~ I Hit The Nail On The Head ~

Pss, 31:3 “For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me.”

I Hit The Nail on the Head

People are afraid because all along they are proclaiming a strong faith in the Lord, but with my illness and the route I’m taking is having them question where all of MY faith in God comes from, they might be a little puzzled. It may have them questioning their OWN faith and where their allegiance stands. My friend told me I have an infectious faith and if that is what God is using me for then I am honored. 

I feel sorry for the ones who think money is going to buy them life. The more they spend the more they think disease and illness will stay away. They think the more insurance they have will save them in the end. They’ve put their faith in the Almighty Dollar saving them and not the Almighty Lord and Creator who has the actual POWER to save!

I could sign up for years worth of chemo, radiation and breast slaughter but you know, I could be hit by a car in mid-treatment and left for dead. If I ever did decide to go the chemo route you might as well think me dead. I will pull out of sight, I will stop writing my thoughts and keep it all to myself. You’ll look for me but the shredded remnants will be long gone. I’ll wither and die having all hope lost to the pressure of what YOU (man) want for me and not what ‘I’ want. 

Let me ask you this, why did or would you sign up for chemo? For you, your family, to add a few extra years to your life? If you cry for me as I’m making the hardest decision of my life, is it sorrow for yourself for what you could have done, pity that you didn’t do more or the feeling that you’ve lost control of a situation.

Rom 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

https://www.youcaring.com/jonibrandt-750269

Life is difficult and full of trials and we are to consider it joy because our God is exceedingly good. We mature through trials. The trials in our life are the tools God uses to make us the people he needs us to be. God uses you to show others His light and love and the surrounding joy by God making himself available to YOU. 

Jame 1:2-4 “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

I cry out, 'I believe but help my unbelief.' You have the faith but you hear doubt. This is normal as God is building His palace in us. He is using you to bring a light to the world. God is the author and perfector of our faith.

The social media scene like facebook, twitter, Instagram and YouTube are lead sources of depression. Why because you’re always comparing yourself to others. You’re down while others are having the time of their lives. They put on their happy faces when in reality they are having their own struggle but you can’t see through the fog-filled false barriers they’ve built.

Today is one of those days. Superbowl parties will be had, food will be eaten and drinks will be gulped. It’s the good life, high and mighty, happy as a springtime lark. People will drive home drunk, punches will be thrown, guns will be pulled and people will die. That’s the fact! People from around the world in all walks of life will focus more on material obsessions than the reality of life being the ultimate end.

James 1:6-8 “But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

I can honestly say about the social media that it has been a lifeline for me to have virtual friends surround me and lift me in my darkest hours. I understand why some stay away, they think if they act like they don’t care the ‘c’ word won’t infect their lives or maybe they really don’t care. They have their own lives to worry about. Sorry people, we live in a toxic world and your days are as numbered as mine. 

I’ve done a lot of research this past week and I’ve found some interesting tidbits. The cancer in me has been there as a tiny dust mote for eleven years or more, fertilized by the toxicity of the air I breathe and the unhealthy food I ate. With every breath and with every bite I nurtured its growth.

Now that the Conventional Clan (doctors) know that it is there, they all want to ‘help’. It’s like a person who wins a million dollars, friends and relatives all crawl out of the woodwork wanting a piece of the pie. In my case, they want to slice and dice me to charge the insurance while dipping into MY pie. (please, no pie jokes.)

If I hear one more time that they have made great strides in the cancer community, I may begin to allow anger to spew right into someone’s face, and we all know I am not about anger, I’m about HOPE! What strides? I’m a week into my research, the doctor’s who said we’ll be here for you, we’ll walk with you through this, have not contacted me once! All that my oncologist offered was chemotherapy, drugs for the sickness I’d feel, surgery and more drugs, then a year of radiation. Mind you, the drugs offered me come with those tiny print warnings about liver damage, suicidal tendencies, etc etc. 

Let me ask, how is that a ‘great stride’ from when you were treated? What is different? Are you now the picture of health, no sicknesses, no health issues? Did the chemo NOT destroy your immunity? 

