HOME! The Real Miracle

Ex. 28:17 "And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row."

Home, The Last Five Days of Rehab: The Stones

Monday came. Ray and I were awakened because she had dialysis that day. They woke her, dressed her, and had her ready for pick-up. On her ‘D’ days, she was grumpy and irritable, talking and cursing under her breath, swearing she was going to find a new home. I had the feeling since she had been there for three years, this was the best place she could find. I didn’t get all of the details on her that I would’ve liked but I knew enough to know, she was settled and she was staying. The nurses loved her and that was truly important in this place.

I woke because well, they’re pretty noisy in getting Ray dressed and ready and I want to grab someone to help me before they leave, so I was always awake at five a.m. This morning I would once again wait to receive my medications but I realize that this is the norm for this place, you get them when you get them. 

Today was the day that my voice was going to be heard, about my meds, about the disaster that happened Saturday and how this place is a pit from hell with incapacitated elderly people sprawled throughout. There were some who actually walked but honestly, the only one that I saw was Santa! But they already knew all of this and it’s really not telling them anything they don’t already know.

From around the curtain popped the one nurse from Sunday that I knew, Cathy and the aide Sondra. Cathy asked if I’d had my coffee yet today and when I said no she ran and got me one while Sondra cleaned up the previous trays from the day before. I told them that I’d be leaving this place by Friday if I could and they were like, “Awww, but you’ll be missed!” I told them that this place was becoming too traumatic a journey for me and a hindrance any healing. They both nodded and understood completely.

My physical therapy consisted of some leg lifts and exercises to prepare my leg to bend. For too many days my leg had stayed straight and felt like it would never bend again but I knew, in order to get out, I would work on bending my leg, one gentle step at a time. While physical and occupational therapy lasted a half hour tops, I worked out five times a day. My right arm was becoming stronger and stronger and helped immensely when I needed to push myself back on the bed.

Today was about Jacki and Erikka. Jacki was one of the administrators of the building as was Erikka. When Jacki came in she said she wanted to hear my side of the story about Saturday because she had heard everyone else's side. She also wanted to show me a stone. A precious purple stone, so shiny it lit the room. I looked at it and thought of Santa and his words of wisdom, ‘looking at the stone reminded me of looking at a million mountains’. This stone was chiseled from someplace special I could tell. She let me hold it and then she sat it in the sun in the window. “I can only loan this to you for the day but I want this to lift your spirits.” I had tears in my eyes as I said thank you. I always had the ladies laughing and she knew I was not in a good way this day, she knew I needed a lift and at this moment God used her to bring a beautiful stone to lift my spirit. Don’t judge me, I needed EVERYTHING I could get in that place to lift me up!

When Erikka walked in a little later carrying a bigger rock, a multi-colored stone that looked like it jumped right out of a scene of a Superman movie, I cried. Why is God bringing me these beautiful chiseled stones or is satan taunting me. I was so weak I could not tell so I prayed, for wisdom and knowledge that would lead me in the way I should go. The one main thing I received from these two visitors was the realization that I had allies in this place of doom, they were the ones who would see me out the front door! 

The nights of darkness enveloped me and sealed me in a cocoon. The voices, the shadows all played like a kaleidoscope in my head. I was hurting mentally and physically and all I had to cling to was my God in the most powerful way, alone and being tried. The stone sat in the window cove with my hospital treasures awaiting the sun so the brilliance of colors could shine through. The clouds and rain kept the stone from its glory.

We had a dilemma this week. For me to get home, I would need a ramp built so I could get into the house. Everything IN the house was already handicap ready. The other thing I needed was to get my leg bent! No matter how much I was fighting to get out of here, I could go nowhere if I couldn’t get into my car.

Erikka came into my room, sat on the side of the bed and whispered in her soft angelic voice, “Just say the word, and I can have you home today.” Erikka was a thin beautiful woman with sunrise orange hair pulled on top of her head. She glided in the room so as to look like she was floating. Sometimes her hair was flowing down her back over her modest vest of a matte color, eyes as blue as a cloudless sky.

Through tears I explained the dilemma, my leg needs to bend and we need a ramp built. I could taste home. Although I forgot what the back of the house looked like, how my flowers circled the house the last time I saw them, my Sassy dog was no longer there to greet me and Riley, the guys said, was playing hide and seek, she KNEW I wasn’t there. AND there was the fear of what home held for me. Joni was in need of a miracle!

