Defining Moments

Job 30:18 “By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.”

Defining Moments

I will not allow an illness to define me. I will not allow the world to shape me and I can’t let people define the most intimate moments of my life. I’ve been taking a sort of break this week allowing my thoughts to be moved forward in a rush to the raging waterfall where they can be forced over the edge and led out to sea.

It seems the rabid heat wave of July has come to an end. This is where I mention once again that Nebraska has had an extremely mild summer give or take a couple of weeks in the lower nineties and a week in the upper nineties, with sporadic rain and nary a storm. Cool air crept in like the baby raccoons invading the property just moseying around to see what they can get into. The welcome cooler temps filled the night air and we rarely got above seventy in the evenings then the beautiful seventies temperatures arrived in our daytime hours beginning August first.

My defining summer moments have been shaped by a garden I didn’t plant but turned out beautiful anyway, new chores that have fallen on my lap because my son who used to do them got a full-time job, and then there’s the full-time employment that my son anxiously needed and received.  

I think 2017 will be a host of defining moments for me and the year isn’t even close to being over. Changes that are taking place, lifestyles uprooted, routines broken like the once fragile eggs that they were. Life is all about changes; I think it’s a matter of how you handle each set of circumstances tossed at you. You either catch the water balloon or allow it to shatter, splashing water all over your face.

Relieving stress and toxins has been one of the hardest of my defining moments year. Giving up sugar, processed food, meat, dairy was easy compared to the stress that haunts the days. While prayer and meditation work amazing wonders, wandering in to read my mail or visit facebook drown all of my meditative work. 

I think I failed big time as a parent and without going into detail because my son is very private, I’ll try and leave it at that. My son suffers from anxiety and depression and I’m the one holding the bag to his outlet of emotional outbursts. Then there is me, realizing my failure, and the need to let him go and shape his own future. It is stress I need to be gone if ever I am to heal from this dastardly disease.

A ray of hope shined momentarily when my neighbor moved from the trailer he lived in for six years. I got a little over excited thinking my son could rent the place. Boy, visions of a peace-filled transition washed over me but were slowly diminished by further inspection of the place. The place needs a lot of work and my landlord hasn’t gotten back to me on whether he is willing to do the much-needed maintenance of the place. By law, I believe he has to take care of them, but out here in the middle of nowhere, there is no law. I’m not willing to risk losing our very affordable housing (a house not a trailer) to push for mandatory maintenance so my son can get out of the house.

So, I continue in a toxic environment trying to heal what has been a life-altering diagnosis and has become a most notable defining moment in my life thus far. I never thought of my husband and son as the toxins that need to be remedied in my life but here I am the medium between two toxic people and trying to heal a toxic illness. 

I sit here and watch my husbands’ family move through life. They’re the good Christian family and all that entails in your mind when you think of when you think of a good Christian family. You know, the Leave It To Beaver June Cleaver kind of people? Yeah, when his mom sees my husband she hugs him like she hasn’t seen him for years and you can see all the love pass between the two. My sister-in-law has two kids that blend so well with her husbands’ two kids you’d think they were blood, but no, they’re more than blood siblings, they’re family!

It’s amazing to watch as an outsider city-gal. Sure I married into this great family but I’m out in the middle of nowhere as the Cleaver family moves on in a time-lapse fashion, and I sit here as the observer of two toxic people trying to live under the same roof. It’s an unneeded stress at a time I need no stress to add to my inflammatory body.

I have unmedicated pains many of my days. Not from this illness, from my arthritis and psoriasis. Trying to put bandages on a lifelong illness like psoriasis is not going as I had planned, and my arthritis flare ups keep me in check, wanting to do certain things but unable to just jump into gear. This is an interesting journey, to say the least. I still trudge through the pain, take breaks when needed and am still overwhelmed by simple things like visiting a social media site to visit with my Spiritual Family. Lord knows I've been dealt a raw deal with no REAL family to call my own. I think that's why He placed me here.

On the twenty-fifth of this month, it will have been eight months since I received the diagnosis of this life altering disease. Eight months of no processed food, no sugar, carbs, grains, etc. etc. and I long for the day I can just eat a piece of pizza without worrying that THAT will be my demise. Joni passed due to a slice of pizza! Hey, if I can’t have a sense of humor through all of this, shoot me now! 

