I'm Alive

James 5:16 (ESV) “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” 

I’m Alive

Everyone draws concern when I'm away from the social media platform for a week. I imagine they all think the worst and have me dead in the still of the night. But I digress they all might just wonder whatever happened to me as my daily postings come to a halt. I love you all immensely!

I wish I was well enough to bring you great news, but no, I’m down and don’t want to bring others down with me. It’s hard visiting the social media world and see everyone happily moving along, portraying the perfect life while I’m out here miserable. And I know, they all have imperfect lives also they just like portraying the facade. I just could never do that in all honesty. I like dripping truth onto the page and sweeping up the mess as I move along.

I’m now housebound for the summer. I was housebound for the extensive, extremely frozen over winter and now that we've jumped right into summer with a day or two of a spring feel to it, I'm housebound again. I'm grumpy and not liking anything these days so I figure if I stay away from my friends and the social media, I can try and mend without hurting anyone with my snide lashings.

My inability to walk came to a complete standstill last week when I had finished mowing. I used to walk with a limp but now I can't even make it down a pair of stairs, and before you start telling me to see a doctor, that's easier said than done. If you're willing to come and shower and clothe me and place me in the vehicle and take me to the doctor, (if you can find a wheelchair when you get there) then attending a doctors office is not in the picture any time soon. Yeah, it's gotten that bad in just a week. 

My writing has come to a standstill, my walking to a halt, my mowing at a deadlock, my showering when I can, my joy on hiatus. I now write in Yahoo notepad since my MS Word is malfunctioning. My walking, what little I can do, is done with a cane in hand, my mowing is now my husband's fun. My joy? Well, that's taking its sweet old time in resurfacing as the enemy thinks its time to hit me full force!

I thought my riding lawn mower was going to be my welcomed joy this summer, heat or no heat, I would be out and enjoying SOMETHING in the world, but no, it just wasn't meant to be for me. Last week when I got off the mower my legs nearly crumbled. I came in the house to sit down and sitting felt like I had just sat on an ice pick and no one could remove the steel point hitting the nerve in my back. I was in pain worse than I had been in a few weeks ago when I didn't want to visit family but I did. I could not lie down (still can't), I could barely sit, cooking was out of the question so I just sat, and cried, a good long sobbing cry. The uneven land out here and every jostle the mower took, so did my already damaged back. 

I've rested this week staring out the window at the squirrels, bunnies, and birds. We've had pretty intense heat in the upper nineties so peeking my head out the door even became an unbearable task. This is not the kind of heat that arthritic people can endure. I'm here and I'm alive. I don't have my peppy optimism and inspirational spring in my step; negativity from the outside world seeps in whether aimed at me or not, so avoiding the social world helps. I just can't bear to see people happily enjoying the very thing that will kill me in the foods they eat and post happily because well, it's not killing them, yet. YET!

I do like seeing people happy and changing the very way they view their obesity. To overcome weight problems is a chore and one that deserves high-fives and demands hugs! I hope in some way that my testimony of healthy eating has impacted many peoples lives so that they WANT to live and not just live meal to unhealthy meal. Death is final! No, we're not going to take our bodies with us afterward but I feel what we ARE taking is our negative unhealthy thoughts. They don't just go, poof, because we die, they shape our very soul in the here and the hereafter.

If we remain positive, feed on health and nutrition, maybe, just maybe when we face the Lord, we can share the joy we had living with him, our Father who wants nothing but the BEST for us! Forgiveness isn't about doing wrong and treating your bodies bad all your life then when you get to heaven say, "Oh, by the way, forgive me for not cherishing the very sacredness of what you created in me." You knew all along your body is a sacred temple but spitting in the Lord's face is easier than self-control, I get it.

