days where I feel sorry for myself and the me I once was but have to learn to accept that this is the new me and whom God created.  But when we were cleaning out the closet and the box with my heels in it passed me by, I cried. I admit it, it hurt to see a part of myself shoved in the basement never to be seen again. I think my husband was trying to make me feel good when he said the words, “When you walk again.” The reality was and is, I’ll never walk normal again.

My dear friends try to comfort me, “there is Hope,” they say. My first thought was yeah when I get to heaven and can run free! They mean well, they really do and I won’t for one minute minimize the love I feel for them or from them, and the comfort they bring to my life but understand, I was one on the go woman all of my life. You don’t fit into the same jeans you wore twenty years ago by NOT being an overly active woman. Then yesterday…

Heal today… gone tomorrow.

I don’t know what the universe is trying to tell me when yesterday I answered my phone, thinking for one idiotic moment it was my sister calling to tell me about her daughter. No, it wasn’t her, it was an old friend who called me last year some time (he got the number from my mother) and wanted to rehash the past just like he did last year when I stopped answering my phone because I AM NOT ABOUT MY PAST!

I told him last year that I didn’t want to talk about that stuff but he just kept going on and on, “Do you remember…” You name the memory, I remember it with all its hurts and pains that I let go of, in vivid painstaking detail. His call started that way this time in asking where my ex-husband lived (they were friends) and talking about my abuse until I finally said, “I’m really busy right now.” (Joni is a terrible liar! Luckily I WAS busy!)

He said, “I better let you go or I’ll keep talking and talking.”
My instant reply was, “yes you will but call me when I have FREE minutes, like the weekend.” I seriously was trying to hang up without hurting his feelings because that’s just the way I am, then and now, I don’t like to hurt ANYONE. I just wish he had shown me the same consideration because I know I won’t be answering the phone this weekend. 

For thirteen years I wrestled with my pained past. When I first left Baltimore and left my family and past behind, I got caught up in a tornado of healing as memories whizzed passed and choked me into anxiety attacks where running off alone in the rain on darkened streets were my only solace. I would lie in bed cradling my pillow as tears soaked the very sheets where I slept. I was in a better place but it was a place of healing that had to be measured by agonizing sickened memories of the past.

Haunting is the only way to describe the lingering past. A ghost that would appear out of nowhere when I least expected it and scare me into a non-drug induced panic attack. I don’t take drugs for my pain and dealing with what I’m dealt in a meditative God loving fashion is all I’ve ever known to do. 

A close friend once told me that I needed to just let go of those memories and the people who hold those memories if all they’re there for is to hurt me, why hold on? Yes, that meant family and old friends who think rehashing an excruciating pain-filled past is what the future is all about. 

My now and my future is all about healing. My pain is washed away with every rainfall and I release the past as if it never existed into a tornadic funnel to be released wherever it may go. I will not allow thirteen years of healing to be scrubbed by one phone call of the bitter past. I face my tomorrows with the prayerful meditation that I have known to grow me into a hopeful tomorrow.

I woke this morning only to be hit with news of an earthquake where a dear friend lives. I prayed. The universe will leave something in my life called HOPE, LOVE and COMPASSION; he arrived to let me know he and his family are well. 

Praise be to God!

Insomnia ~ Peace

Pss. 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

Peace

I have quite a few friends who suffer from insomnia. Now mind you they are all God loving people, so when they say they have insomnia, I scratch my head. I’m not talking one or two friends either, I’m talking like 10-15 friends all suffering with the inability to sleep and stay there. So if your reading this, I’m not targeting you, I’m trying to understand the condition, the disease.

We live in a world of stress, noises and images that all clog the mind. I used to have disrupted sleep when I was younger but I knew it was from the stress of the day and the long arduous days and nights of simply living as a drug user and alcoholic. But after coming clean, clearing my soul and conscience of the poisons intoxicating my body, I honed in on ways to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Granted I was twenty-one when I came clean and am now nearing 50, I still rest peacefully and comfortably for seven-eight hours a night. Some of my tricks to get me to this point are now conscious forming habits that led me to just keeping still and falling fast asleep.

