What Healing Looks Like

John 12:35 “Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.”

God's Healing Touch

What Healing Looks Like

Often times when people are in the throes of pain and suffering they can’t grasp what the finished product of healing looks like. I remember the day of dire diagnosis when everyone around me wore grim and sad faces, reaching out in sorrow to offer their hand of comfort and prayer during a trying time. I made it perfectly clear from the beginning I was not accepting the diagnosis as the death sentence everyone sees at the announcement of a Big C diagnosis. At this point in my journey, you could walk with me holding my hand or perhaps stand face-to-face in a guiding manner, or behind me drifting with the dust of the earth, your choice.

I saw the diagnosis quite differently and I think my stance took people by surprise, understandably so; I saw it as healing. Yes, you read it right, healing. When I took my daily walks, my mantra that I repeated out loud was, I am HEALED, I am Healthy, I am WELL! When I announced my mantra on Facebook my friends were kind of stunned, “You’re healed, really?” Their voices came through in words, clear, bold and loud.

“Yes, I believe I AM,” was my response very soon after my diagnosis of that dastardly death sentence announcement.

Pss.121:1-2 “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth”

Some people were so aghast that they stepped back and away from me, either thinking I lost my mind or I was in deep denial. To me, they looked like little beacons of light drifting off, holding candles as they slowly floated away from me, off into the night sky. Whatever the case may be, dear friends became people I thought were friends and no longer offered prayer or support in any way. As a few folks stepped away from my inner circle, others entered, droves of people fanned in from out of nowhere, stood up and rained support on me. Not only on Facebook, where my Spiritual family dwells, but my physical family and friends I knew were all in PRAYER for me. They offered the loving prayers in their weekly prayer box at their churches, announcing vocally that they needed prayer for ME, or silently in their inner prayer circle whispered my name asking for healing. Little old me was being healed by prayers!

I understand that not everyone believes in God and I’m okay with that. I do have friends who stayed by me that offered peace and light, and that is a positive I fully accept as a blessing. My healing is not about religion, it is more about FAITH and my faith grew ten sizes in a day through prayer and blessings, in return, I prayed for those souls who backed away from me; they needed my prayer. 

Pss. 103:20 “Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.”

I’m wondering if I came off as arrogant in my stance on healing besides people seeing me as if I was in denial. My first step in my healing journey was to stop worrying about what other people thought! Yeah, that’s a tough one for us all, but if it's healing you seek, cleanse yourself of naysayers right up front.

Healing is not about reading the bible more (though it can’t hurt), it’s not about knowing more scripture than the next person, it’s certainly not about dissecting the Word, word for word, and I can say it is truly not about claiming to know God more than someone else. We all own our own faith and beliefs, what you discern from your faith is where the true touch of healing resides. Although your actions are weighed, there is no amount of acts that can inch you closer than the next person to His embrace.

1 Sam. 2:3 “Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.”

Healing is found by touching base with God within you. Healing is not going to be found outside in the corrupt conventional world. Medical doctor’s are aids in healing, not the means. God is the greatest healing physician in our lives. For some reason, we’ve been conditioned to accept and trust that outside of God, we believers can find healing. Funny how that works isn’t it? 

Pss. 121:2 “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.”

What does healing look like? How do I explain the explosive beauty of healing? Well, for one, you need to dig deep within the core of your being. WITHIN means not outside in a physical manner, DEEP within, in a spiritual manner; God, prayer, meditation etc., whatever the spiritual means to YOU. In that core realm is where God resides and is waiting for you to acknowledge Him and put your faith and trust in Him. That is when we find, touch and SEE the actual healing take place.

Pss. 121:5 “The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.”

How do we see within all that we are? You must be humbled by your illness, your trials, and tribulation. You might as well toss pride and dignity in the heap, also. This is not the time to panic or seek outside help. This is the time the prayerful meditative mind can touch, breathe, and be one with the part of God in you that needs to be reached. This might be the hardest part of healing, listening to God, not yourself.

I’ve always seen myself as a vain woman and that was a hindrance I could not release in my healing journey until I was forced to face the intense flaming fires of pain and hell, head on...

I was walking along proudly boasting that I was healed, healthy and well. I stuck my fingers in the breast of my jacket, proudly strutted my protocol, spoke to all about my alternative ways. I was sharing physically and vocally my success of this route that God placed me on. Only when I FREED my pride and dignity, I felt, touched, breathed my true healing. Yes, friends, with the aids of medical science! Go figure! The very science that God used in creation, He was now using to implement my full recovery. My faith, when falling into God’s hands, is what saved me.