I'm alive. Even though I don't have much to do in a day, I pray, hours on end. It seems like everything has been taken away from me and all I have to do is pray. So if you don't see me for a spell, know that I'm out here, alive. If anything drastic happens to me, I've asked my husband or son to inform you so you will never be left not knowing what happened to Joni. To stay positive, I need to stay away from the negative, please understand that. I need to reclaim the joy that lies out in the dry fields buried. I will be back. You need patience as much as I. My love to you, my friends!

All praise and Glory to God! 

Ephesians 5:11-13, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible — and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” (NIV)

And I Wait...

Pss. 59:9 “Because of his strength will I wait upon thee: for God is my defence.”

And I wait…

I don’t know what to think and I really don’t want opinions of what I should do. These past two weeks I’ve had a setback. I mentioned it before with all that’s happened and I feel the setback was the wheat bread and the eating of the toxic grains.

I’ve eaten all these wonderful foods all of my life and never in a million years would I imagine something so good for you could be one of the elements causing this disease in me. I’m not even fifty-five years young and already I’m being affected by the strong-arm of an illness that has laid its hands on me, gripping me, expecting me to ‘submit’. I can’t do it. I won’t give up on God like others have done, I just won’t!

I hear people say they care about me but in all honesty, I don’t feel it. How can months (sometimes years) go by and people say ‘I care about you’ and nothing more? How is that caring? You thought about me? Because you think about me and my suffering, that’s caring? I just don’t get it. 

I’m trying to be okay with people passively thinking about me when it’s convenient for them. I’m trying to understand why I sit alone crying my eyes out and no one to listen to me or hug me and say it will all be all right. Just a comforting hug could go a long way in my isolated world.

I notice people give up too easy too. If they’re trying to lose weight, and it doesn’t happen instantaneously they give up. If they pray, and the prayer goes unanswered they give up on God for not being quick with a response. I’ve seen people give up on God who has received miracles, then just gave up with all that hokey stuff and lived life for themselves now that the miracle is over; enough time has passed, they should be safe, right? I guess so, if that is what you believe.

I myself feel I received a miracle of the regaining of my walking ability. For a couple of years the pain was so bad I was relinquished to using a cane and allowed onlookers to pity me with their eyes. People don’t realize their eyes are like speakers when sizing people up the volume is set to high and the bass is felt loud and clear from the person you draw eye contact from. I don’t need the eye contact to feel the faces of pity looking at me.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve come a long way in regaining my strength and the ability to walk, so much so I proudly traipsed around feeling invincible. No one is invincible; a few slices of bread and overconfidence will knock you on your butt and take it all away with one night of sleep. Let me tell you if you don’t have those backup supporters who say, ‘they care about you’ the fall hurts even more.

I’m a mess this week. I had a bad day that led to a couple more bad days and now I try to pick myself up from the rubble I’ve left strewn about the place. I’ve needed a good strong physical hug but even that is scarce because my pain is so bad, it hurts to have a hug. I’m straining to see the light at the end of the tunnel that I know is there. When the pain is so overwhelming it is hard to see or hear anything.

I love the fact that people turn to me for strength, direction, assistance, aid in helping them but in times of my hurting, those tasks are impossible so I shy away from the very venue of that portion of love I receive. I’m hurting, how can I help someone when I’m in the throes of a setback and no one can visually see how bad my days are, again because ‘they care’ but not enough to consider I might be having a hard time or bad day myself.

I want to gently show my friends that while I’m having this hard time, I still can see the light way off at the end of the tunnel. My tears stream, my pain unbearable, my cries to the Lord louder than ever and the echo, the echo of my voice is haunting. In the days of these struggles, the scripture that stands out to me is from Isaiah 40:31

 “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

I have a birthday coming up and I’m not even looking forward to the day. It’s just another day. That’s what people say when they get older, y’know? A good thing my son, who is young, says it now so he has no false illusions about the world around him. It’s just another day. I should get a plaque stating that and hang it on the wall! 