My Lord has wrapped His blanketed touch around me for my protection and as the year of defining moment’s speed on, I’m cradled by His love! So if you don’t see me or my name for a couple of days at a time, know that I’m out here struggling to get through the day and always keep me in your prayer. I feel as if it were not for your continued prayers, I might as well pick out my urn now. 

1 Cor. 15:51 “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”

Loose Strings

Job 38:31 “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?”

Loose Strings

I need to tie up some loose strings from yesterday’s post.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that the day I came home from the doctors I went to sit on the back steps. I wanted to shed a few happy tears and just sit in a quiet moment of prayerful gratitude. I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and right there beside me was my Toady Frog. Yeah, I named him Toady Frog! He was there once again and every day I go out the front or back door, he seems to be near. He’s my new friend. I am actually in the habit now of opening the door and saying, “Where’s my Toady Frog?” If he’s not there he usually is by the next time the door opens.

I also wanted to mention all the stress I was under a month ago. My son seeking a job was really stressing us both, and I as his mother wanted him to succeed in his search, he as a fighter of all things young adult wants to move forward in life and for six months, nothing was panning out. Finally, he got a job he REALLY wanted. The first job at the food store was a food chopper at a salad bar, minimum hours and slave drivers behind the wheel. When the hotel called him, the job he REALLY wanted, he jumped at the offer of more money and more hours! He was happy, and so was I, until he asked for a week off.

Just so you know and I imagine the majority of you do, when your child (young man) makes a decision, it is his own and nothing can stop him. He wanted to take a bus trip out of the state and he had not really planned it out but he was determined. I let it all work out on its own (he eventually changed his mind) and it took my stress away immediately.

Then there was my husband’s tooth pain. I’m sure all of you can relate to a throbbing pain that keeps you up at night popping ibuprofen for what seems every hour on the hour, right? I’ve been there done that, myself.

In doing all of my research these past six months and my new love for coconut oil, I found that the coconut oil was used for tooth pain. Now I didn’t expect hubby to believe me because let's be honest, who would think coconut oil for tooth pain, right? Well, he researched it himself and sure enough, he read that it worked, too.

That night hubby was whooshing coconut oil in his mouth for five minutes. He said the thought of holding coconut oil in your mouth and whooshing it around sounded gross at first but didn’t taste all that bad. Now let me add here, he was ready to take off of work the next day because he was in so much pain and such as it was, it was a Sunday evening. The next day he arose and went into work. When we talked later in the day I asked how his tooth was, his words, “Not bad." He had only taken two ibuprofen because he ‘thought’ the pain would surface but the entire day he went, with no pain! He had made a dentist appointment that day but there was a two-week wait.

Night after night he did the coconut oil and now he swears by the stuff. By the end of the week, he was eating his sweets. The tooth no longer hurt! He went to the dentist when the two weeks were up, and he told his dentist about the oil. The dentist said that the person who had just left told him the same thing about the coconut oil! So here is Joni’s sage advice this day, toothache pain can be resolved with coconut oil. I have the organic coconut oil so I don’t know how well other brands work.

My doctor visit was mounting stress for me too. I knew I needed the visit but sure wasn’t looking forward to setting myself up for a letdown. But as you read yesterday, that problem was resolved too. Everything turned out okay! Waiting for the test results are not stressful because good or bad results, it will be the knowledge I need to move forward in my treatment.

Yesterday came and I woke feeling empowered. I felt like the woman I had been for the last month was gone and the Joni I knew myself to be was back in control. I was ready to face the world and my day after my shower of course.

It was my normal morning cleansing of myself but what happened when I went to dry my hair, I was not expecting. Electric shock! Yes, you read that correctly. I was nonchalantly plugging in my straightening iron and it happened, sparks flew, tingling ran up my fingers and in a micro second the utensil went flying out of my hands, fingers blackened and singed, yet I was alive. Tearful but alive! Grateful but alive! Shaken but ALIVE!