After two weeks of discussion about a ramp being built and the cost, it seemed it just couldn't be done. Worry swept in like a Texas dust storm! They will not release me until they’re sure I have everything right at home. Steven had already taken on so much with taking care of me and running back and forth getting me stuff, he was now frazzled and ready for the hospital himself, just a different ward, if you know what I mean. Then in stepped his brother. Apparently, mom had contacted him, told him of our troubles, he contacted hubby and the only day he had off work to do the ramp was Wednesday, he could get the ramp done in a day! Now, all we needed was the weather to comply.

We had five days straight of cloudy, rainy, chilly weather after the day of me sitting in the sun seeing Santa. Forty-degrees and wind is pretty chilly, no, downright cold! I needed a miracle! Hubby was looking at the weather on his computer and he said that it looked like I’d get my miracle, a break in the weather for ONE DAY, Wednesday! It would be in the seventies! I thought, yeah, that will be a miracle.

Wednesday came, the SUN rose and peeked in my window, it reported loudly that today I’d get my miracle! I waited, I had coffee, I chatted with the nurses and assured them with great certainty that Friday I would be released! They hugged me, told me how much they’d miss me, we laughed and we cried, and we all commented on how I was the little miracle of St. John’s nursing home! 

By afternoon the day had topped out at eighty some degrees! The ramp was finished, paid for by his brother, and a pic was sent to my phone so I could show the Administrators of what this little miracle was capable of. They all agreed, Joni would be going home on Friday! Ray was mighty sad because ‘we’re fwends, right?’ I’ll never forget you, Ray! 

The one lady who saw to it that I got into this place kept telling me that my insurance had agreed to pay for another week if I needed. I laughed so hard I woke Ray up from her nap. “No thank you, I AM GOING HOME!”

On Thursday the cool temps and clouds returned, I readied for my Friday release! In the wee hours of Friday morning when I pushed the button for a nurse to bring me my meds, around the corner came Erikka, the beautiful angel who only worked day shift! She came in to do night shift JUST FOR ME! 

“Joni?” she whispered in her ever soft voice.

I sat straight up, I knew the voice. I tapped my dim light and saw her aura shining, “Erikka? Is that you,” tears came too easily when she said yes and sat next to me on the edge of my bed.

After giving me my meds, she went on in her whispering voice, “I brought you a healing stone,” she went on, “this stone was broken in half, in the morning light, you’ll see the crack and how it healed itself!”

Tears were now soaking my face and dripping down my chest. I grabbed for a kleenex, I was speechless. “You came for ME?” 

“Yes,” she said, “I prayed for you, for what to give you, I bring you the healing stone.” 

Our eyes met, mine blurred from tears and her blue eyes were brimming, with joy. She pressed the stone into my hand. “I might never see you again.” I squeaked out of my hoarse voice.

“Oh, I think you’ll see me again, you can fly!” With a tight hug and our farewells, she was gone.

Friday sunrise came and it was release day. I could’ve gotten out at nine a.m. but I chose to wait for Ray to come back from dialysis. The nurses were shocked to say the least, that someone so eager to get out, would stay, just for Ray. I stayed! Ray came back, peeked around the curtain and with her last, “Whacha doin’?” I said to her, “Waiting for you!” I gave her the last of my chips tied in a purple ribbon, her favorite color! 

The nurses came in, said their goodbyes and tears were shared by all. I made an impact on every single person I came in contact with during my ten-day stay. Hubby got the car ready, emptied my room of my contents, as I looked at the trays from the prior day and the full commode from that morning I whispered, “I won’t miss you!” 

I was wheeled to my car, passing nurses as I went, I waved with the biggest smile on my face to date… I was going HOME! 

Solar Eclipse from 8-21-17

1 Kgs.10:2 "And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones: and when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart."

Josh. 4:8 And the children of Israel did so as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of Jordan, as the LORD spake unto Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them unto the place where they lodged, and laid them down there.

1 Chron. 29:2 "Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and the brass for things of brass, the iron for things of iron, and wood for things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance."

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good life! 

Winding Down... A Grand Finale

“The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper.” Proverbs 19:8 (NIV)

This might be one of those 'must read' posts as I wind down my blog. I've gone on hiatus many times over the years but this one is timely and essential as I need to continue healing. 

It all began back in 2005 when I started this blog, the posts didn't really feel right so I deleted the lame posts from 2005 and 2007. Then in 2008, it took off and I started getting followers and meeting other bloggers, some whom I am still friends with to this day on Facebook. It was a writing blog. A writer helping fellow writers follow their dreams as I too followed my dream of becoming a writer all the while sharing my love of God. 