Along with my setback comes grumpiness, bitterness, and downright insensitivity. This is the point where I’m supposed ‘to think’ but I don’t. I put no rein on my thoughts or insensitive blurts. I fail. I don’t think of others and how they might be feeling when I boast of my weight loss when they can’t lose a pound to save their life, or my lack of pain when there’s has them bound to drug relief, or my rejoicing in how great I’m doing walking with a bounce in my step and light in my life. Maybe they want to hear the hard-grained steps I have to bear to wake up each day in the light of optimism. Maybe they long to hear of a setback so they can say ‘aha, I knew you should’ve gone another route’. I’m on the edge about to fall over the cliff and can’t find the upbeat rhythm of words they need to hear to get through their bad day. So there, I’m having a momentary lapse.

I have a loving relationship with God and I know we’ll get through this band of pain together. I wonder sometimes if people think that God has a special light set to shine just on my face but let me tell you, God’s love has no perimeter, His love for us is as personal as any loving relationship we’ll ever have in life. He has no preferential treatment for just me. He loves us all the same. Do we all love Him the same? I don’t know. I think we all try but we all have that period of ‘now we wait’, how each of us handles this period of patience is most definitely different! 

1 John 4:13 “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.”

I'm At A Standstill

Hebrews 1:14 “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”

I’m at a standstill

Can you believe I need a break from writing? I’ve written and written and now I just want a break but as usual, I’ll ask the Lord what He wants me to do first. I've just had a tiring grumpy kind of week, so let me vent a little.

I’m bogged down with too much information and I’m dismayed by negative misinformation. You see, I live in a state that believes GMO’s are not harmful because their government put out a bulletin stating such. They believe crops should be sprayed with chemicals and ingested with no worry of harm. 

They also believe cannabis should not be legalized for medicinal usage because it will entice kids to smoke weed. Forgetting that their kids smoke weed WITHOUT marijuana being legal, but let’s keep the MEDICINAL USAGE away from people who NEED this PROVEN medical breakthrough!

They believe kids should be given twenty vaccines within a two year period and again, believe what the government feeds them. Instead of believing scientific factual statistics proving some of these vaccines are harmful to their kids, causing autism, ADHD or brain damage. 
Read this heartbreaking story. No, it’s not scientific facts, this is a human beings experience with vaccination! 

But guess what, some states are NOT ALLOWING the freedom of CHOICE to make the vaccination decision on your own! THAT is the America you live in, run by a mega-rich reality TV star and his family.

I live in a state that believes conventional methods are the ‘right’ methods and people and doctors who don’t believe in their conventional methods are ‘quacks’. So you can see what I’m up against here, while my other account on FB is for my family I have to basically abandon it if I’m to continue to heal.

You might want to note that even chiropractors were thought to be quacks at one time and now they are an accepted practice to healing the spinal problems this nation has. Maybe this being the twenty-first century and all, more of the conventionalists will come around and start accepting and allowing non-conventional treatment. I can’t afford to go to twenty different doctor’s to find one that’ll work WITH me, the closest Naturopath is over 100 miles away in Lincoln. All I have where I am is TWO (yup TWO) extremely conventional oncologists. 

While I usually go over to my other FB account to visit my nieces and all their baby pictures, I get bombarded by GMO’s are good posts. I’m slowly eliminating any view of the continuous feed of misinformed conventionalists. I am also subscribed to Breast Cancer Alternative Treatments and even they are depressing. While I go for support of other women doing the alternative route all over the world, there are too many women posting that they went conventional, are now sorry and need information to guide them. As much as I love helping people, I’m not at the stage where I feel knowledgeable enough to help in this field.

My healing is dependent upon love, friendship, support and positive flowing energy. I know all this ‘energy’ talk may go against your conventional methods but as you can read, I’m a quack amid the good company of men and women in the medical field that also are choosing to go against the grain of traditional methods to HEALING!

