Happy Valentine's Day: Another Year

Pss. 116:1 "I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications."

Another Year...

It was here and then gone

the year that was then wasn't

We started off on a slippery slope

the days of does and doesn't.

I try to make some sense of it all

but memories mesh together

A sunny day here, a rainy one there

all measured by crazy weather.

Then there are days filled with pain

coughs, sniffles, and sneezes 

your hand in mine, memory blind

a warm soft hug appeases.

We've made it through some blizzards

together all seemed so easy 

fierce lightning storms and raging winds

with love, it passed as just breezy.

Here we stand once again

confusion trying to take hold

but we're too strong to let it win

Our souls should stand so bold! 

This Valentine's day remember

as all the ones in the past

The year might soar in a whirlwind

but it's our enduring love that lasts! 

To my honey! 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Paranoia Won't Win

Pss. 3:8 “Salvation belongeth unto the LORD: thy blessing is upon thy people. Selah”

Paranoia Won’t Win

The holiday season is slowly creeping up on us. While Sunday the fifth was a family event for me, it was basically a prelude to what I can expect at the family get together for Christmas this year.

I think I can say without a doubt that this year has been a year filled with paranoia where toxins, food, and family are concerned. Oddly enough (or maybe not) my faith hasn’t been shaken as I fight for my life out here in the real world. I am more concerned with the food that’s being served at get-togethers and being around his family who might have questions, but paranoia didn’t win in the end. I shrugged off the anxiety and faced the people and event head-on.

When we walked in the door on Sunday, the aroma began its assault on me but didn’t break me. Society breaks me more than the family gathering ever can. Empty plates spread out on the tables and the attendees just finishing up, now in the chatting mode as laughter could be heard throughout. When we walked further into the house, his aunt asked me if I wanted something to eat and I kindly said, no thank you, we had already eaten. My hubby wasn’t hungry either as he ate a nice big cinnamon bun before we left our house. He’s been trying so hard to cut back on soda, sugar, and sweets that he turned down the brownies that his mother offered him until she placed them right in front of his face and kept asking over and over if he wanted any until he buckled. The man cannot refuse his mother. No means no goes right out the window.

The only one that opened the discussion on my health was his cherubic aunt. She is eighty years old but looking at her wrinkleless face, you’d never know her age. I’m telling you, my face has more wrinkles and age than her beautiful smooth face. She has the face that I’d imagine that of an angel having, it also helps that she reminds me of one of my grade school nuns. She drives down to Nebraska from Sioux Falls South Dakota to see her family a couple times a year!

She wasn’t intrusive, she was compassionate and I have no problem at all telling her how my protocol is going and all that I’m doing to keep myself alive. She is very supportive and agrees with everything I’ve done so far and will continue to do. She told me she prays for me every night and adds me to her church prayer list weekly. 

I realized something this weekend. I have an iron will! After being bombarded with what I should and shouldn’t eat for nine months, gently nudged with every beat cancer newsletter out there, with aromas abounding from every direction, I’m being, to me, brutally attacked by the toxic invasion.

Speaking of toxic invasion, I use my writing as a safe haven. My blog is my corner of the world that no one can bully me into submission. I write what I want and when I want, typos and grammar shreds to pieces in my hands and I don’t give a flying fig! If people worried as much about their health as they do my grammar incapability, I imagine they’d be pictures of health. I’m out here fighting for my life and you’re worried about a run-on sentence, a missing comma, and lousy punctuation? Honestly, I think you need more help than me. Just saying.

I write my blog as a journal. I share my blog so people can see what I’m going through and maybe in some small way help just one person to change their life. I’m not writing to be published, I’m writing for ME, to share with YOU, and hoping along the way, you see a glorious God working in me. That’s it, that is all I’m doing.

I think I may just need a break, from writing, from sharing, and basically from the world. God has given me the strength to get through this year; He has helped me decipher the positive from the negative. He’s given me loving caring friends who walk this walk with me and had it not been for them, I don’t feel I could muster the strength to get through all of the paranoia that invades my comfy zone.

I have changed so much this year, inside and out. I’ve allowed paranoia to try and take hold of me like the toxic everything that surrounds me. I am gently moving into what is good for Joni phase as I weed out the ‘I don’t need that phase’ and what OTHERS want for me. This journey is about ME. If your doctor wants to load you up on drugs and you take it all in like candy, good for you. Me, I am adamant about not accepting drugs as a normal way of living. I’m on a journey of health. If that offends you or makes you cringe, I’ll pray for you, it’s all I can do at this time.