Prov. 16: 18 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

My vanity, pride, and dignity all got swallowed by a black hole in an instant. When my femur burst out of my leg, in the depths of torments rage, I gave my all to Christ. It was at the very moment as I’m sitting on the side of the bed, pantyless and just a t-shirt that EMT’s had to come and pry me out of the room. Not just one or two, there were about four or five men and two women. They were either tending the gurney, the truck or me, bare and broken.

Pss. 121:8 “The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.”

I went blank, got lost in the swirling darkness that surrounded me with a couple of stars and gems in the night sky keeping my focus. I then woke to the reality of my healing on October Fifth, the anniversary of the day that Steven’s dad was released from this earth and went home; also the day that I was released from my torment and went HOME. In the midst of my affliction all of my pride, vanity and dignity were sucked up into a tornadoes vortex, to leave me, humbly picking up the pieces of mirrored glass I called me.

This is when God’s finger reached out and touched me. When I came before Him as Eve, sinful and bare, and begged for mercy. Instead of a soft touch, He embraced me, wrapped his ever loving arms around me shielding me and healed me with the warmth of His love.

Isa. 6:7 “And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.”

John 19:35 “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe.”

Acts 15:8 “And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;”

January Second Blank

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

January Second

Today, my insomniac husband slept while my insomniac son wanted to come to the house and do his laundry. I prepared to get ready for my day of Physical Therapy. Now my sessions are getting more interesting with learning new things that I can do. I walked up a step last week and tested the use of a cane, instead of the walker or wheelchair. I passed with flying colors if I do say so myself.

Today I showed my son my ability to walk from one end of the room and back using just my cane! I used to think the cane made people look at me and judge me but now since my vanity has been shelved, I walk with my head held high using my cane. Not walking for three months makes you appreciate every step you’re allowed!

I love hearing the excitement in my son's voice when he says, ‘Wow mom, that’s awesome!’ Or ‘This is great, look how far you’ve come!’ I never realized how much I loved the praise but it does motivate me to keep going on and do one more thing different each day! Thank you, son! Now I somewhat understand why God loves us to praise Him, it motivates Him to do one more thing different for us each and every day.! 

Today, I made two laps around the PT gym. It’s not a big place but the laps were enough to cause me to break a sweat because I had done other exercises also, like the step up, step down exercise. I don’t think you realize how for granted you take a simple step! Whether it is a step to walking, a step leading into or out of the house, or a lazy walk to the kitchen! Appreciate every step because one day when it is abruptly taken away from you, you’re not always given a chance to regain what was lost. 

An open path leads to steps you’d might otherwise miss. Keep your eyes open for God’s mysterious ways. He has a tendency to use the weak and broken, not the pomp and arrogant. Be humble, friends.

May God bless the journey He has planned for me this year. May I be motivated to keep my chin up when it gets trying, and I remember to love when I see so much hate. 

The path I'll soon walk again!

What Can I Do For You?

Dan. 10:10 “And, behold, a hand touched me, which set me upon my knees and upon the palms of my hands.”

I asked Him, what can I do for you?

As I teeter on the brink of the beginning of the Lenten season, I asked what I could do for God. As in earlier years when I talk to God, He listens intently then gives me a softly whispered reply. This year his reply was ‘think about it’. What? Think about what? No, He’s not a God of confusion I knew what He meant but like so many other people who pray and want a simple answer, it is what it is, a simple reply.

You see, in years past I sacrificed by giving up meat, or Pepsi, one year I was told to blog for forty-five days straight. Since my illness has me sacrificing basically everything and He knows I’ve been a stoic woman strict in my protocol, God called for something different from me that I wasn’t expecting. Think about it. Now, you’re wondering, what, what did He want you to think about.

Here goes… He wanted me to prayerfully think about everything. Wow, that’s a tall order, you might say. Seriously, to me, it doesn’t seem like a sacrifice at all, and I wanted to do something grand, but there it is, ‘think about it’ plain and simple. 

Now you being on the outside looking into my window, reading my thoughts I put on my screen, you’re now thinking about it. Define ‘it’ if you can. Not so simple is it?

Before I write, I need to think of what I’m going to say. Before I pray I need to think what will be heard. Before I judge I need to think about the truth and if it will do more damage than good. Before I speak, I need to think. You might be saying that this is a quite simple task but not for me, the person still being molded into all He created me to be.