What I don’t understand is why is there even a market for the organic growing of fruits and vegetables, vegetarian fed chickens and meat, or raw milk if GMO’s are so healthy for you? You’re not going to tell me that vegetarians and vegans had this impact all by themselves. I think people realized you know what, why do those eggs fresh outta my friends chicken taste better than store bought processed eggs? 

Why are farmers afraid to admit that eating pesticides is like adding one too many dashes of salt to your food, you’re going to pay in the end. Is it all about money? Will they make less money and lose more crops if they DON’T use fungicides, pesticides, Round-up? I know there was a time when farmers used to depend on good ol’ God for taking care of their fields; I guess they gave that up to the rising economy. 

After going to the food store one too many heartbreaking times, I need to isolate myself from basically the world and all of the negativity. This is a sad world and it isn’t going to change because Joni’s sick. Nope, I have a funny feeling it is just going to get sicker and sicker, blinder and blinder, darkened and more darkened. And to think they wanted me to spend the last days hooked up to a poison machine? No thanks, I’ll drink in God and await His arrival. 

I have to thank my special friends who take their time and their money to think of me. When I get down and grumpy, I need to see some kind of light at the end of the tunnel and in all honesty, they are all I have besides God, to lift me up where I need to be… HEALING that’s where I need to be! You are truly a blessing to me. You know who you are. <3 and="" b="" hugs="" tight="">

Off Topic II

Prov. 15:13 A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
***

On Wednesday Adam was home from school. My how he enjoys school. If only the kids were nicer to him. His grades are not bad and I heard something this weekend that went something like this, “All C’s still get degrees.” So if Adam gets out of this year with all C’s, I’m only more than happy that he whizzed through the year and made it out alive!

Bullies are a whole other topic! I’m talking holidays today. Adam had a five day weekend at home! Wednesday I had to run to the store and you would’ve thought it was Black Friday trying to get through the store. I didn’t need a whole order, that was done on Saturday, but I muddled through, got a prescription, and some cough medicine. It still took almost an hour and a half trying to get back home! Grumpy tagging along.

Thursday I slept in as did Adam. I arose and made some Pumpkin Pies for what I thought was a two pm. dinner that, to my surprise, turned into a 12 pm dinner and the pies were still in the cooling stages as I brought them to moms for a family celebration. Good food, laughter and hugs were shared.

Friday was a rest day! I slept in, as did Adam and the day was bright and sunny, as football bellowed from the radio and TV. Thursday had been cold and blustery but Friday was Sunny and 54 degrees! What a whirlwind of temps we have here in Nebraska. Saturday, Adam and I went off to the store to pick up a few things. The store was darned near empty. A pleasant trip on the day AFTER Black Friday! The wind once again picked up but it was a gorgeous sunny day, yet felt like a Sunday for some odd reason. I saw grumpy in the mirror!

Saturday was the day that we put up the Chritmas decorations, after beau played the sax, rehearsing for some dinner party. Then Adam kept bugging me to let him put up the tree. We used to get a real tree but allergies abound and it dries out too quick in a months time, so we have an artificial tree. Adam went to town on that tree. Took him about three hours but in the end, I have a beautiful tree. Now sadness was with grumpy, those two had a party!

Sunday was church. I got to see my Church Family and realized how much I missed them when we missed a week (due to sickness.) An air of grumpiness followed us around like I was Snow White and Grumpy belonged here with me. I couldn’t shake it. I prayed, cried, laughed, but there it was, staring me boldly in the face!

Depression. It is obvious to me but well hidden from others. Standing on the edge of sanity, depression will knock you down, drag you through the mud and leave you there to get hard to turn into some form of  lumpy clay. I can usually meditate and pray and shake the bug, but beau and Adam? Well they have a hard time just letting go and shaking off the blues. They’ll pull me in because it’s what we do. We’re a family, we feel each others pain, share each others sadness, and hopefully mend each others heart.

Bring on the holidays!

Ecc.1:18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.