I told my niece this weekend, “I feel great! I feel alive!” She asked me what I was drinking. I said I’m high on life! For four years I could barely walk, I was, many days, walking with a cane, unbalanced and depressed that my life was descending into a bottomless pit. God pulled me out of that pit with CANCER! While some see that diagnosis as a death sentence, I see it as a life sentence. I will have this illness for the rest of my life, but I am embracing the change of seasons not being swept out by fear and paranoia. God has granted me the STRENGTH to ACCEPT the things I cannot change, CHANGE the things I CAN, and the WISDOM to know the DIFFERENCE! (and no, I never went to A.A.) 

As God has abundantly blessed me on this journey may He bless you also on your journey. 

Pss. 24:5 “He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”

The Weight Of The Matter

Matt. 11: 28-29 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

Last year when I got married I sent my mother wedding pictures. The first thing she said to me when she received them was, “You put on weight.” What I heard was, “You’re fat you need to diet and lose weight!” But she immediately followed it up with, “but you look GOOD!” Whew, she scared me there for a minute.

You see, when I left home thirteen years ago my weight was borderline undernourishment at 105-110 lbs. I’m 5’4” and it might be what the medical charts at the time deemed a normal weight for my height, I felt too thin when my jeans of teen years of a size 3-5 fit. After arriving in Texas I began eating regularly and could feel my health in my weight gain change.

I wasn’t scared or paranoid because I knew I was still taking care of myself, walking and getting a decent amount of exercise with the amount of food I was eating. As years passed by I did put on weight and I grew to a whopping 130 lbs. And ballooning into a size 7! It sounds like a lot to me because this was 25 added pounds but everyone keeps saying over and over that with age comes weight gain. And well, I’m not a teen anymore.

I recently looked at a weight chart to see what is normal for a 5’4” woman and wouldn’t you know, I’m now a ‘normal’ weight for my height? I was never concerned with my weight before, never owning a scale and the only time I was weighed was when I had a doctor visit, in other words, hardly ever. 

When I talked to my brother last year, he told me that my dad, on his deathbed, took one look at his son and said, “You put on weight.” (My nephew had lost a large amount of weight but apparently gained some of it back), that is what my dad was referring to but I can bet my nephew heard the same thing I did when my mother told me I had put on weight. 

I never noticed it before but it seems it’s all about weight. My sister is too skinny, my cousin is too big, ‘I’ have gained weight, my nephew has put on weight, my (overweight) aunt lost too much weight when she got cancer and became unrecognizable as a thin woman and it goes on and on! Not just in my family, I see a lot of friends with health issues and weight problems and I think to  myself, what is the world coming to that we judge people by the size of their weight?

How and why have we as a human race become so obsessed with our weight and our looks? Why do we feel that we need to be a certain way so as not to be scrutinized? Why can’t we age gracefully and with dignity? So what if your hair gets thinner and grayer as you get older? So what if you get beautiful ‘I lived life’ lines on your face? Why does everyone need to point out that ‘yes’ with age things change?

Well, I used this in a post on facebook five years ago and it had nothing to do with the political year, mind you. "Change is change. Trees change every season do we complain? Our perennials change, do we gripe? Sometimes we just need to learn something from a change, whether good or bad, in one way or another, we too will be changed because of change."

When Jesus was carrying the cross, it was never about the weight of the cross. He knew that with that cross there was going to be change, change that people would HAVE to accept or deny. He was more than willing to carry the weight of a HUMAN RACE. That’s right people, He knew no color, He did not pick and choose what gender was right or wrong. He didn’t separate Himself from the heavy and the thin. The only weight He knew was the weight of the cross and that for thousands of years (ages) the cross would carry change!

Listen people, we’re on the threshold of change. Yes this is a political year and there is going to be change, for better or for worse, change is inevitable. You’re getting older, there is going to be changes in your body and health. That little baby you’re holding, he/she is going to change. He won’t be a baby forever and you my friend are not going to be young forever.