He knows me all too well, He knows I have a tendency to jump to a conclusion without thinking the scenario through and reacting to that too swiftly. Now He’s asking me to think before I act. You might be saying to yourself, “Oh I do that all the time.” Maybe you do but I don’t. Right there is a perfect example, I was going to write, “Yeah but you drink, eat, and fill yourself with toxins…” but I stopped and thought. Wow, He's quick! 

Yeah, it’s not going to be easy for me to think first. Luckily I have two more days to tell you what I really think. I’m kidding. I always speak my mind and sometimes, or so I’ve been told, I can be brutal in my honesty. I need to think before I speak/write and put my words more softly on the page before tapping out my aggravations. I can save my aggravations for my private pages of writing but even then, I will filter my thoughts and think first. You don’t know how challenging this is going to be for me. 

Now many of you might be familiar with the ‘Daniel Fast’, Lent is not the Daniel Fast. Lent is the season of remembrance of the days leading up to the Crucifixion of Christ, forty-five days to be more precise. They are similar in their purpose, to become spiritually closer to God, hunger for Him, physically and mentally in everything we do.

While some of you younger Christians, new to the faith, might misunderstand all of the activity surrounding lent and anything to do with fasting, let me try to explain it, gently. 

Let’s say you’re a new driver, what do you do to prepare for the exam? You study, you study your heart out so you pass, right? No, Christianity is not a test or the preparation for one, get that out of your head right now. New to the faith, you will read and read, and study the bible over and over until you feel comfortable with where you’re driving your life.

God is not a God who wants you comfortable because comfort causes complacency. God is a God of growth, we can only grow if we give new life to the skills we already have. We’ve studied and learned, we’ve passed the test but now we’re comfortable driving, in any kind of weather, we are in the driver seat. There it is, you are NOT in the driver seat. As a weathered Christian, you’ll learn quite quickly that God is always in the driver seat.

With your license in hand, well versed in driving the open roads, you need to learn something new that will enable you to drive on an ice skating rink. This is where fasting comes in; to spiritually grow we need knowledge and to fill up the tank for the long drive. Since we’re smug in our sense of security, if you’ve lived in Florida all of your life and you move to Colorado, you’ll quickly realize there is more to learn with your driving skills. There is always more to learn as a Christian. God does not like conceited Christians.

Fasting humbles the soul. I’m reminded of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3-12

Blessed are the poor in spirit, 

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

Blessed are they who mourn, 

for they shall be comforted. 

Blessed are the meek, 

for they shall inherit the earth. 

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 

for they shall be satisfied. 

Blessed are the merciful, 

for they shall obtain mercy. 

Blessed are the pure of heart, 

for they shall see God. 

Blessed are the peacemakers, 

for they shall be called children of God. 

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, 

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

The Daniel Fast (Old Testament) is the epitome of the Beatitudes (New Testament). God wants us to draw spiritually closer to Him. He knows we don’t have much time left. He calls each and every one of us to be filled with the Spirit and He also knows the only way for humans to appreciate all that we have is by taking something away, hence the fasting. It brings about a spiritual closeness to God that we may have never comprehended. We allowed our egos to drive our car and control our every step for far too long. Now I’m going to ask you, my friends, to ‘think about it’, plain and simple.

Eph. 6:10 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”

Luke 22:43 “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.”

The Hustle and Bustle of the Season

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

The Hustle and Bustle of the Season

While everyone is trying to get into the spirit of Christmas, get his and her trees trimmed, the light show twinkling outside, the house was done, the home brimming with presents, the rush of the holiday season can be overwhelming. Then you see people saying ‘remember the reason for the season’ when they themselves don’t even take the time to slow down and remember why this season exists.

Did you know even atheists celebrate Christmas? They don’t know why but they’ll stand firm and say they’re just doing what everyone else is doing, or they do it for the food or that it’s just another day they can party.


The pagan holiday is celebrated around the world in many odd sorts of traditions and folklore. While each of the religions in America celebrates Christmas in different ways, the holy day (designated by man) is celebrated in a select number of ways. The only thing Christians agree on is that it is the celebrated day of Christ’s birth. It would take America to turn Christmas into a materialistic commercialized holiday.

Since America is considered ‘the melting pot’ with a diverse nation of cultures and religions, Christmas is celebrated in individual fashion from the Irish, Germans, Greeks, and Italians, to the atheist, Catholics, Jewish, etc. all celebrating Christmas in their traditional fashion. Even I find myself celebrating the holiday different than what is traditionally accepted and expected.