My mother-in-law will come out to my house today to hug me. She needs that and honestly, I think I do too because all of these virtual hugs go right through me. (pun intended!) Today’s sermon was about attitudes changing everything. If my MIL needs to see me and hug me to help her deal and change her attitude about ANYthing, then I’m all for it. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Tomorrow is the assigned day that the navigator lady will call and try to guilt me into getting a PET scan (yeah, send radiation into my body) and to talk about the port I’ll need for chemo. You see, just those words alone freak me out. Gee lady, can I have more time, can I get another opinion, are there no other options? 

You tell people you want to go holistic, and they say I’ll pray you ask God for guidance. What? Like this thought just jumped in my head, and I’m jumping off a bridge with no bungee cord to spring me back to reality? I’ve been praying, I came to this decision with HIM in mind, not you, not my family, not even me, with HIM! My goal in life is Him so whatever I need to reach that goal is between Him and Me.

Some will see it as courageous, some will see it as bravery, I see it as FAITH in the Almighty. God will allow you to rummage through this fantasy world, hiding behind virtual games, TV shows, and denial but eventually we will ALL need to see HIM as the end game, some sooner than others. 

My message to you is this, if you’re not here for me in life as I minister to the WORD, please don’t appear after I’m gone asking what you could have done differently. Turn to HIM and try to understand exactly what His will is in YOUR life. He’s calling you and you need to hear. He’s calling me and I’m listening.

May the God of Life and Joy Be With you all!

Quotation Saturday

OBSESSION

“All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.”
~ Virginia Woolf

“I think you can love a person too much. You put someone up on a pedestal, and all of a sudden, from that perspective, you notice what's wrong - a hair out of place, a run in a stocking, a broken bone. You spend all your time and energy making it right, and all the while, you are falling apart yourself. You don't even realize what you look like, how far you've deteriorated, because you only have eyes for someone else.”
~ Jodi Picoult

“I love you so much that nothing can matter to me - not even you...Only my love- not your answer. Not even your indifference”
~ Ayn Rand

“I don't possess these thoughts I have --- they possess me. I don't possess these feelings I have --- They obsess me.”
~ Ashly Lorenzana

INSANITY

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence– whether much that is glorious– whether all that is profound– does not spring from disease of thought– from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.”
~ Edgar Allan Poe

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”
~ Toni Morrison, Beloved

“THE EDGE, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
~ Hunter S. Thompson

“I'll take crazy over stupid any day.”
~ Joss Whedon

RELEASE

“Why let something build up inside of you only to hurt you more? Release the truth, release the feeling.”
~ Heather Romiti Health Wellness Coach Motivational Speaker

“If we can just let go and trust that things will work out they way they're supposed to, without trying to control the outcome, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully. The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself.”
~ Goldie Hawn

“Secrets press inside a person. They press the way water presses at a dam. The secrets and the water, they both want to get out.”
~ Franny Billingsley

“Try to forgive by trying to understand how it would feel to be in the other’s shoes. If someone hurts you – ask them - “What hurts you so much that you would do this?” Listen to the answer and try to understand what is valid for them. They may have been fighting for your attention, but no one thinks of themselves as attackers, only defenders! So don’t judge their ways, only set them free by giving them a chance to speak. You may both learn a lot from your kindness and courage in asking for the truth. But even if nothing changes, release it, remember that you both have a right to be who you choose to be. When we make judgements we're inevitably acting on limited knowledge, so ask if you seek to understand, or simply let them be!”
~ Jay Woodman

Obsession vs. Addiction

Obsession vs. Addiction

Am I an obsessed writer or am I addicted to writing? I had to do some research on this one. Let’s see what I discovered.

Obsession – the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc. – Yes, I’m an obsessed writer.

Addiction - the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, *as writing, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.  YES, I’m addicted to writing!

* I took out, as narcotics, and replaced it with as writing.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – A disorder characterized by repetitively repeating actions over and over, compulsively.  Meh!