I began to cry and I called my husband in. He was sitting at his computer and came in and asked what happened. All I could do was hold up my blackened fingers and weep. He reached and quickly unplugged the instrument and threw it in the trash. There was an obvious short in the frayed wires. No fire or anything just a nice shock to my system. I jokingly told my husband, “If that doesn’t cure cancer, nothing will!” 

My strings unraveled and I let loose the ties that bound my soul. I’m good, all is well and Joni is almost back to her old self! Look out world! 

Matt. 18: 18 “Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

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

Food, Glorious Food!

Pss. 51:10 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” 

Food Glorious Food!

Over the past four months, I’ve groaned, I’ve grumbled, I whined and complained all about… food!!! This week I went food shopping and hit a welcome relief to my shopping excursion; I left feeling good and not wanting to cry my eyes out over what I couldn’t eat or the unhealthy food choices available to me.

I think I’m finally coming to terms with this new healthy lifestyle! I challenge myself every day building my strength by cooking (unhealthy to ME) meals for my hubby and son. It doesn’t bother me and never has so why should food shopping, right? I think because, with food shopping, you’re smothered in opportunities of choices, good or bad.

I’m all about God working in mysterious ways and throw nothing, and I mean nothing to coincidence, I’ve never believed in coincidence and never will. I believe God has plans for each and ever little thing in our life and when ‘things’ happen that others call coincidence, I believe it was really God’s planning the seasons of our life.

Like the stationary bike I wrote about yesterday, God was planning all of those years ago for my hubby and me to benefit from that little piece of equipment. He was also in the planning stages for something else when my husband lost his job over a year ago. 

You see after my husband got his sight back, he had to get back into the workforce. I wrote about how, because of his blindness in one eye put him on the disabled list, his driving limitations were set on his license and he had to take a job that would work with those limitations, hence the minimum wage part time job at WalMart where he was a cart pusher for four years. Just a note: WalMart works with people with disabilities and gives them the opportunity to work, so before making fun of WalMart employees remember, that person just might have a disability you can neither see or hear.

After WalMart, he took a job at HyVee supermarket. This was a newly constructed high-end supermarket that apparently this small town needed even though there are numerous nostalgic, long time food markets in the area. HyVee is a food chain and even hubby’s aunt said they had one in South Dakota. HyVee would hire hubby as an online food shopper. I’ve mentioned before that my sweetheart is a shopaholic, so God placed him in a store where he could shop his heart out, for other people mind you, but still he’s an online food shopper.

HyVee is home to a coffee shop, a diner, a quick-stop gas station and an enormous array of good food; more expensive, as all healthy food is but the store is remarkable at catering to the health conscious of America. You wouldn’t think there was a need for online shoppers but HyVee is an employer to at least twelve online shoppers. How does online shopping work? You place your order online and people shop for you. You get it delivered to your house or pick your order up at the store. 

What I’m getting at here is, not a commercial for HyVee, but to show you how God was making plans all along for this illness of mine. You see, had hubby been working at WalMart, we would have never known the opportunities of healthy food sitting right across the road at HyVee! From fake noodles, grass fed chicken to cheese made from coconut milk, no dairy! That store caters to my needs at this very time.

With him being an online shopper, he knows where everything is in the store, what they sell, what’s on sale (they have GREAT sales BTW) what’s healthy and what’s not. As opposed to WalMart, this store actually has a host of organic fruits and vegetables! They have an entire corner of the store dedicated to the Health Market where there are gluten free, healthy organic processed foods! How awesome is that?!?!

You see, God had this alternative treatment route planned for me all along! The money we save on the unhealthy food I’m not eating goes toward the healthy, non-toxic food I CAN eat. So when I walk into the food store now, I no longer think of what I can’t have (I do still have small tweaks) I am getting better at accepting and enjoying all that I can eat and that is food, glorious healthy food!

Ephesians 4:22-24, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” (NIV)

It's Not About The Money

1 Cor. 3:13  “Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.”

It’s Not About Money

Last week I told you that my son got a job. He took that job just as another place was calling him for an interview, a job that was offering more money. It’s not about money, he needs someone willing to take the time and train him in a setting that doesn’t overwhelm him and with people that aren’t degrading.