As a child, I was no different than anyone else waiting in anticipation at the top of the stairs for Santa to deliver lots of new toys! Even though we were very poor, we never knew it by the hustle and bustle leading up to the day of presents. Christmas day was all about the yearly family get-together as the family would visit us or we’d go house-to-house visiting family. I grew up in the city and most of my relatives lived within a one-mile radius.

By the time Christmas night came the adults in the family were unrecognizable as inebriation was the norm for Christmas day in my childhood. No church, no tradition, just booze and presents. Not that we kids minded but by today’s standards I believe my entire childhood would be unacceptable to the normal folks of the world. Normal, does anyone have a normal Christmas and honestly, what IS normal?

Maybe this is why I set off at a young age (seventeen) to be different, started my own traditions, mingled with the robotic traditions of the day and tossed a lot of what was ‘acceptable’ to the world out the window! I think I took what I saw as silly traditional pagan rituals and conformed myself to be more of what Christ would’ve been like if December 25th WAS His birthday.

In MY mind, I didn’t see Jesus as running around making sure he bought everyone the perfect gift, made sure he had a Santa on his lawn, lights and tinsel all over the place. No, I would think Jesus would keep it quite simple and use symbolism as gifts and decorations. He wasn’t so focused on himself selfishly, no he GAVE instead of received and he kept it simple, a rock, a tree branch, a candle, his heart, his soul, His LIFE.

As a people, we are steeped in tradition. We carry out our Christmas as what our parents handed down to us and we carry on those traditions for our kids and give them our spin of the traditional holiday. In other words, we took away the holy day and made it a day of tradition and celebration. Somewhere along the passing of the torch, we lost what the real meaning of the season was meant to be, to begin with.

It’s been about twenty-five years since the hustle and bustle season got under my skin. Now it is laid back with the day being celebrated as a visit to my brother-in-law's house where we all get together to eat. The family stopped the ‘gift exchange’ quite a few years ago and now it is just a day to celebrate with family. What a humble bunch of people my Lord blessed me with!

This year has taken on new shape and meaning for me. Last year at this time I was anticipating a doctor visit pretty much sure of what the diagnosis would be. My Christmas was overshadowed by pain and concern. Now almost a year after my diagnosis I’m no longer filled with pain but with Hope as my Lord has given me once again a new meaning to the Christmas season. As society becomes overwhelmed by the materialistic hustle and bustle of the holy-day season let us remember the humble, the less fortunate, the homeless and the hungry. Let the living Hope live on in the front and center of the holiday instead of being masked in the shadows. Let the Light of the Lord shine down on you this season.

God Bless Everyone

Hebrews 1:1-4 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” 

I'm Different

Rom. 3:22 “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

I’m Different

It didn’t take me long to realize in life that I’m different. I’m not like everyone else and to me, that’s a good thing. I was relentlessly bullied as a kid because I was different. I was prettier, thinner, dumber, poorer, you name it, I was a walking target. From my brothers and sister to the kids at school I had a big L on my forehead and kids were more than willing to just smack the back of my head in hopes it would fall off, but no, it remained.

This is where reading and writing became my only friend. The long days and nights of reading in my bedroom while hearing kids in the courtyard playing became my safe haven. I had to isolate myself because the neighbors all thought I was a bad influence on their kids so they kept them away from me and shrouded them in their own clique where to this day they still remain friends. I was different; I became a defiant rebel and lived up to my bad influence of a name just to spite my neighbors. I wanted to hang with my sister and brother’s friends but I was just Bony Joni to them.

To be one of them, I did things I shouldn’t have done like drugs and alcohol. I had no one to tell me right from wrong as alcoholism was prevalent way back in the genealogy of my family. From who I knew of, my great grandparents all the way to my brothers and sister, and even me,  were all products of the poisonous alcohol and it was detrimental to our lives as a whole.

Something drastically changed for me at fourteen-years-old when I became a born-again Christian giving my life over to God. My family was Catholic, in name only, and I defiantly went against all of my years in Catholic school and became a born-again Christian. Once again I separated myself from my family and the majority of society that didn’t then and doesn’t now accept anything Christ-like except Christmas and Easter holidays.

By twenty-one, I was so transformed I gave up drugs and alcohol, not by any program mind you, all on my rebellious own with the hand of the Lord guiding me in the right direction. Then one by one what little friends my ex-husband and me had were peeling away and once again I became an isolated young woman with only God, writing and books to carry me through.