Some liked that I spoke of God and I'm sure some were turned away by it, but those who liked it became my friends on Facebook, getting to know me on a more personal level. I don't remember the year the transition happened, the blog name went from One Voice, Write Right to Joni's Muse: The Poet Within. I know the transition happened at a time I was being called on every typo, misspelling and faux pas of my writing posts so I no longer felt like a reliable writing source to my fellow writers. It was no big deal, I'm a writer and we need to take criticism but sometimes, people are not gentle in their critique and even unintentionally downright hurt you!

I turned my writing muse to God and all that He's done for me. I didn't strive for grammar perfection, I just wanted to share my life story and all that I've learned over the years. No one could critique my story because it was/IS mine! My life, MY wounds, MY scars that I was sharing! People liked reading my story because I had an edge of reality, a blunt truth that not many people are willing to go into the depths of their soul and share. I shared over the years parts of my past that some would have rather kept buried but I brought it to light. I needed healing in my writing and releasing all the past wounds really helped me to find an inner peace. 

My blood family has no interest in my story. It is not their story but when I'm gone and they look over the truth, I'm sure they'll sit in shock that my story of the dysfunctional life I LIVED, is out there for the world to see. Not that the world reads my blog but many will reread all that they missed. While they [family] are back east living the life of caged emotions I am moving on and healing, not giving their lost love a second thought.

Then something happened in 2017 on the road to discovery, an illness to beat all illnesses wrapped around my body and carried me to a cave where I needed reflection and time to think just what all of this meant. I lost quite a few of what I thought were dear friends because I'm not a conventional gal by any means and they are smothered in conventional life, treatment, diagnosis, and illnesses. They live and breathe conventional where I breathe freely the air of truth that I'm given. I may be on my own with a few dear friends, my spiritual family, that have stayed with me and encourage and believe in the path I've chosen because they know, it wasn't MY choice it was the path that God chose for me. Who is anyone to judge another person's path? Whether right or wrong, it is their path, no one else's.

While I hurt over the abandonment, I see that maybe the ones who left were not really true friends and I've become okay with that. I've been alone most of my life anyway (yes with God by my side) and I'm used to not being the accepted one. Shoot, I didn't get bullied because I was Miss Popular! Then there is this year, the year of uncertainty. I'm healing, I'm moving on but from the outside world I sense fear and doubt that I can't handle on a daily basis. I don't feel many people understand what having an extra sense has caused me throughout my lifetime. People laugh and scoff in disbelief and I'm okay with that too. My own sister used to call it, 'that thing' that Joni has. She knew the extra sense existed but was never sure what to call 'that thing' that I have.

With the advent of change -- via Facebook (snooze, unfollow, and many more) options, Blogspot with their not sending my comments to my email and the ad thing from the European Union? along with not allowing 'followers' anymore, and my hits going from the 50-70 range down to the 10-20 range; everything is changing and I need to change right along with the times, it is calling me to change. 

We're also coming to a dim period of having to put my fourteen-year-old dog to sleep. It's a difficult decision for any family and this will surely keep me in my room crying for a spell. Change is coming on a personal level and a worldwide level whether anyone wants to believe it or not. I'm done listening to people who say memes annoy but then post their own. I'm tired of people not knowing a typo from a grammar mistake. I'm tired of everyone finding fault with everyone else but won't look in the mirror at their own faults. I'm also pained by watching a world silently killing themselves on drugs and toxic eating without a care to LIFE and living and making excuses for why they are the way they are.

I won't be alone. I have a strong faith and belief in God and we'll walk together on this journey and wherever we wind up will be by His grace and His alone. Just know, I AM healing and the journey IS moving right along as God has planned. I may continue to post poetry and pics, but my sharing days are done. I need me time for a bit. You all have the grace of God carrying you and may you all pace yourself where an inner healing takes place.  I pray my work for God was well received and that one person, because of my words, was changed in some way. I love you all!

Angel Always...Godspeed, my friends

Psalm 61:2-3, “From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge, a fortress where my enemies cannot reach me.” (NLT)

The Branch

I crawl out on the lonely branch, 

that can't sustain my weight. 

I try to creep so still in thought, 

reflecting on my fate. 

Up on top this tree so tall, 

I find a quiet place. 

Still are sounds that whistle through, 

the leaves a patient pace. 

What is this that breaks my thought, 

I’m not alone anymore? 

The presence is surrounding me; 

it haunts my very core. 

No longer alone, my thirst is quenched, 

my essence fed by might. 

Surrounded by the stillness of, 

the Radiant Branch of Light.

God's Not Done...

Rom. 8:25 "But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it."