It all might change again in my later years but for now, I’m relishing the peace that washes over me every single night and I carry it with me throughout my waking days. What are my tips and how do you attain the peace? I don’t know if it will work for you because most are chronic sufferers that have had this struggle since childhood and have tried everything to no avail. You have my sympathy.

Look at the list for symptoms of insomnia:

Difficulty falling asleep

Awakening during the night

Not feeling well rested

Daytime tiredness

Irritability, depression, or anxiety

Difficulty paying attention

Increased errors

Tension headaches

Distress in the stomach

Ongoing worries about sleep

That’s quite a list. Do you see yourself with ANY of these symptoms? One or two probably doesn’t signify chronic insomnia but more than three; you’re a chronic insomniac.

We’re not going to add medications to the list here because the older you get or the more medications you take can be a cause for sleepless nights. But the main cause of insomnia, especially chronic insomnia that which you’ve had since you were a child, is stress and anxiety.

As a sufferer you may fool yourself into believing you don’t have any depression or stress. You may lie over and over again making excuses with it’s the meds, it’s the noise, it’s the ______, you fill in the blank. What lies do you tell yourself? Let’s face it, you’re stressed! Whether it is meeting the standard of what other people see in you, bills you can’t pay, the job you hate, or facing old age, stress is the killer. Yes KILLER! If you’re happy and content with that, then read no further.

The Mayo Clinic reports: “Sleep is as important to your health as a healthy diet and regular exercise. Whatever your reason for sleep loss, insomnia can affect you both mentally and physically. People with insomnia report a lower quality of life compared with people who are sleeping well.” 

Do you remember as a kid our parents told us that if we had trouble sleeping to count sheep? Do you know why? What does sheep have to do with the inability to sleep? Well for starters it’s a way of focusing the mind on something other than your stressful thoughts. It’s a form of meditation.

Meditation is a secret tool I implemented in my early days of clearing my mind of stressful distractions and it has been an essential tool in finding a peace like never before. Some may laugh and scoff claiming it doesn’t work, but you DO know God has placed very simple tools in our hands, like herbs instead of drugs, to help aid us with our diseases and illnesses that take over our bodies. Meditation is a tool from God to use and aid us in stress-filled times.

Pss. 63:6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

Many people listen to audiobooks when they’re trying to fall asleep, this is stimulating your mind and the very reason it doesn’t work for insomniacs. Some listen to music but again this is stirring the mind and doesn’t have long-term effects. To find sleep, one must relax the mind.

What is MY method? I’ll share, but first let me tell you I am not without stress, depression and illnesses so don’t think this is just coming from a happy-all-the-time gal. I have experienced many depths of darkness but I still enjoy seven to eight hours of SLEEP!

Before falling asleep there are things I do first, like pray. Not for myself, not for my situation not for me me me. I like to pray for others in need (there is always time to pray for me). I’ve said my prayers.

The second thing is to have my rainfall cd playing in the background. I love rainfall and thunder and since snow makes no sound, rain is my choice. You might have another comforting sound to focus on but mine is rain.

Begin focusing on the sound. Stress creeping in? Put it in a box, a cardboard box, for safe keeping until tomorrow, right now you need to focus on the drops. Bills, things to do gnawing at you? See the paper of the bill? See the word? Place it in the box. Picture the box floating in the midst of stars, millions of stars, the box looks quite small doesn’t it? You’re placing whatever is stressing you into the box as each distraction tries to get through, place them one by one in the box. If it gets full, start a new box!

The box will get full as you fill it with your worries, y’know. If you don’t have enough self control to focus because of a pain your feeling or the thoughts are too numerous, this box trick might take some time before your nights are filled with rest.

The box or boxes, are floating in the universe. You see them, you know they’re your worries, but the drops of rain make you realize the box can’t get wet. Drip after drip the box moves out into the solar system, you see the paper fluttering from the boxes; worries all stored for another time, you see numerous boxes and all your problems are in there. You’re focusing on the box as it is floating…floating…you sleep.