You see, he had a temporary job in December that lasted all of three days. He had no idea how much money he was making until he quit and received a pay. They were supposed to be training him but all they had him do was the ladies mule work that they obviously were too tired to do? They gave him absolutely no direction except to ‘put this away’, he had no idea where ‘away’, was. Was he supposed to guess? Yes, he did ask, but only to the frustration of the ladies unwillingness to train.

He suffers from anxiety and depression so he made the decision to quit just after three days of no schedule, no direction, and no training, just mule work. I say mule work because he was their beast that carried their burden. The women hated their jobs (and told him), they hated the hours, the sloppy store and cared more about the breaks to go outside and smoke, my son is a non-smoker.

This new job that he started on Monday started off the same exact way. Training was, ‘here load this furniture here and move it here.’ Five hours of unending mule work, he came home in severe pain. He works out but the muscles used for furniture lifting and moving did a number on his back and his leg muscles.

He made it to work Tuesday after telling me that he’d give it another try and that he’d be talking to his boss. The talk went over well apparently because he came home in much better spirits than the day before, he was still in pain but it was pain carried from the day before. They wanted him to go Thursday at eight a.m. to go fifty miles to another store to pick up furniture and bring it back to this store he’s working in and unload it there. An eight hour day scheduled of more heavy lifting. Yeah, he didn’t sign up for THAT! After the talk, they gave him the hours of four until eight pm to continue his training today, Thursday.

What I don’t understand is, don’t they have people doing that kind of work for them or are they just shoving the work on this new kid because they can? Needless to say, he told the manager that he couldn’t do all that heavy lifting and that it almost put him in the hospital. The manager replied, “well that’s just part of the job.” I’m even more curious, do the girls/ladies have to do THAT part of the job? Stocking food and other items might be part of the job but furniture? Is moving a hundred pound sofa part of the job? Do the ladies get to NOT do it because they’re female? Sounds like a double standard to me.

It’s not about the money. Sure money is nice but when you’re degraded and belittled does the money become a means to an end? Adam applied for job after job and ninety-nine percent wanted people with at LEAST six months experience. How is a kid supposed to get experience if no one is willing to train him and give him the experience?

After two years of taking care of me, jumping into the workforce is a little harder than saying just do it! This week we ordered him a phone as an incentive to keep the job but also to relieve my worries of him driving in the darkened hours of the day. I think he’ll stick this one out for a little while but not because of the money, because of the experience. Let’s hope it’s a good experience.

We’ll see what happens.

Empty Nest

Adam at 7 yrs. old

Pss. 102:7  “I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”

~ Empty Nest ~

Today is Adam’s first day at ‘work’, well, it is Orientation so he really doesn’t begin work until Monday, if he likes what he hears and sees today. Since he graduated from high school everyone placed the pressure on him from the get-go, “Where will you go to college?” “What are your aspirations?” “Do you have a job” “Do you have your license?” Questions kept coming and coming from friends and family alike. 

The implosion took place the following September when he had no school to go to, no license or job. He felt useless, suicidal at times, depressed and unworthy of being alive. I think I also have the only child alive who turned twenty without ever owning a cell phone. No, our money went to other things, other necessities that had to be taken care of; Adam was/is the last man on the totem pole, has been basically his entire life.

While he has been first on my totem pole, my totem pole has stood alone in a sea of virtuality. He is always my first priority so teaching him to drive a car was first on my agenda. Nail biting at times, exhausting at other times, then it became fun excursions as he learned the ropes and finally got his license. Not to say I’m not still that ‘back seat driver’ voice every time he gets behind the wheel and takes me into the store.

You might ask, so what’s he been doing these past two years? Well, he’s been an enormous help to his semi-disabled mother. He takes the trash out, puts the recycling cans out, washes dishes (sometimes, not all the time) dries and puts the dishes away (all the time), mows the [very big] lawn, vacuums the floor, does basically anything I can’t do and everything I ask him to and no, he doesn’t complain and whine either. 

So how do I feel today? Alone. I have to be very careful because I sometimes think I can do everything and wind up hurting myself in the end. Hubby is at work, Adam is off on his new adventure and here I am, alone. But hey, at least when he drove off I didn’t cry my eyes out like I did on his first day of school, and he started in the ninth grade mind you. He was home schooled for fourteen years so that was hard getting used to my day without him and now, I think I may have to get used to my life without him every single day.

