Settling In...PTSD

1 Sam. 10:26  "And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched."

Settling in...PTSD

Settling into my home was not as easy a task as you’d imagine. Happy-go-lucky Joni was a shell of a being. The nurses had noticed in the hospital and nursing home, and they didn’t even know me, the physical therapists saw it, and my family just assumed I was sad. No, the trauma I had experienced was a little more than depression or sadness, it had all the earmarks of PTSD.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is not a light analogy of depression or sadness, it is a severe trauma that is triggered ever so lightly by sounds, pictures, faces, or names. It is a fear so intense that not even the Light of God Himself standing beside you can wash away, it is THAT severe. People who don’t have PTSD will never comprehend the magnitude of pain a person suffers through.

Last year is almost a complete blank to me, except for the trauma. Have you ever opened an MS page and saw a blank screen staring you straight in the eye and you felt a trembling panic for a few seconds not knowing what you were there to write? Every morning I open my eyes a blank page lay before me; what I put on that page shapes my day physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. What people say or do become triggers like a bullet waiting to be tapped and released from the barrel, words can shoot a person down. Without even knowing the triggers, friends, and family set off a ticking time bomb inside the psyche of a person suffering from PTSD. Anger, fear, frustration, guilt, and shame all become an open floodgate in the way of tears streaming down my face at any given time. At home, the doctor's office, the physical therapist office, or even in the food store, tears unleash without warning.

When my home health nurse noticed my PTSD along with my physical therapist, I was put in touch right away with a counselor. While I liked Dee, she was more about telling me her story than hearing mine. It was fine because that is the kind of front I put up, I’ll help you, you can’t help me; it’s an unbreakable barrier. I basically thanked her for listening and sent her on her way as I cringed inside. I was broken.

I could see the pieces of myself scattered on the floor. I wanted ever so much to take a whisk broom and scoop the particles onto a dustpan and toss them in the trash but I was immobile, disabled. There was no scooping going on any time soon. I would sit in the silence of the house, meditate in the quiet of aloneness, and pray to the only God I know and worship. Only He could get me through this, in time. HIS TIME, not my time. Here we go again.

Settling into my new surroundings would have me fearful of nightfall. Sounds would ricochet off the walls while shadows would pirouette. You would think that home was familiar surroundings but to me, I felt as if I was an orphan dumped off to this house with a family I didn’t recognize.

As the fragments of my life lie on the floor, images of last year shine like a mirror swaying in the sun, blinding me as I see good and bad portions flailing about. This trauma was not a phase I was going to laugh my way out of as if nothing bothers me. Each step I take would be like tiptoeing in a minefield, a trigger to tears or to laughter, to pain or to joy. I don’t have a choice in the matter, I just tread lightly and make every day a new day, every step a step toward healing.

God's time is not my time as I stroll along the healing path. I’ll endure the steps I needed to take to get me to the healing sea where I will eventually take a luxury dip and swim like a fish in open waters. Right now I’m still in an saltwater aquarium awaiting release in the open sea. God tells me ‘patience’, ‘faith’, and most of all ‘TRUST’, and in Him is where I’ll find my healing. The Joni I remember is still there in the windowed world… it's just going to take some patience, faith, and trust to find her again.

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

Poetry Sunday ~ Autumn Trees

Pss. 96:12 “Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice.”

Autumn Trees

Flaming fire of autumn trees

Lights the sky with ample ease

Flowing like a river stream 

Catches on the sunrise beam

The open orange of autumn trees

Catches light on mornings breeze

Drifting down with somber sound

Leaves now whimper on the ground

Amber glow of autumn trees

Whispers sounds of rolling seas

Brilliant hint of heavens door

Hues abound of winters lure

Radiant red on autumn trees

Winter waits with summer tease

Vibrant color mornings gold

Frost unveils the seasons cold

*a worthy repost

Poetry Sunday ~ Dry My Tears

Pss. 6:6 “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.”

Dry my Tears

The sun slants over the horizon

Fears in the night fall asleep

A new day dawns of which I wake

Darkness slides into the deep.

