Smart Phone?

Rom. 12:2 “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

One thing I can say, I’m not a conformist. I’ve never conformed to what other people conform to and diligently justify as a means of growing when in essence and truth, be honest, they’re conforming. They will never admit it because it is just a form of growth. My son and I often go back and forth on this issue because he tells me I ‘need’ to keep up with the times. 

I’m on the outside looking in, being bullied taunted and teased all because I don’t conform to what everyone else is doing. If anyone has known me for a while, they KNOW this about me, accepts me for being ‘different’, just as I accept them for being different. But why is it that *I* always feel like the bad guy ready to go sulk under a Weeping Willow.

The day came when hubby walked in the door with a Smartphone. Seriously, NOTHING else was offered (I don’t know, I wasn’t in on the ritual), but the house drained of its energy. I’m a high energy person and thrive on it but lately, with everything going on, the energy is being sucked right out of me. This day was no different, in he walked with a Smartphone and all I could blindly feel is suffocation. Alone, I now would be totally alone.

He was as happy as a kid in a candy store discovering the new flavor of gum. Do you want to hear something ironic? Look up the term ‘smart’ in the dictionary.

Smart:
verb (used without object):
to be a source of sharp, local, and usually superficial pain, as a wound.
to be the cause of a sharp, stinging pain, as an irritating application, a blow, etc.

verb (used with object):
to cause a sharp pain to or in.

It kind of scared me that this is what people are buying into, yet calling ME a bully? 

Is the adjective form of the word supposed to make me feel better? It didn’t.

adjective, smart·er, smart·est.
quick or prompt in action, as persons.
having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability:
a smart student.
shrewd or sharp, as a person in dealing with others

He sat mesmerized with his new toy for hours, picking its ‘brain’ and learning all of the ins and outs. Oh, what fun. 
I said to him, quite sarcastically, “They have a doctor for that.” 
He said, “For what?”
I replied, “For people who feel the need to carry a computer in their pockets day in and day out.”

You might get the feeling that I don’t like technology, and you’d be 100% correct! He has been a part of this techno world since he was eighteen, me, just fifteen years now. I only accepted a computer as a means to write. I didn’t like the advent of the microwave oven, why would I be all happy to access the Worldwide Web and it is at my fingertips as I shop, drive, sit with family? Oh wait, that’s what this progressive world is all about. I  realized years ago, I don’t fit in anywhere now, great.

Mysteriously within two weeks my phone conveniently malfunctioned and basically fried. I was now without a phone and I was dreading what was going to walk through that door for me. Just put a bag over my head and let me die now!

A knock on the door brought this new world to me, I felt like Alice in Wonderland about to slip through the hole. Hold on tight, Joni!
“Look at the pretty case. Look at the all of the apps, games, weather bug,  camera, and best of all Google!” 
“Big deal. I just want a phone and texting.
“But, but, but…”
“PHONE AND TEXTING!”

I had to say it loud because, for one, I am not easily swayed, two I am obviously not heard, and three no one really understands who I am. Again, I am alone, very alone. Oh, I don’t have to be, I can conform to the world and find joy in what brings joy to everyone else and that is having access to the Worldwide Web at their very fingertips any moment of the day. I wonder how the earth ever survived all of these years without this pleasurable tool. I bet a lot of men, women, and children died without access and that’s a shame, right there. I bet a lot of men, women children died WITH the access and that’s a shame too.

I realized quite quickly I can’t text with my nails. My son tried to show me but to no avail. 
“Girls text with longer nails and have no problem.”
Getting angry I retorted, “I am not a GIRL! Obviously, I’m an old woman with arthritis!”
“A stylus, do you have a stylus?” I knew the term from the early days when my parents bought my son an iPod and he became snagged up by the Web.
“I do!” I was getting excited by the possibilities now.

I now was understanding the struggle my mother was having with the new phone my brother bought her. She complained that her old phone wasn’t working and that all of the other elderly people playing bingo had these really cool looking phones. The biggest mistake she ever allowed to spill out of her mouth. He got her the new fancy phone and now she can’t switch back. My mother is stuck with a phone she doesn’t understand.