I knew this time would come when I’d have to release him to the cruel world and he’d have to fend for himself but it does feel like just yesterday that he was born; when his little tiny fingers wrapped around mine and I made sure I counted ten toes. Now the boy is a young man standing six foot two weighing in at 175 pounds. My baby isn’t so little anymore nor is his life mine. 

Males are different than females when they grow up, the girls are usually closer to their mother and boys, they find a girl to love and leave their mother’s behind. Not that they stop loving their mothers it’s just they’ve found someone who will nurture them the way their mother once did.

So the nest won’t be completely empty for a while and I’m glad about that and he came home today from Orientation happy with a smile on his face and I was so happy to see him… all grown up and becoming his own man. 

Weather the Storm

Pss.148:8 “Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:”

Many many people go through trials and tribulations but not everyone handles the storm they’re passing through in a graceful manner. I’ve been through too many storms to count but always I try to hold my head up in optimism and trudge through the blaring winds that season my face.

I don’t allow the storms to break me instead I let them build me up into a stronger being. By writing about my storms, I share with you the fact that not all storms are damaging. Take for instance Friday when my hubby came home from work and told me he lost his job. Granted it wasn’t a great job to begin with but it was a job. 

Him being ‘disabled’, blind in one eye and limited driving, he has to take what he can get which makes finding a job pretty challenging for him. He’ll never be able to go back to the forty-hour workweek like he had when we lived in Texas and he worked for UPS on the high-income end of the tax bracket. No, since he went blind for two and a half years it humbled us beyond measure. We took on a new way of living. 

We normally take on storms like brushing hair out of our eyes; we just whip them away and move onto the next challenge. That’s how we roll. This time is no different; I didn’t shatter into a million pieces nor did he when he was ‘let go’ to put it mildly.

I twiddled my thumbs anticipating the anxiety he must have felt being the breadwinner of the household. Since I’m disabled, can’t work and can barely take care of the household things that need to be done around here, of course I wondered what his next course of action would be in this matter.

Monday he was online filling out applications and Tuesday he received a call for an interview on Wednesday and Wednesday found him at the job interview and it ending with ‘come in Sunday to train’!!! Wow, talk about a storm passing over! Praise God!

There are drawbacks but none my man can’t handle. It’s not a lot of hours but he can’t put in more than 30 with his limited driving. He can’t drive in the dark and cannot exceed a sixty-mile radius, which really puts him for whatever job is out there in the Kearney area that is willing to work his limitations into their schedule. I know with summer months we get more daylight but many won’t work around him to satisfy their job requirement. 

It really stinks being limited but hey, living in the midst of a storm constantly is a learning experience not too many could handle. We weather these storms wrapped in God’s loving arms and just when you think it is settling down, WHAM another storm.

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to PASS, it’s learning to DANCE in the rain!”

I wonder why a candle with that quote is prominently displayed on my table? Because I love dancing in the rain. When God tosses a storm my way, I don’t run and hide under an umbrella, I let the rain roll down my cheeks, I let the wind blow through my hair, I sometimes tremble at the ferocity of the lightning but then I still, dance in the rain.

God’s like that sometimes, He tosses storms your way to see how you’ll handle what He throws at you. You either become a testimony for His greatness or you hid under a rock, the choice is always your own.

Isa. 25:4 “For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.”

The Valley

Job 21: 33 The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him.

The Valley

*  *  *

I’m living in a valley

an emptiness in my soul.

A wicked web of deceit

through trust that you stole.

Lies are the breadcrumbs

I’m expected to gobble down.

The valley has an echo;

the hills they wear a frown.

Deep in the valley

too few have come to see.

It’s where I walk hand-in-hand

with my Savior beside me.

Alone I walk the valley

I shall never fear

for it is God who whispers

right in my very ear.

I’m told of all the beauty

that will come to be.

Left behind is the valley

as Heaven welcomes me.

Isa. 7: 19 And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

Isa. 22: 5 For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains. [7] And it shall come to pass, that thy choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

I LOVE my job!