Tears they dry by mornings' breath

I dare not tell a soul

My heart it hides a rhythmic beat

Broken body bears the toll

Silence slithers in morning mist

Unspoken words decay

Alone am I on desolate land

Dried are tears I face the day

Frost it hides from rising sun

Scattered is the cold

It is with Light I dry my tears

Amid the mornings gold.

Pss. 116:8 “For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.”

Seeing Good In The Bad

2 Sam. 14:17 “Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD thy God will be with thee.”

Seeing Good in the Bad

I knew today was going to be a different day when I woke while it was still dark outside, put the beloved coffee on, and made my way to let my dog go out back to do her morning business. The ground was wet so I knew we had gotten the much-needed rain overnight.

Sassy had made her way around to the front door so I turned to go in, after seeing a small toad off to the right of the steps, I greeted him with a good morning and proceeded to come in the house. I heard a noise in the darkness.

I had to turn on the light to see what I was encountering hoping beyond all hope it wasn’t the huge snake we’ve seen out in the garden. With the mudroom lit, I see movement on the shoes that are left on the floor. More movement, then an appearance. We have a really big toad, I call Flipit, making his home out in the garden and this morning, he made his way into the house but now he’s stuck behind the shoes. I got a broom and graciously led him to the door to hop back into the garden. To the left of his exit and plopped right there on the top step was the little toad I had previously seen to my right. Maybe big toad was the momma to little toad? No camera in hand so no pics available.

I like to greet the cool outside morning air with a prayer. This morning was no different but I got a treat with the visit of the toad family. I came in the house, poured a cup of coffee and shuffled my way to the computer where I would begin my writing day. 

I’m always leery of opening the internet because of the news I might find glaring at me from behind the screen, begging me to read. Day after day it seems killings, slaughter, murder and death are usually right up front ahead of the headlines. The political garbage gets passed over, just like on facebook if you post political crud, your words fall on deaf ears because I ‘HIDE THIS POST’ and see less and less of what garbage is being spewed out from an angry nation.

I am not pained by the atrocities of the daily news so much so I ignore it. I can’t, I will not allow the shock value to scare me from doing nothing and if you dare say prayer is nothing I will boldly slap you upside the head with the TRUTH about prayer. 

I’ve heard people say that God is ignoring us and this is the farthest thing from the truth. We live in a country founded on God and we the people work to remove Him from the land but it is impossible. Why is it impossible; because God HEARS OUR PRAYER that’s why. 

If we look back in history, we see that our founding fathers loved God. They brought God to this new country and built a land full of believers. So what happened? Well, greed and corruption leaked in and grew, no different than a seed that is planted, it grew and blossomed but the end result wasn’t a beautiful rose, it was a weed of ugliness.

To the non-believer, they would say that that’s all hokey but if they read the Bible they would know from the very first chapter IN the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation the Word states that this is the very thing that would happen. Amid all of the beauty created, weeds of greed and corruption would defile the very beautiful creation and it has to the point of almost total destruction. Have you ever tried to kill the weeds in a garden, only for them to come back full of livelihood and take over? You can try and try but the weeds will pop up somewhere and try to destroy all the beauty.

It’s fact! It’s truth! God tried to give us a moral compass and we planted weeds in that fertile place of mind growth, THAT is why the world is the way it is, we are slowly destroying the beauty. 

Back to the morning news, I was greeted with a small prism of shining beauty in my own neck of the woods in the state of Nebraska. A couple from Texas had purchased a two thousand dollar RV from the corrupted Craigslist only to arrive in Omaha, Nebraska to find they were swindled. I don’t know all that went down but a couple purchased an RV for them, filled it with groceries and all sorts of hospitable products. Cash donations are also pouring in for the couple. 

THIS is the kind of news I like to wake and read. This is what the world is supposed to be about. This is the reason I believe in the Power of Prayer! Yes, in my morning prayer I asked to be greeted by the good in the world through all of the bad. My days are shaped by the good I see, not the bad. I will not, CANNOT ignore the good in the bad. 