You’re going to try this night after night. It’s not a one-try deal. Repetition and perseverance is what’s going to make this work. Now if you’d rather think of your worries and focus on them, then you will be maintaining the disease and keeping it alive for years to come. Please don’t tell me you like stress and enjoy restless nights of sleep, it is up to YOU, your mind, your conscience and your very SOUL to be WORTH the change.

God Bless!

Burnout

Revelation 13:18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
***

Well I have two posts today for a reason. The one below is post number 666 and as much as I know it is just a number, something about it screams out EWWW! to me. So today you are blessed with TWO posts by me, how lucky is THAT?

I’ll finish what I started on that ‘other’ post.

F2k was draining. I have loved and been committed to f2k for some years now, but as the format changed, the guidelines altered, the reading and reading fell upon us, the choosing and deciding, this was all too much for my brain, with reality slapping me upside the head on a weekly basis.

So I decided to take a break. We have a lot of mentors in place for just this reason. We call it burnout when we over do it, and many of the mentors don’t get it because they have lots of time on the computer to dedicate to the course, even though life is slapping them in the face with illnesses, deaths, and hardships, you would never know it. We’re troopers.

We go on and on like energizer bunnies, tossing reality to the side and voluntarily diving into the assistance of the writer. It is what we signed on for and we are a dedicated committed bunch of folks.

I’ve decided to focus on my first love, WVU. I’m going to facilitate some courses and hopefully together with a bunch of other facilitators, we can get the course registration up and maybe even keep the people IN the class for the duration of two weeks. This is much less stress than the weekly demands of the f2k.

You have to remember, this is all volunteer work and I watch each session as mentors struggle with their lives, stay strong and commit to this seven week course. That is almost 2 months. So next round, I need a break. I’m honest enough to admit it and brave enough to stop my own downfall.

The next f2k course is April 6 I believe. That is a four week break? I can not commit fully at that time, with possible Dr. visits, hopefully eye surgery for the beau, the arrival of Spring and my New Year, and life wrapping its arms around me, drinking me in like a morning dew on grass!

Foresight is good to the extent you can know your limitations and act on them. That is what I’m doing, thinking ahead. My presence will still be felt, and I’ll miss the course, but this gal needs time to BREATHE!

Sight Unseen

Psalm 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

***

This is the emotions attached to the accident continued, if you all have been reading.

Steven wants me to get back in the saddle again, as much as I hate it, I have to agree, if I don’t get back, I’ll lose myself in the pit of depression, anxiety and fear. All things I’ve fought and overcome throughout my lifetime and here I am faced with it yet again, beckoning at my doorstep. I need time to heal but time is NOT being allotted me. I’m ‘supposed’ to just ‘get over it’, with all due respect.

We named the truck Destiny, the year she was purchased, many years ago in 2003 before Steven and I had met in person. I called her Destiny because it was that White Knight that was going to come and save me, although she was dark blue. She was going to whisk me away from the treacherous life I had been living and take me to a place warm and safe.

She made it across many states, to Maryland and then back to the land of Texas. Destiny made it to Nebraska for a wedding, back to Texas, up to Nebraska again for a funeral and back to Texas. A few more Nebraska trips and back to Texas. She’s run the gamut of successes. I always talk to her as if she is a living breathing entity and on the day of my accident I was telling her how sorry I was for wrecking her.

She gets pulled out of the ditch, and in her greatness, starts right up. That’s my Destiny. Now as I know she has to be fixed and overhauled, she’ll shine in her greatness and ride once again. What I’m wondering is, will I be in the drivers seat?

What I do know is that my destiny (future) is unknown just as the trucks. We’ll both heal and move on but will our paths continually collide? This we never know. I’m tired of the unknown. Hurt by the uncertainty. I will shine once again in my greatness and ride off once again. No white Knight this time, no warmth surrounding me, just my heart and soul.
My illusions have been shattered.