God’s Not Done

On Friday the 6th I began writing a blog post aimed at a Monday posting titled God’s Not Done… but if I had gotten it done, I would’ve posted it Saturday. Unfortunately it didn’t get done. Sunday I watched a sermon online, it was an Easter sermon. What jumped out at me were these words, “We can’t reach up to God He reaches down to us and assures us He is not done with us.”

Where had I heard those words, ‘He’s not done’? Oh that’s right, from my blog post I was writing on Friday! Coincidence? I think not! It was a direct message, a message on transformation! So here is what I had written on Friday.

God is not done…

God is not done with me yet! He’s busy transforming this broken, damaged, diseased woman into something beautiful; a cherished work of art that shines His Light in the dark places!

The statistics are in and the researchers have concluded that 90% of cancers are a result of diet, lifestyle, and environmental factors. And the single biggest factor is what you eat. Imagine that! We are what we eat! My lifestyle was eating junk and crud and look at me now in the battle of my life trying to reverse the damage.

It’s pretty sad that I’ve only begun embracing this new lifestyle after the diagnosis of an illness. I’m continuing to dig deep within my wounds, as deep as my arm will reach, to heal the core of the damage and make peace with my past. God and I are alone on this journey as there are parts so weathered and stained for the naked eye that I keep them there, never to write about. I guess you could say they are the demons in my closet.

Philippians 1:29 (NIV) “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.”

I’m not changing just a portion of my life, I’m changing everything one hundred percent! [finishing post] I’m surrendering my all to God because I know He is looking down on me, reaching out to me, shaping me and transforming me for a better life.

Life sometimes takes hold of us to where we’re blinded by all of the chaos in the world. From the crazy weather, to the sudden deaths, to the upheaval of life as we know it. If you tell me your weather is just fine and dandy where you live, give it time, you’ll see the craziness He has planned coming to your state. God is not done with us yet.

Moving along, at first, I was bitter and angry and slowly I was losing patience. I was paranoid and frustrated and sought to be healed or let go. He didn’t let me go, He held on tighter and tighter and popped open my eyes so I could see a little more clearly.

The chaos in the world can lead to isolation. You’re running along just fine until someone tosses a roadblock up and you sit idle for far too long. Maybe you’re in a raging storm held back by gridlock. Maybe an angry blizzard came up and movement forward is at a standstill. Maybe you’re getting tired of the unethical society being the controlling factor in day-to-day living. Maybe you think you have life under control but rest assured, He’s not done with you yet.

Job 14:19 “The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.”

Recently I’ve noticed a slow migration from Facebook. People are dropping off of the radar for days if not weeks at a time. Last week someone asked, why are people leaving Facebook? I mentioned that maybe they’re tired of Big Brother watching their every move. I received a very aggressive snappy reply that said, “If you’re tired of Big Brother watching you, turn off your computer!” It is that type of nastiness that is causing people to migrate away from Facebook. It’s no longer a place of fun and sharing information in a congenial manner. It’s a paranoid aggression at its finest.

I myself could care less if Big Brother is watching my every move; I’m not doing anything wrong so I don’t have anything to hide. I could care less if they control the Internet, I’ll just find a hobby that doesn’t enlist the aid of online research, like painting and coloring. No skin off of my nose but apparently something is causing this mass migration.

Something is causing this shift in weather. Something is provoking this deviation in attitudes of negative energy that people are sending out. Something is compelling people to wake up and realize God is not done with us yet and are removing themselves out of fear and uncertainty. At first, in my paranoia, I thought it was just me, feeling like I had gone and done something wrong in steering people to a healthier lifestyle. I’ve come to the realization that people are who they are, and kill what they must, they’ll continue where they will and dust what they dust.

Job 6:20 “They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thither, and were ashamed.”

As my, hopefully short, hiatus begins, I leave you, my fellow Christians with hope! There IS hope in tomorrow. There is hope in saving yourself. There is promise in transforming the old you into a new being of Christ’s. You might not see it as you gaze at the corrupt land you live; the unscrupulous badgering society is taking but there IS hope! God’s not done with you yet! Remember that with every breath. 

Death without the hope of the resurrection and eternal life brings despair!

He is RISEN! 

All Praise and Glory to God!

Acts 24:15 “And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.”

God's Not Dead, He is surely alive, living on the inside roaring like a lion! 

MONOPOLY!

Job 40:20 "Surely the mountains bring him forth food, where all the beasts of the field play."

MONOPOLY

Deut. 33:27 “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them.”

This was going to be one of my Gateway to Health continuing series on STRENGTH. I got sidetracked because of my Google browser.