The phrase obsessive–compulsive has become part of the English lexicon, and is often used in an informal or caricatured manner to describe someone who is excessively meticulous, perfectionistic, absorbed, or otherwise fixated. Although these signs are present in OCD, a person who exhibits them does not necessarily have OCD, but may instead have obsessive compulsive personality disorder.

Aha! My discovery led me to believe I am OCPD! OCPD is a chronic non-adaptive pattern of extreme perfectionism, preoccupation with neatness and detail. And I’m addicted to writing, seeing that when I’m not writing, it seems to cause me severe mental trauma. Each day I wake, I go to my computer, not to surf through the web, not to play facebook games, it’s to WRITE.

It has been in my blood since a young age. I began with pen and paper, journals and notebooks and yes, I have many saved notebooks cluttering my basement storage bins. It’s funny, I went through my bins a couple of weeks ago, to see what I managed to bring with me when I left home ten years ago. Lo and behold, I left with not much more than the clothes on my back, a few cherished nic-nacs, and loads of books and writings!

Being the sentimental fool that I am, I cried over the things I didn’t manage to bring with me, but I also cried over the things I DID manage to bring. I think I’ve told you of the time I left home, my son and I, for a safer haven away from a mentally abusive relationship. I left all my once cherished material possessions behind, and moved forward in life, whatever that entailed.

My writing is the only thing, locked up safely in my heart and soul that no one could ever get me to leave behind. Instead I dove in and never looked back. While I have family back home, they all but left me out here to fend for myself, and I’m okay with that, I had to grow up some time.

Now what I do with my time and my life is write. That is the only piece I obsessively control and will never let go of. While material possessions can always be replaced, what you have inside you can never be replaced, only crafted and finely tuned.

So to you my fellow writer’s who can casually use writing as a hobby, my hats off to you. But to you who are addicted to writing; waking, living and breathing the written word, then you know what I mean when I say I’m addicted to writing! As to my OCPD, I love being meticulous and a perfectionist in my writing, so all is well in the written world of words for me.

Are you the Type?

Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.
Stephen King
***

I’m not the obsessive type. Sure I log into facebook to eavesdrop on my friends conversations, to post and play games, connect with people, spread the Word of the Lord and maybe it is quite an obsession but as for my writing? There is no obsessing there!

I’ve been reading/writing since I can remember and when I was a kid, I think I was obsessed with getting books, hanging out at the library, reading anything and everything I could get my hands on. Nowadays I’m more selective in what I read.

Just so you know, I won’t read anything that compromises my beliefs. Sure I can discern fiction from non-fiction, romance from science fiction, but does my mind decipher what is right and what is wrong. Well, I like to think it does. But books on demons and devil worship will not be on my bookshelf anytime soon.

As for my writing, I draw a line there too and this can become a hindrance in writing. As a writer we need to cross boundaries, we need to leap without looking below us to see where it is we’ll fall. We need to write and sometimes we need to write things we as individual human beings would never touch in a million years!

Take Stephen King for example. Sure he’s creepy and a little kooky but I would have him no other way. He is willing to go into the depths of hell just for make believe purposes and bring us a spellbinding story that wraps us so tight around his every word that we forget we’re reading fiction. We go into the zone! ha ha.

I’ve written a spiritual novel, wrote a short story ghost story, and my stories all tend to have a spiritual flair to them. All of the Light source mind you, the light being God and all his mysteries unraveling like a woven blanket. You know the kind, where you pull one string and it tends to let loose the entire blanket? That is what writing a story is all about, unraveling mysteries one word at a time.

Where do I get the inspiration for this type of writing? I was an avid Unsolved Mysteries fan. I always seek the unknown, read a lot of non-fiction in hopes that I will grasp the mystery and be able to shed light on the subject. But as for my ghost stories? Awww come on, they’re just fiction. *wink*

I like to think of myself as the fun and carefree throw-caution-to-the-wind type. So that is what I try to pull off in my writing. Instead of obsessing over the perfect sentence, correct word or phrase, I’ll just let my long blond tresses down and run naked through the cornfields and let my writing flow like the wind of time. Things change, people change but one thing that will never change, my love of writing!

godspeed...