As I look back over my many years on Earth I see what might have gone wrong, I was/am different. Even now as I’m faced with the disease of a lifetime I’m the defiant rebel handling this leg of the journey different than many others would have chosen. Granted there are other rebel soldiers out here defying the odds like me and wouldn’t you know it, in some fantastical magnetic way we are drawn to one another.

My friend said something to me yesterday that made me realize how different I am, he said:
“We may not be changing as thoroughly as you, but you are providing a continuing example.”

When I woke this morning all I could think of after my morning bible reading was how different I really am and that that comment had lingered with me. I thought back to the days when my niece was a big part of my life daily and the influence I obviously had on her. I don’t feel it was a bad influence because she went on to college to become a Reiki specialist to understand the natural part of Holistic healing and what it meant to her in her life and her developing family. 

I don’t ask to influence people. I don’t judge you for not changing your lifestyle. I don’t force, bully and browbeat you into doing things my way or else. No, just like me, you’re on your own and what you choose to do in your life is your decision, which will eventually carry you to your afterlife or grave, whatever you believe. What I can say is that I’m ‘providing a continuing example’ for men, women, children everywhere.

As I’m writing this I can almost feel your heads shaking in agreement, ‘she’s different alright’, and I’m okay with that. I’ve accepted my weirdness, strangeness, difference and today I defend myself against the bullies of the world that try to knock me down a few rungs.

As I stand here today, I am a living testimony of all that my God has done carrying me through the many tragedies of my short life. I could’ve buckled, I could’ve gone along with everyone else and become something of a robot but I chose nature over technology. I chose Spirit instead of a materialistic life and again, I’m okay with who I’ve become. I am poor, I am humble, I am grateful for being allowed to know and see the difference that someone different can bring to the cornucopia of life. 

Lev. 10:10 “And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean;”

A Child Will Lead Them

Isaiah 11:6 “In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all.” 

A Child Will Lead Them

Why would God choose a child to lead them? Is it because of the innocence of a child who sees no wrong and can only see the good? Who loves without condition?  

Matt. 19:14 KJV
But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

NIV
Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

God has chosen the humble innocent children of the world to scatter in heaven and have a safe place to call home. It is these little children who are going to lead us because a grown man who has been stupefied by imaginations of the world that has destroyed any chance of being a leader among men.

Children hold in their heart a peace that man lost long ago and only the innocent child understands this peace. The Lord asks us to become like children and strive for that innocence in loving all but man has built up a hatred for everything under the sun that he unhinged the chain and can’t get that innocence back.

Children are not yet tainted by the world. When you see a one-year-old taking his/her first steps, what do you see? You see a trust that their little legs are going to work and lead them where they want to go. Often times they fall and get right back up and persevere until their legs can carry them where they were headed.

A grown man tainted by the world sees hate. He has to share hate, spread hate and for some reason says he is a man of God? Does that man even read and understand what it is that God is teaching us in the bible? With over 50 different versions of the bible, it’s not hard to see why man is so confused with what he is putting his faith in today. I totally get that the many translations of the bible say the exact, no wait, almost the same exact same thing throughout but what I’m saying is, that man has been led around on a string and now wanders lost and confused because he doesn’t understand what he is reading!

When the bible says the kingdom of heaven belongs to the MIND of the man who has a child-like innocence, the grown man misinterprets those words as he must act like a kid joking and laughing with asinine behavior, he is a confused man. Coming to Christ in a child-like manner you need to put on the armor of innocence, gentleness and purity; something man lost in his pursuit of hate. 

I am not pleased with my fellow Americans who show no self-control. They badger, berate, live life to hate all the while using the term for the love of their God. Wow, sounds like a lot of the men they themselves condemn. Does that make you any different than the man you hate? 

For the love of God, can’t one day pass where you don’t spread your hatred for man? This world is in need of a child to lead and at this rate of a hate-filled world, we are being led by the dark one on the path that he has set. Follow little ones (small-brained humans) because my ever-loving God is not happy with the plan that you chose for yourself, you follow the dark seed in a blatant obvious procession spitting in His face the inheritance He had set for you. God help us all!

Psalm 33:12 KJV "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance."

Poetry Sunday ~ Mother's Day

Ex. 20:12 “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.”

Mother

The Christ child had a mother

Just the same as you and me.

Favored, Mary was full of Grace

The Lord is now with thee.

We all had the best mothers

To each his own be true.