Gateway to Health: Strength
Through all of this soul searching, I realized another thing that makes me different from a lot of people. It isn’t just my intense love of the Holy Spirit within me, it is my strength to get through trials. Since I found out I have this disease my strength has grown to immeasurable heights. I know when I was younger my sister always deemed me ‘the strong one’. I never felt strong but she said I handled things differently than everyone else.

When I looked at this disease and the statistics in getting it, supposedly 90% was caused by stress. I don’t know how accurate that statistic is because it seems Google is waging a war against the holistic healing facts that I found one year ago. Genetics only make up three percent, and a chronic growing fungus like my psoriasis is another percentage. Add them all together and you have the Big C! Now do people with none of these ‘symptoms’ get the C? I don’t know, they’ve had to get these statistics from somewhere.

It wasn’t until about fifteen years ago when I started taking my writing to new heights with my first computer did I decide to get my story out to the world via the intranet. I didn’t care if it was in book format and no one read my words or a blog or another format, I was working on cleaning out the impervious closet.

I literally had access to thousands of outlets to post the heartfelt pain that I had suffered over my lifetime. My poetry writings in my notebooks made the long journey with me when I left home. I transferred some of my favorite poems to the newfound Word documents and the world now became mine to conquer; the new avenue was full of traffic.

Poetry was my healing outlet as a child. I could write my pain in journals and no one would be the wiser. No one would know that the walls of my closet were black because they assumed it was yellow and sunshiny bright inside my head; that is how God protected me. He allowed me to barrel over the waterfalls of life, with the sunbeams in front of me and rainbows behind me. I didn’t feel I was hiding my pain but apparently, I hid traumatic events in my writing.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t feel I was hiding the trauma. Through my writing, I was healing myself and when looked at, it appeared I was strong because I showed no sign of weakness but here I am with an illness that was awakened by the dark closet I had closed to the outside world all those years. How this transferred into the disease of a lifetime I may never know the true facts of the matter. I’m not here dissecting my pain I’m here to show you that strength wins out in the end.

Strength momentarily halted. Read on…

Since January first the ever-popular search engine Google has shifted. For a year I’ve been searching through page after page on cancer, the healing protocols, the holistic avenues I need to take. It was my understanding that your search engine ‘follows you’ and will then send like-minded pages to the front end of your searching. Holistic healing, natural herbal remedies being my most searched have now turned a sour negative note. I don’t know why but I won’t let it stress me as it is trying to do just that. Example? This link is just one example. Last year I found numerous pages that pointed to stress as the cause of this disease, but this morning as in recent weeks, I had to dig through numerous Psych central and the like pages! Page 1 listed pages that contradicted everything I saw last year pointing TO stress being the cause. This year stress is basically laughed at on page 1.

The Truth About Cancer and similar pages used to be the first pages that showed up, but it has mysteriously gone from my page one searches on EVERYTHING. It’s not doing a good job of following me, and now everything is from science this, scientific that. Where in the world did these pages come from? Now Google has its own agenda??? And people wonder why I don’t trust this superhighway? It is becoming like the rest of the outside world, unpredictable and untrustworthy with its own politically governed agenda.

Strength and monopoly merge…

I think there lay one of my biggest strengths that I was never a part of this mega mind of technology. I had a washing machine but clothes were always line dried. I cooked in an oven, reheated on the stovetop. I had no desire to be a part of the threads of the web. I got snared and tangled in it fifteen years ago and life has never been the same. Some say technology is for the better, and granted in some aspects it is, I like being able to dry my clothes in a dryer now. Life is now about speeding down the highway, closed are the bookstores and shining high are fast food joints, coffee shops, and toxicity! That’s the new world! Even the medical world has quick fixes; drugs, slice dice and radiate. Great!  Life for me has changed forever.

So if you see fewer links to my alternative holistic healing process it is because I need to find a new search engine that isn’t politically motivated or monetarily funded by the pharmaceutical corporations or the richest search engine in the world. Like cancer, the internet is one big business. I thought I was being over paranoid but no, here it is in black and white. 

My strength continues in LISTENING and OBEYING my Lord before any other entity on the planet! What a tangled web the earthlings have woven is an understatement! This is not a democracy or a republic, this is a manipulative game of Monopoly and some of us were sent to jail without a trial.

2 John 1:8 “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.”

A Break... I'm Not Clay

Pss. 38:10 “My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone from me.”