Matt. 25:15 And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey.
***

“What? You got a job?”

“Well...”

“But that’s great, you got a job!”

The truth be told, my job is writing. Like it or not. My job is writing.

“Now that Adam is off at school you can go out and find something.”

“Find something? I’ve been working my tail off educating myself, volunteering, networking, getting my name out there, and you what? Want me to quit this job?”

“Does it pay?”

“It WILL!”

“But it’s not going to put food on your plate.”

“I’ll let the Lord worry about my food, shelter, life.”

How many times has a conversation like that been broached. So often I could hurl chunks! I mean, really!

Many many years ago (almost 25 to be exact) when I gave up drugs and alcohol (remember, I grew up in the city. There was no other life except the dark route) I took the initiative, embraced God and moved forward in my life. God had a job for me. Me? Little ol me? Yes!

He said, “Make a difference in people’s lives, change one person at a time. Take care of people, shower them with love, let them know that I AM.” Big job for a little lady. I was twenty-one at the time and people thought I was crazy. God didn’t talk to them, so what made me so special? I’ll tell you. I gave my LIFE for Him! Literally. The old me died and a new one was born.

I set out on a mission to help people in any way I could, often NEVER getting paid one red cent, and many times working in 104 degree heat for one dollar, because to a woman of 100, that was all she could pay. I did it all with grace and enjoyed my work for the Lord.

Then one day, after about 15 years had passed, when I didn’t think I was doing my job to the fullest, He said, “Use the talent I gave you. Change one person at a time.” Me? Here again, lil ol me is suppose to change people with my talent? Oh...I get it.

I dove into my talent. He provided the computer, free of charge, He provided my growth, my initiative and onto the world I went, with my writing talent, to change the world, one person at a time.

I’ve never felt like I was letting Him down. Onward and upward my mission for the Lord goes on, without skipping a beat. He provides the people needed, He helps me to shower them in a light they may have otherwise overlooked and He embraces me in full glory. Wow!

Now that Adam is in school, I feel pressured into getting a job. You know, to help pay the bills, to make ends meet, to let society know “I’m a worker!” Well guess what? I asked God again as satan is approaching me with flames of fire, “Should I get a job?”

His words, “You have a job. You work for ME!”

I don’t expect anyone to understand this concept. This is a hard part of FAITH that many cannot grasp. I put all of my faith in Him who provides every step of the journey, who puts food in my mouth and shelters me from raging storms. I have the faith that He will carry me and mine through the darkest of days. I will hold my head high and move on in a blaze of Glory.

I love my job.

Quotation Saturday

COURAGE

We must have the courage to believe that the world we have dreamed will one day be made manifest and that what we do as individuals makes a difference. We must have the courage to reject the idea of settling for work that is destructive to human happiness, or even indifferent to it.
--Laurence G. Boldt


Live courage, breathe courage, and give courage.
--Dhan Gopal Mukerji
Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon

RECOGNITION

“When you are able to applaud yourself, it is much easier to applaud others.”
-- Denis Waitley

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
-- Mother Theresa

“When someone does something well, applaud! You will make two people happy.”
-- Samuel Goldwyn

“We can secure other people's approval, if we do it right and try hard; but our own is worth a hundred of it.”
-- Mark Twain

THOUGHTS ON WORK

If you have fun at your job, I think you're going to be more effective.
--Meg Whitman


Making anything a success rests with people and commitment, strong will to always do the best, confidence in one another...and absolute determination.
--Jorgen Roed

“Take complete control over the messages you allow into your conscious mind.”
--Brian Tracy

“If your sunshine wants far outstrip your cold morning desire, have a talk with yourself. Then have a lot more talks with yourself. Convince number one that you can succeed--and you will succeed. If you don't believe in you, why should anyone else?”
--Tom Hopkins

You become what you affirm; positively affirm your greatness, genius and fullest potential.”
--Mark Victor Hansen


Allow me to say on this Quotation Saturday:
My JOB is writing. No need to go out and find something to do with my time now that my son is in school. Now, I move forward in my WRITING CAREER! Praise be to God for this GIFT!

2 Cor. 9:15 Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.