Can you tell I’ve sunken into the pit of depression? This is not me, just so you know. I’m the strong one who gets through these tough times with God gallantly carrying me on his shoulder. My Destiny is laid out, and the truck is just a truck.  To Steven, the truck is his baby. Men are different with their cars/trucks. I see the accident playing over and over and he sees how much this is going to cost him. Money we don’t have, money that will keep him from going to the doctors, money, money, money! As he loses faith, I am empowered by the very force that saved me.

I am a living breathing entity. This much I’m sure about.

You know, I realized something throughout all these years, I cost more than I’m worth. :(

Back to writing on Monday, hopefully.

The Morning after...

NEWS FLASH: ...car swerves on gravel road, does a rollover and swerves into a ditch. 13 year old girl dead, sixteen year old brother driver hospitalized! NEITHER WERE WEARING SEAT BELTS!!!
***

Well after I came home, settled down, somewhat, I had to return to reality. I wrecked the truck. My face was burning, Adams eye began swelling, and I began feeling fortunate for not being killed. I was alive but I felt I had walked through a portal and wasn’t coming back out.

I guess it was just a simple enough accident, slick road, swerving, pounding into a ditch. Simple, right? Wrong! Anxiety swept over me like a dense fog. I could not look out the window without crying. The incident kept playing over and over and over again.

BOOM went the airbags. FISSSSSSSSS went the smoke. Ears ringing, tears falling. It was a horrible experience.

The sobbing would not stop, I’d be fine, then it would hit me in the face and I’d  begin to cry. I felt alone, in pain, ashamed, hurt, sore, weary and uncertain.  Stevens mom came over, dispersed hugs, and offered her car. “What?” I thought, “DRIVE?” Oh dear, I dread driving, dread dread dread.

All of my friends were giving me warm wishes. Isn’t it funny how the people on the computer can be more consoling and understanding? Tuesday my rest day, I checked this thing two or three times, and each time I checked, my writing friends were there hugging me, and caring for me like a mom dog with her puppies. Let me tell you, the writing community is awesome! When something happens to one of us, we circle around for support to our injured comrade. My sister called, and we both agreed, I shouldn’t tell my mother.

Steven asked his mom if we could borrow the car to go to the library/food shopping on Tuesday and being the loving woman that she is, she brought the car out here. I would have to drive her back home and then drive back here. *sob* *cry* I really wasn’t worried about food or anything else for that matter, I just wanted to rest.

I got in the car, shaking, she wanted me to drive so I could get familiar with the car. Low to the ground, feet barely reaching the pedal, eyes could hardly see over the wheel, I started the car and off I went. I drove about 10 MPH up the dirt road, 40 on the asphalt.
Great, I’m driving. Get me back home now, my brain was screaming.

I made it home and the next day, Wednesday, we went food shopping. I said if I was going to go, Steven had to come too! I won’t be alone! Another 10 MPH for two miles, passed the ditch where all this occurred, hands trembling, chest tightening, tears rolling, I made it to the asphalt! Made it to the stupid library, made it to the store.

A lot of eyes looked at me sympathetically as I passed, black eye shining, obvious pain written on my face. Adam looks no better than me but his bangs can disguise his cut up forehead. We were in the public, just two days after this life altering event. Well life altering for Adam and I. We arrived home and tears came like a flood.

Today, Thursday, I have to drive about 30 miles out to his brothers house so he can look at the truck. Me? I’d much rather take it to a garage, but his brother is a mechanic and wants to look underneath the thing. Let’s see, the headlights are dangling like eyeballs hanging out of a socket, grass clings to the underbody and all through the engine, the truck smells like a swamp, mud clings to it like a silk scarf and I’m afraid driving it, is going to do more damage since it took on so much water. Does it really matter what *I* think? How I feel? Me, me me? Well the roads are wet and slippery today, so good luck me!

Rest? No, not me. Back in the saddle once again. I’ll rest when I go home.