A Break… I’m Not Clay

It is with great distress that I need to announce a break. Whether physically or mentally I know myself too well to stick around to watch the hellfires consume the people I love. I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart who has inspired me to continue writing. This year has been an active place of healing for me, and I thank you with love.

You’ve told me over and over again how I lift your spirits, how you love my honest writing, how it is I that inspires YOU when it is some of you that inspires ME! I look for that inspiration every day in my life but don’t always find it where I look. Am I looking in the wrong places? Apparently yes. 

Facebook is becoming a desert, a desolate place where vultures linger and seek to suck every bit of life out of one living cactus. I’m a very sensitive person to the point the tiniest pinprick causes me to burst in a way I’m not accustomed to. Sorry, I don’t play your little games of ‘popularity’. Games, that’s all it is behind your mask. Well, I’m not clay, you’re not going to shape me into a hater, racist pig. I see people thinking they’re helping by spreading hate but they are a part of the demolition crew that is destroying this world.

Whether it is in YouTube comments or Yahoo comments or on Facebook, the vultures feed off of the sensitivity and I cringe when I hear/read the battle cry of joy when they’ve doused the light of the one shining brightness in a darkened world. They enjoy seeing people in pain. It is some kind of sickness that they embrace and I totally need to step away, to breathe.

A reality hit me last week when I had the pleasure of listening to this tiny little twelve-year-old, Grace VanderWaal, sing her heart out. 

One of her songs went like this:
I don’t know my name
I don’t play by the rules of the game
So you say I’m just trying
Just trying… to find my way.

Another of her songs Clay was one of my favorites. It touched me in a place that not many long time experienced writers touch me and here was this little girl, thinking she couldn’t sing, taking the world by storm and marking her spot in history. The elite vultures are going to devour her and place the obstacles of fame and popularity on her doorstep and while she has loving parents to protect her, they can only do so much.

“Your silly words
I won't live inside your world 
Cause your punches and your names
All your jokes and stupid games
They don't hurt
No they don't hurt
Watch them just go right through me
Because they mean nothing to me

I'm not clay” 
~ 12-year-old singer/songwriter Grace VanderWaal lyrics 

Like me wanting to protect people from their harsh reality of prejudice, racism, bigotry and hypocritville, people fall victim day in and day out and there is no protector. Sure they claim they have God as a protector, but too many times I see them as food for the vultures more than I see the Living God in them. They are being devoured and I have a weak stomach for mangled flesh.

Yesterday my stomach churned as if I was on the Zipper at the fair. I watched a good movie but it wasn’t enough to help relieve the motion sickness I felt in my stomach for mankind. Satan is trying to attack me from every angle whether it is my son (who will be out of his new job in two months due to the store closing down) or my love of nature; my ceramic birdbath fell yesterday cracking like a clay vase falling from the thirteenth floor with irreparable damage. Then there is the loss of respect for friends I once admired and looked up to as they slither in the snake pit, now I only see a darkness shrouding their beings. It’s all too much for me to bear and TRY to be a positive light in these dark and solemn times. I need to re-energize.

Maybe a break will help. Maybe I’ll unplug the computer completely and just vanish in an air of shrouded mystery. Maybe a day or two will be enough or maybe I need more time, only time will tell, eh? I need to breathe and only my commitments will stay while I take a step back from virtual reality. It’s not and never was a nice fit for me. TO ME, the virtual world is a huge department store on Black Friday filled to capacity with nude mannequins. I see a human off in the distance but I’ll never reach them because the mannequins will topple on top of me and smother me to death.

When I feel the anger and negativity start to boil over like water left on the stove, and I begin to lash out with hatred in my veins I know it’s time for me to get away from that which sickens me. I won’t be molded and formed into the hate-filled people that seem to run the virtual society. People are vicious and they hold no shame. Me, I’m ashamed of this place. I need to breathe because I’m NOT CLAY!

Author's note: *
*sorry Mike, I tried to see the good in a damned world. 
* I'll continue writing, bookmark my blog 

Deuteronomy 31:6 KJV 

Be strong and of a good courage, 

fear not, nor be afraid of them: 

for the LORD thy God, 

he it is that doth go with thee; 

he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

The Well Is Dry

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 

– Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

The Well is Dry

After writing yesterday, I prayed about what I wrote and the reason behind why on earth would I share such a pity party post? Well, I know why, because even I have my bad days. People think because I laugh and make them smile that there is nothing wrong in Joni’s world, well let me tell you, there are things wrong in my world! 

Is it possible to focus too much on the Lord, therefore alienating yourself from the rest of the world? Am I to blame for all the angst in my life? I sometimes think I am. 