I would at least TRY and understand this phone. My son came by the other day and helped clear some things up for me and I DO NOT and WILL NOT have any apps on my phone except texting and phone calls. There’s a concept, a phone, used to make a call, how strange. He kept trying to egg me on with the lure of a Weather Bug app. I said, NO! I have it on my computer, what in the world do I need it on my phone for. He didn’t know my hubby had painstakingly tried to get me to conform to his ways two days ago, to no avail.

The lure of conformity can weaken some and strengthen others. Conformity looks pretty all dressed up in it’s Sunday best (yup there’s an app for that too, church, sermons, and scripture right at your fingertips) I prefer my Bible but then again we’re all different. 

I won’t judge you for the love of technology and please, don’t judge me for my dislike, and no, I won’t be getting an app for THAT, whatever it is you’re trying to shine on me to lure me into your den.

Only four months into the year and already 2019 is making its mark. And we wonder why the world is in such turmoil? The sneaky snarky dark one came creeping in and you bought what he was selling. He’s left his mark, too. Let the bombardment of the justification begin, and it will.

Job 35:12 “There they cry, but none giveth answer, because of the pride of evil men.”

Rev. 15:2 “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”

January Third - Change

Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

January 3rd, 2019

“Make a POSITIVE change in the world by changing YOU first.” Joni

I’m full of these quotes. I think I’ll put together a book of quotes that are solely mine or should I say soulfully mine! I thought with the new year I’d see a change in people. I dunno, I think I expect people to realize the minute things in life like I do and sometimes they can’t even grasp the big things. I have to shake my head, I’ll pray in hopes I’ll see SOME change this year in others, not just myself. 

Change is hard stuff, I know. It’s not to be all puffed up in words, change is about taking action to move! How many people make new year’s resolutions, only to set themselves up for failure. How good that must feel when people tell themselves what a failure they are because they couldn’t change ONE thing. I never make resolutions and I never ay I'm going to do something and not do it, what a letdown. Stress-free living is not about letdowns.

Today the dismantling of Christmas took place. With the absence of Adam, this Christmas decorating and tearing down had a new back-breaking meaning! Talk about change! My son is now at his own place making his own rules and doing his own thing, while we had to accept the change and do things a little differently this Christmas.

Last night, I took all the ornaments off of the tree and boxed them up, readied them for the basement. I didn’t overdo it because I was sitting in my wheelchair and hubby placed everything on a small tv table so I had easy access to wrap and box the tree ornaments. He would do the tree and lights while I would do the other ornaments, mainly my snowmen! 

On this day, the tree came tumbling down so to speak, and we had the house looking like its old self in no time. I even had time to take a shower. Ah, the beloved shower that I missed for well over thirty days! Don’t get me wrong, I used the old-fashioned bucket and rag to bathe but it certainly is not the same as cleansing the whole body shower! 

We are now finding peaceful common ground. He is relaxing in taking care of my every need, and I am finding a sense of peace in being able to care more for myself. I have new freedoms in washing, and cleaning and do the Suzie Homemaker jobs that I LOVED before my accident. It was a stress-free Christmas and a relaxing calendar change, so much so my blog became a memory for a spell. I need to get back to telling my story but wanted some fill-ins for the New Year! 

The New Year - a blank page for you to write in every day to make a CHANGE! Change is free, not easy but free! Find the freedom in CHANGE! 

Working Through Stress

Lam 3:23 “They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

Working Through Stress

Wow, what a difference a week makes. I’ve been on a stress relieving kick for some time now and some things I didn’t even know were stress came to a head. Like a pus filled pimple, I felt it surfacing and last week it burst, stress sprayed all over the place and now this week I’m cleaning up the mess it left behind so I can move forward.