Admit that Jesus had the one

That gave her Son to you. 

A mother’s seen as perfect

As we all think she should be.

Humbled, Mary’s full of Grace

Our Lord is now with thee.

A sacrificial love endures

The house becomes a home.

With mother's gentle guidance

She frees her child to roam. 

Footprints left in space and time

A mother's eternal bond

Mother Mary who’s full of grace

With love from here and beyond.

Luke 1:28-31 (KJV)

28 And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

29 And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

30 And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.

Disability Awareness

These clouds explain what my body feels like

Job 14:22 “But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn.”

My friend posted an MS fact-check list, a slightly humorous take on what people endure and how misunderstood the disease is and compassion should be thought of before judging people with MS as just ‘dumb’. I have never thought that my Lower Lumbar Facet Joint Arthritis was so similar to MS and now I’m rethinking if I should be checked out. I think there is only two or three on the list that isn’t me but maybe I miss the signal?

I do not take meds. Having never been diagnosed, I self medicate with holistic healing and Vitamin B12. That’s been working for about three years now. I wonder now how much longer…

While I don’t feel I have MS, the symptoms are eerily close to what I suffer with every day.

“The cause of MS largely remains a mystery, even though the disease was discovered in 1868. Researchers know the nerve damage is caused by inflammation, but the cause of the inflammation is still unknown.”

 ~ The Heathline Editorial Team

20 facts about MS (Multiple Sclerosis)

** Fatigue – I’m always trying to work through fatigue. Just a shower is scary and exhausting.
**Walking Difficulties – The insulting remarks of ‘your so young’ hurt. Yes, I am young, I didn’t ASK to be ill. I didn’t insist on the inability to walk. And I’m NOT OLD! Show a little compassion.
**Spasticity – No this doesn’t mean I’m a spaz, this means my illness wins the majority of the time.
**Numbness – Again, insulting remarks of ‘You’re numb’, hurt. I take it to heart. Yes I am numb. While you can feel your fingers and toes, I really need to be careful because scalding myself is a real threat.
**Vision Problems – Again, people make remarks ‘that comes with old age’, if they knew what I suffered with DAILY they might understand that it is NOT OLD AGE! Driving does not feel safe so you, the ‘other’ driver, should be glad I recognize my inability to drive the same road as you.
**Dizziness – The pity look doesn’t help. Yeah, I’m sorry this is happening but don’t look at me with pity, try understanding!
**Bladder – Some days are better than others, be glad.
**Cognitive Difficulties – I’m not old! This happens to people with MS and I relate to what they are going through.
**Pain – I occasionally take generic Naproxin and it helps a little. Meditation helps more. I’m glad I learned that skill when I was young. (there) Apparently our nerves are misfiring sending mixed signals to our brain.
Swallowing Problems – no. But don’t ask me a question while I’m chewing. 
**Heat and Cold Intolerance – A little understanding goes a long way when I pass on an outing if it is too cold or too hot outside. 
**Speech Problems – While mocking my wrong choice of wording, understand the cognitive energy it is taking for me to even verbalize a complete sentence.
**Emotional Changes – Maybe it is NOT PMS! It is NOT pre-menopause/menopause! Did you ever think I’m having a hard time dealing with my disability as much as you don’t like seeing a vibrant, beautiful, YOUNG woman wobble across the floor?
**Itching – My goodness. The numbness makes me itch! Once I start, I can’t seem to stop.
Tremors – no, but I do have a lot of eye spasms.
**Breathing Problems – I get out of breath very quickly. Reading out loud is a chore in itself.
**Hearing Loss – Not LOSS, but the ringing, fluttering and the feeling I’ve been swimming all day creeps up on me but it does go away.
*Sexual Problems – Life is not all about sex! 
Headaches – not many
**Seizures – I don’t have the uncontrollable jerking kind, I have lapses of consciousness where it feels like I’m daydreaming in a world that is spinning. Or the jello legs. I’ll be walking and a nerve just sends my ankle bending. Sometimes I catch myself, sometimes I fall. 

#10 - Swallowing and #19 – headaches - are not on MY list. I do feel as the years go on I will add the other two and maybe possibly become wheelchair bound. Many people don’t see me in a wheelchair so they just assume ‘I’ll get better’. I’m going to do more and more research on this and I have to thank my friend for posting this on his facebook wall. Maybe he didn’t know why God led him to post this but let me assure you, as I read, I cried because of the realization that this is me. I didn’t cry because I was sad that this was me, I cried because it opened my eyes and made me see me for who I am now, and I accept this, I just wish everyone else did too.