I’m trying to get back into writing and my well is dry. I woke this morning with a renewed faith when cool air kissed my cheek in the middle of summer. It was 6o degrees and a storm was about to erupt when all of a sudden, a poem came to my mind. The rain began falling, the thunder cheered with lightning displayed across the sky.

Was this God cheering me on? Was He letting me know He was right there and hasn’t left my side? It is as if He was filling my well with water to drink and words to write. The poem I wrote was, God is Crying. I normally write a poem, let it rest a day, then come back to the poem and fix anything that doesn’t work for me. Through the thundering morning and cool rain showers egging me on, I felt the need to post the words right away, so if you see something wrong with the poem, take it up with Him.

Proverbs 16:9 (NIV) “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”

I sometimes wrongfully think I’m in control of my life when I know full well God is in complete control. When I whine of the pain I’m in and cry about the reasons my disability hinders me from doing what *I* want to do, I have to remember who it is I work for first and foremost. If anyone remembers (you have to go back to my posts from 2011-12) my disability hit me after my hubby got his sight back after being blind for two and a half years. The many hours behind the wheel driving to and from Omaha, sometimes two times a week, (6-8 hour trips) took its toll on the lumbar portion of my back.

Had this happened while he was blind, I would have never been able to do the work that I felt God had called me to do and that was to take care of my man. Yes, that was basically the job I signed up for when I met my beau but it was so much more than that. God had His hands in the stew the entire time and he decided to whip it up a bit to see how I handled the situation. 

I’m allowed a day or two to feel sorry for myself, by dagnammit, no one else will or does for that matter so I feel I have to have my bad days or I’ll never rise up and be more than the pain that defines me.

It’s weird how me having a bad day warrants hits on my blog out the gazoo! My happy, joyful posts might get 13-20 hits but my woeful, pained posts near the hundred and over hit mark, how odd is that? When I began this blog, it was all about the writing craft and when I decided to make it about God, I no longer wrote for other people, the hits or the followers, I took on the challenge to write what God wanted me to write and what I felt that He spoke to my heart to say to the world.

I no longer write to satisfy everyone else, I never LIVE to satisfy others; I only live for God, pain and all. I realize that God has me this way because my heavy lifting, hours upon hours of driving, snow shoveling and overworking myself days are over. I would have never stopped so God made sure I stopped, maybe so I wouldn’t further damage myself, after all, He did see ahead of the steps I take, this is His plan and not one of my own selfish making.

Sure I would love to be able to walk normally again, to dance while dusting, to skip while vacuuming, to meditate while mowing the lawn but that is not God’s plan for me. His plan is for me to rest. Maybe he has something big planned or maybe not, maybe the walk in the cornfields is His plan for me. Nah, I know that is not His plan, He told me so. Now you’ll have to tolerate me a little longer!

I’ll end this post on a happy note. While my husband is complaining that the 61 degrees and rain is too cold for the month of July (he LIKES the 100 degree days), I am relishing the dampness of an eight-hour rainfall accompanied by a dark overcast sky with stormy weather erupting every half hour or so. I have washed clothes, dried clothes, and folded them all because my back loves cooler temps and affords me more mobility than normal. Praise be to God.

I have written two blog posts today and all is right with the world…for today. May you look at God’s plan as the master plan for your life and your own plans as selfish fodder. Life is already too short to be giving up when YOU are done, always remember it will last until God is done!

“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” 

– Mother Theresa

One World

John 7:7 “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.”

One social world is enough for me, thank you. I don’t do the whole kit and kaboodle when it comes to social media rounds, and quite honestly as a person, it does nothing for me. I was recently asked to join another ‘social scene’ and I had to flat out decline the invitation. 

I started an account, looked at the wall and once again, it is filled with hate-mongers. Are they hiding their hate on THAT wall and acting all lovey on their facebook wall where people see them? I don’t know but I do know that as soon as I saw all of the same hate spewing I quickly deleted the account laughing at my own stupidity for falling for such a snare.

As a writer I need Twitter and Facebook to promote my writing and myself. I don’t need to be a part of a social scene where people have nothing to offer the world but their hate-filled OPINIONS of the world! Goodness, take a breather! How does one live in two worlds when they can’t even handle the ONE world they live in without it leaving a bitter taste in their mouth?

I wouldn’t dare take on another social wall unless it benefited my writing but that’s just me. I’m weird that way. I have more to do with my life than sit on the computer at social events spewing hate, what I ate, to take selfies to show that I and my world are just perfect, or to share memes of what I REALLY want to say. I care more about myself than to put myself in the accepted or rejected seat yet again. 