For starters, my son- Since last December when the business my son was working at closed down, my son began the hunt for a job. K-Mart was to be his first job and the only place that would give him a chance seeing that he had zero experience. He is a twenty-one-year-old young man with a complete mind of his own and with that mind he has the gamut of emotions that he’s carried through life from anxiety, depression, insomnia the whole kit and kaboodle. After numerous (I’d say hundreds) applications and no calls he broke down and applied at the place his step dad works. Not his first choice but he succumbed to defeat.
Last week, HyVee called him, he went in for an interview and got the job. They offered him part-time fifteen to twenty hours a week. He worked five hours last Wednesday and was scheduled for fifteen more hours starting this Wednesday-tomorrow! Don’t worry it wasn’t in the same department as my hubby and his hours would be nighttime, hubby’s hours are early morning. He’d take the job because he was desperate. 
The next day another job called him and he declined because he had this job. But then it happened, the job he really wanted called him, he jumped at the chance for an interview. They liked him, hired him; Saturday and Monday he was with them doing the technicalities of the hiring process. This job has forty hours a week and more money than the food store, and a medical package too in sixty days. Excitement overflowed but then there was the anxiety of having to quit the other job. This is his journey and I’ll go no further.
Needless to say, when a mother sees her child struggling, the stress is real. Unneeded stress during this time for me but it is very real. Like God does for us kids, He offers himself to us but He doesn’t come into our lives and do all the work for us. I had to watch my son wiggle and squirm as I stood by as the support he’d need but this was something that he and he alone would have to do as the new adult he's become. He’s moving forward in life and that in itself is a bundle of stress for the both of us.

Cannabis oil – Yes, I’m seeking avenues for this curative medicine. My niece has put me in contact with people who are covered by lawyers but money will be my hindrance. It’s okay though because I’m allowing the Lord, myself and my supplements to do their work before I reach out and make the CBD oil happen for me. I’m not at a desperate place yet and have no plans to be but it is good to know that the opportunity is out there waiting for me to tap into.

My GP doctor – Stress is surrounding me in wanting to make an appointment and not wanting to make an appointment. She is leaving in July and I was waiting for my hubby’s eye doctor appointment to be over before I made my GP appointment. I can’t have him missing work in an already short part-time schedule. He’s willing to miss work for me but I need him to get taken care of too. 

Hubby’s Eye Doctor – This was a check-up that he didn’t have last year because of circumstances ie: weather, a change in the doctor’s schedule (he went from coming to our area from Omaha on Thursday’s to coming on Monday’s). Finally, this appointment happened. He went on and on telling us how this success story was pure luck, one in a hundred he said where someone goes from being completely blind to seeing again. Hubby said, “If luck is what you want to call it.” I could see his mind in there thanking the Lord for this MIRACLE, not a stroke of luck.
Anyway, the doctor went on to say that he wouldn’t be coming to our area anymore and that he would be turning hubby over to a new doctor. A sad moment and tears welled in my eyes before the doctor stepped out saying his good-byes. Doctor’s  seem to emotionally disconnect from the patients but it wasn’t so easy for me, or my hubby. Hubby didn’t bawl his eyes out like me, my eyes would not stop leaking. This entire year has been an emotional roller-coaster and this was the icing on the cake so to speak, my emotions of the culmination of stress were released through drippings of tears (not sobs). I let it go.
I thought it had been four years but I miscounted. Hubby had been under this doctor’s care for six years. From cornea transplant to eye removal, to infections to healing this was a powerful relationship coming to an end in a swift blow. I made a swift dart to the front door after hugging the assistant who has also been there for us over these years. * poof * 

The washer – For a couple of years now our washing machine (a GE I might add) has been going on the fritz and two weeks ago it had its last spin. We’ve repaired the wounded soldier over the years but this time we checked into it and the repair would be more costly than a new one. The poor old gal was 14 years old. We laid her to rest and used a ‘for emergency’s only credit card’ to purchase another GE washer. The cheapest one they had but brand spanking new to me. The nearest laundry mat is over twenty miles away so that was never really an option. Just the cost of gas and the cost of using the place weekly would cost more than a new machine. 
The stress never ends….

The dentist -  Hubby has been suffering for MONTHS needing to see a dentist but I had my needed medical attention so he put his on hold. I’m putting my GP visit on hold until he gets this problem looked at so that’s where we are. The stress is coming and going in ripples on the shoreline. I’m strong, I’m alive and I’m THRIVING. I can’t say the same for his aunt who is more than likely on her last week of life, succumbing to this disease. THAT will NOT be me!!!! 

While some may laugh and scoff at my choice in moving FORWARD not succumbing to the slice, dice and poison method. I choose to THRIVE, BE ALIVE, BLOSSOM, and SHINE! Healing is in the palm of my hand! I work through this stress that bombards me daily, with God by my side.  

All praise and Glory to my God!  

“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.”

 ~ Charles Swindoll

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” 

~ Theodore Roosevelt