5-13-15 Wedding Day

The End is Near ~ Part II

2 Cor. 2:9 “For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things.”

By Monday morning the news blasted across the screen that there were “43 dead across seven states after a week of devastating storms, flooding and tornadoes.” And now we can add California too with a wildfire. We can’t blame terrorism for this one now can we?

We can sit comfortably at home and laugh the hardy har har and politicize this, we can scoff and chuckle at the terms “Global Warming”, “Climate Change” or El Niño but you cannot sit at home and deny that SOMETHING is happening! Or is all this just ‘normal’ weather patterns for you? Tornadoes in December? A blizzard in El Paso? Normal you say?

On Christmas day as we were driving home, we were bombarded by pellets. Not snow, not ice and not rain but pellets. I felt like I was in the middle of a packing war because they looked exactly like the packing material used when shipping something. It felt strange because just the week before we were basking in the fifty degree range. Yeah I guess that’s normal for Nebraska in December. I’ve been here almost seven years and haven’t come to know this as a normal December for Nebraska.

Another strange event happened on Christmas. We arrived home in time for the sky to darken as lightning streaked across the sky. No thunder just lightning. In strobe like fashion it blinked as if the earth was being short-circuited. I knew that on this Christmas there would be a full moon, the first Christmas full moon in 38 years, so it kind of felt like a phenomenal climax to the season; the kind you never remember having in your lifetime?

Many will politicize this, laughing at the politicians who tried to tell us what they thought was happening. Some will try Biblicism and call on Bible scripture to say LOOK, it is written! Scientists will shout out that they have been warning us for years and everyone just seems to laugh it off!

My take on this is, and I’m no scientist, I think WE as a human race have done this to ourselves! Our earth was dependent on us as a species to take care of the planet but no, we had to go and ruin it with our greed for more, more, more; more cars, more planes, more materials, more houses, etc. !!

I think the earth is at war with us! All of the having more of this and more of that is having a detrimental affect on us as a human race. Just as we have been infecting ourselves with poison ie: think cholesterol, alcohol, drugs, (legal or not) and thinking there are no ramifications, we are injecting the earth with a poison and now we are feeling the disease running rampant on our planet. 

Science can PROVE this but we sit back and laugh because we’d rather politicize it and place blame on OTHERS, not ourselves! We can be like Chicken Little and cry out, “The end is near, the end is NEAR” until we are blue in the face. Until you start taking seriously that the sky is falling and not doing something about it, then my friend, this IS the end… of TIME!

And the year is not over…yet.

May God humble you in these darkened days and may you see the Light that lies at the end of the tunnel. God bless you all!

Rev. 2:26 “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:”

Humble Yourselves

James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
***

I remember a time sitting at the welfare office in Texas with hundreds of other folk in need of the same thing we needed, assistance. Things had just gotten that bad we had to resort to help from the state. In Texas you sit in the office for hours upon hours awaiting your number to be picked. If you arrived at 7 a.m when the doors open, standing in line outside in the cold, you might be lucky enough to get a number that would only leave you in the office for two hours instead of four, but if you arrived late, you were definitely going to be there until five.

Short staffed, enormous need, and a bad system left many sitting there grumbling, but many, just patiently waiting their turn. This system was for ANYTHING you needed, even if you just went to ask a question of things you needed to bring with you, you waited! One day after sitting there for an hour, a young couple came in with a baby. They didn’t look like they belonged there any more than we did. They looked at their number and after an hour I finally asked, “What number do you have?” Well the man said a number, and I KNEW it was going to be a long day for them. I handed him my number, he looked amazed.

“But it’s almost your turn.” he said. I looked at him, “God bless you.” His wife came back in, she was making a call telling her mother, I guess, that she’d be there all day. Her number was next, she looked amazed too. Her husband pointed at us. “Thank you,” she said, “Thank you so much.”

They just moved from Oklahoma, he had lost his job, and they had never been in this situation in their lives. He was telling us his story as his wife went to the counter to ask a question. She came back and they thanked us again and again. I sat there another hour but to see the smiles on all three of their faces was well worth it!

I had done that one other time to a pregnant girl who was there alone, and looked like she was going to give birth, right then and there. She was nine months and didn’t need to wait for four hours so I handed her my number.