More times than not I’m rejected. Is it because people don’t like the truth I spew? I know people are leery of the God I believe in and I’m okay with that. It’s not like I tell them that it is MY truth and they must follow, I let them decide for themselves who it is they are committed to and here lately, the world is committed to technology over any form of theology I could ever dish out.

The world doesn’t look people in the eyes anymore, the world looks at their phones as they’re texting. They drive and text and more often than not, people die and have accidents because of texting. Is there anything more important in life than living life? I thought it was just a kid phase but no, more and more adults are using their phones as a means to staying connected to the world-wide-web.

I have never taken one of those ‘selfies’ that everybody is hooked on and I don’t text either, does that make me an unacceptable life form? It must mean I’m a scary uptight snob or something. 

In my writing, I like to convey a message. If I have something important to say, I say it and if it is too lengthy, I write and blog about the message. I live out in the middle of nowhere and oftentimes the internet is my only source of the candid view of the outside world that I behold. 

“A lot of people believe I am a Christian because they think I talk about Christian values; the truth is I talk about Human Values.
I have been asked if I am a Buddhist because I have discovered Inner Peace.
Many of my friends are Pagans, and they think that I am one too because I say that being in Nature is like going to Church.
Do you want to know who I really am? It’s very simple. I don’t need a label to define me. I am a piece of the Universe, Sentient and Manifested; I AM AWAKE.”
~ Paul Enso Hillman

Because of the people out there, I don’t define myself as a Christian. That is a label that is misused too much. People believe in God; they call themselves Christians. They read the Bible; they’re Christians. Talk about spirituality, they think you’re not a Christian yet the very book they read about THEIR God is FULL of spirituality so if they really read the book and understood the meaning, why does my spirituality scare them? 

Pss. 50:12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof.”

I am not the kind of person who praises God one minute then is so filled with hate that I must relay that hate to get it off of my chest. I am not blind to the world but the world is blind to me. I don’t come out of the woodwork to whine, I don’t display attributes that I will later regret and I don’t follow people just because they think they are a leader.

I am a child of God. You can label yourself any way you’d like but know, your actions are what people see and it turns them against the very belief some of you so-called Christians are trying to guide them into. I won’t be a part of the show.

Isa. 13:11 “And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”

In with the New!

Job 32: 19 Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles.
***

We’re going to roar into the New Year with a bang, right writers? And we’re gonna put this old heap of garbage of a year behind us and start off on a new note, a new key, an exemplary tone, a swashbuckling wallapalooza of a new beginning.

As many good things that have happened, there’s been an air of things that just didn’t pan out for me this year. The ending of this year is no different. Things are not falling into place the way they should and more than likely I’m the culprit. Okay that is not true, circumstances are not within my control, and things sometimes spiral in a wayward fashion and I’m left standing on the sidelines wondering how things ever got so disheveled.

So here I have Christmas crawling up on me like sly fox coming out of nowhere. The year just wooshed by and here it is Christmas next week. Have I bought anything? Nope. Still sitting here, tapping on the keys, waiting for a miracle. Miracles are a part of Christmas y’know. :)

I woke up this morning and there is a dusting of white stuff clinging to the grass and roads. Not enough to make a snowball or cause a driving a hazard, but enough to make the sun appear brighter than it is already. It was 19 bitterly cold degrees and I had a longing for Texas like never before. It was always so warm this time of year; the roads wide, the stores bigger than life, but the downside was, it was congested to the hilt!

I’ve been hit with yet another cold! Since Adam started school, he’s had three! Brings them home with him then we all catch the lingering germfest. “Are you taking vitamins?” they say. “Did you ever see the price of those things?” I retort. I believe vitamins in a pill form are a luxury that I can’t afford, and I just don’t believe in pill popping. Do I eat good? Yes! Vitamins via food? Most certainly! I drink green tea, which I still say minimizes the length of my cold.

In the six years that I lived in Texas, I had maybe six colds. Since I’ve lived here, in a year and a half, I’ve had six colds! So what is this post about anyway? My pity party? My big complain day or something? By no means. This is the road to a new beginning. A New Year! A long awaited year of change!

By putting all of the have’s and have-nots, success’s and fails, in a written form, I can now see what went right, and possibly where I went wrong. It’s not a pity party as much as it is an organizing technique where I can now begin to shape a new year of fresh unique things that will take place and put my journey in the right direction.

Why not try this yourself. Make a list of the things that went wrong this year, writing or otherwise. Make a list of what went right. Now put a positive spin on it and bring the year in with CHANGE!