Alleluia AMEN! All Glory to God.

Feeling Hopeful Through the Pain

1 John 4:18 (NIV) “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

*Hopeful*

Well, it’s been a pretty exhausting week for me. No, I haven’t been working myself too hard and I learned something really early in this disability and that is to 'know my limits'!!!

I go out early in the cool morning hours and water my garden and fill my birdbath. I pull any weeds I can without hurting my back and then I come inside to do the inside chores of washing clothes, ironing hubby’s work shirts, planning the meal for dinner (preferably not one that consists of the use of the oven) more times than not, in the summer months I use my slow cooker or make a nice refreshing pasta salad, or a tossed salad and some turkey wraps. 

After my chores, I start my writing, usually an inspirational blog post or something of that nature. Today is a hopeful day. I was so encouraged by my friends I woke yesterday feeling hopeful in my future of writing, blogging and just being alive. I got out early to water my plants, was enjoying the breeze so much I decided to wash my car, then when I finished I went inside to wash two loads of laundry. Hubby had gone food shopping at seven a.m to beat the heat, then he came home and sprayed for weeds, and as I washed the car, he whacked the weeds with a weed-whacker! He was on a weed killing mission, I can tell you that much. 

I came inside as it started to heat up outside washed some clothes and then began the afternoon by writing in the nicely air-conditioned house. I would every once in a while peek my head outside just to see how hot it was and by 5:30 it was 99 degrees with a heat index of 108!!! Wow, after living in Texas for six years you think I’d be used to the heat but this is an airless hot where you try to breathe and are reminded of what hell potentially feels like. 

I made a mistake in the midst of my euphoria and that was to try and get a fly off the back of my right leg using my pained left leg, not a good idea! I lifted my left leg backwards and used my foot to swat the blood-sucking varmint. It rendered me practically immobile when my left leg dropped by the inability to place any weight on my left foot and I was forced to stagger painstakingly inside to the heating pad. Yeah, how exciting is that to have to sit on a heating pad when you’re trying to get cool? And amid such a good day!

I often wonder why. Why me? Those thoughts often discourage me and my friend told me recently that it’s to bring you closer to God. You see, the people out there that just soar through life with nary a problem turn to God when they NEED Him and some people find that they don’t need him at all, they have their egos and they’re good with their not-a-care-in-the-world- life, but us who are always seeking God and want to be so close to Him that we fall asleep at night in His arms are usually the ones with the heaviest load to carry.

My daily pain brings me that much closer to God himself. No deed, no selfless act, no not-committing-all-ten of the commandments is going to bring me closer to God than my pain. 

When you’re suffering, the first thing you do, and yes even atheist have been known to do, is cry out dear God help me please, or dear sweet Jesus. Only because in some sense we know, that is the only comfort we’re going to get.

Now a lot of people have turned away from Christ because either they really don’t care if He exists, need PROOF that He exists, or don’t like the non-answer they get from Him. Allow me to tell you this, He has always answered me! Maybe not in the way I expected him to but yes, He has always answered me. Sometimes he tells me to be patient and wait, sometimes he says how about this instead? Yes, He always gives ME an answer.

So as I sit here literally crying in pain that my leg renders me, and asking God why? He gently nods – because you need me. Ahh… that was sweet. 

Jer. 15:18 “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” < I question

He answers >Jer. 15:20 “And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.”

PRAISE BE TO GOD!

A Snowcapped Morn

Rom. 2: 19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness

Snowcapped Morn

The snow is hugging the trees this morn

In a blanket of purity’s glow.

My soul is comforted in Christ the Lord

By a Light of wondrous show.

Each branch is cradled in soft cotton

Frozen is the arm and stem.

The Lord asks me to raise my eyes

And no man am I to condemn.

My snowblind eyes squint to see

The white that clings to the tree

God Himself has locked his arms

Around the mortal part of me.

Each morning I rise to a glorious sight

I bow my head and pray.

The Lord has wrapped me in His love

The sunrise a sweet bouquet.