It was a humbling experience sitting in that office and I thought of all the people who condemn and put down welfare recipients. “Nobody pays for my food,” they taunt, “Get a job!” they scream, but I assure you, if those same people lost their jobs, had no means for food, and family wasn’t forthcoming in the ‘help’ department, I can guarantee you, they would HUMBLE themselves, get into that office, and have a means for feeding their family!

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a savings. Not everyone has the ability to help themselves, and not everyone can rely on so called ‘friends’ because they will be the first to say, “I really don’t have it this week.” This circumstance is merely a stepping stone for most people, people who have worked all their lives, paid their taxes and have fallen on hard times. You judge them because of your ignorance. Have you ever been in a welfare office to be able to actually give a proper judgment? “I wouldn’t be caught dead there!” you say, then YOU have NO RIGHT TO JUDGE!

Humbling yourselves is what God wants us to do, maybe so all the taunters can see how ‘non Christian’ they have become? Maybe God just wants you to see His handiwork at work. Not everyone in those offices are drug dealing, boozers, or multiple time pregnant women, sucking the system for all it’s worth; many are there because of NEED. They NEED food, they NEED shelter! THEY NEED COMPASSION!!! And all you people on the outside looking in are just that, looking from your glass houses. Judge not...lest YOU be judged.

James 4:6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

As Christmas Day Draws Near...

I will return to my writing blog in three weeks. If you wish to continue with me for the next three weeks, I'll be sharing the Season of Christmas JOY! ~Joni

As Christmas Day draws near…

As the Christmas holidays draw near everyone’s trimming the tree; mistletoe and holly adorn the doorways; the scent of pine lingers throughout. The Holidays have officially arrived.

I’m associated with a writing site and by all accounts my friends see me with a happy-go-lucky attitude and an air of peace and tranquility. It’s amazing what a screen can keep away from even your closest of friends.

Would they know that on the other side of the screen sits a woman, who in the past three months has stood in line at the overflowing food pantry? Would they even suspect that my fiance has lost his job due to some technical ‘rule’ that was broken giving his company the opportunity to deny him all unemployment and insurance benefits? Does the company know they fired a blind man?

Do my friends know that the welfare lines are as long as the pantry lines? Are they so involved with their daily lives that they never get a glimpse of the reality that hangs in the balance before them?

I know when I turned to my family (except for my parents and my fiancés mother) I was turned out cold. No one could help or even lend a twenty-dollar bill to get milk. No communication, no nothing.

I turned to my church and the pastor stole my hope. He said that Social Security was more than likely (except for a miracle) going to be denied my fiance. The man is blind and he’s going to be denied? “Get a lawyer,” he tells us.” He sent me to the Pantry, said that the church would help with whatever they didn’t, and it turned out the Christian Community group was only willing to help with 200 dollars of an eight hundred dollar rent payment. The church paid the rest but when asked for help with the telephone, Internet, electric, necessities to make it another month, we were denied, PARENTS helped!

I pleaded with the Church and the C.C. to understand my predicament. I’m a writer. Not a Stephen King- I- make millions writer, but a WRITER who has worked five years on this dream.(Twenty years if you count the years I couldn’t ‘pursue’ it.) I was told to get a ‘real’ job. A real job in an economy where there are NO JOBS.

By November, I was ready to be scared and fearful for what the holidays would bring, but I had my faith clutched in my hand and held close to my heart. I wore a shield of armor, and as many sit there thinking the same thing everyone else thinks, “That faith of yours isn’t going to buy you food and keep a roof over your head.”

I’m here to tell you that my faith has done THAT and MORE! My November & December rent is paid, I have food in abundance, my Internet (and writing) is still moving forward, my bills are paid and my son, my fiance, and I might just have a Christmas after all!

You might ask what Christmas day will hold for me? Is my January rent paid, bills etc. and I will tell you that only the Lord knows what Christmas day will hold. Should I tremble in fear at the empty tree? Should I quiver wondering where any funds are going to come from? I will boldly tell you that believing in God is more than mere lip service you pay. FAITH is walking with God, trusting in Him completely. I will hold my head high in the Glory of Faith!

When you can be broken to shards and put yourself back together, that is Faith carrying you. If you remain broken, it is because your lips move but God can’t hear what you’re saying. Talking the talk and walking the walk are two totally different things.

May God Bless you as you walk beside Him. May you find the season wrought with joy and harmony. May you find happiness in the miracles. He has faith in you, why not have FAITH in him? If you are blind, may the miracle of Christmas allow you to SEE!

continued tomorrow...