Instead of pointing out and poking fun at the changes taking place, embrace them! Yes, you're getting older, grayer, heavier, thinner, wrinklier, weightier but know this, there is no burden too big that the Cross didn’t bear at the finish line. Carrying the cross was bigger than any challenge that you and I face on a daily basis. Think about that.

I think I see why non-believers don’t believe in the Jesus story because who in their right mind would carry a cross and be hung on it for millions of people nevertheless a single friend. We live in a selfish society that won’t even let the slow driver in front of us enjoy their ride at a slow pace because we’re in a hurry to be first. We live in a society that doesn’t embrace change unless it’s our make-up and hair color, we live in a world where it is all about the facade.

When you meet someone for the first time, before looking at their size, or how many wrinkles they have or how gray their hair is, notice first that they are human and are living life, aging and growing just like you! If you see a person's inner beauty first, you won’t even see their outer shell for judgment.

2 Cor. 4:17 “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;”

Seasonal Change

Pss. 90: 6 "In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."

Seasonal Change

It seems like a seasonal change is going on in my body and mind. In the Spring I’m flourishing and growing, writing until my fingers hurt then by fall I’m ready to go dormant and wither into the sunset and put my year long trek of blog posts behind me. It’s not even the New Year yet. 

I did have a goal at the beginning of this year and that was to surpass last year’s posts. So far I beat the 112 posts mark pretty easy. Now to surpass 2013, not so easy as September has arrived and I just want the year to be over already. Maybe the cooler temperatures arriving next week will whisk me away into a writing frenzy and my goal will surpass 2014! Hey, I can dream but the one thing I can’t do is give up!

2013 – 162 posts, 2014 – 182 posts, 2015 - 112 posts, 2016 – 155 so far. A grand total of 1699 posts thus far – Definitely surpassing my goal from when I began this venture. 

~  Amen  ~

Topics – the elusive thought for a topic is becoming harder and harder as sources become overwhelming to my little brain. Then there is the reality that I must live life and not just sit behind this windowed world because things need to be taken care of around my home.

I feel lost amid a sea of falling leaves that are slowly being taken from their tree source and left to lie on the ground waiting to be raked and put into a pile on my almost ready to be sleeping garden. Even my flourishing garden wants to rest from a heated summer where little has fallen from the sky to quench the thirst of the dry land beneath.

I thought I’d at least make my blog writing to the November election when the chosen one will be hung out to dry on the social media clothesline.  The news media will spin their web of deceit just in time for Halloween when all the masks will be evidently seen from people and politicians alike and I get to be here at center stage to watch the show. Yippee, how depressing.

I think about giving up writing all the time but I won’t allow the phase to suck me down the drain with all the mask-wearing people. I actually have a goal set and I don’t like giving up. I don’t care how depressing the world around me becomes or how hard they try to tighten the noose around my neck with their gibberish; I can’t give up!

I sometimes feel like my posts are coming off as peeved or angry but I have no intention of writing from anger. When something bothers me, like lies and deceit, I write about the liars and deceivers so that maybe, just maybe, everyone else can see that people they know and trust are misleading them also. Maybe they don’t even care if the bullring hanging from their nose is leading them around. This is why I feel like discontinuing my writing so I can just have a break from the grammar-etiquette police and the judgmental masked socialites, who know who they are. 

I don’t have all of the answers and I surely don’t pretend to know it all. I lost my ego years ago when reality swallowed me up as the social media frenzy was seizing control of the world. I am not a pretentious person putting on a show for you all to read, what you see is the real me that some of you like but some are taken aback by my over-the-top honesty.

“Did she really just say that?” Yes, yes I did. 

Sometimes my openness corners me into a cage, leaving people to poke sticks at me through the bars, feed me their delusion or ready to pull their shotguns out because they see me as a big gorilla trying to save a small child. (Think Harambe, the almost endangered species) 

There you have it, the truth of this entire post, I’m an endangered species being forced out of existence by an all too willing mass that would rather shoot me down rather than lift me up. I’m telling you here and now, I will not go out quietly. I will look down the barrel of your gun proclaiming HE IS ALIVE! I AM ALIVE! All the capitalizing in the world isn’t big enough to make you HEAR the WORDS (or see) because blindness is an epidemic that is sucking the life out of the living.

Seasons come and seasons go

Dreams may come and dreams may flow.

No one knows from where I grow

As seasons come and seasons go.

Ex. 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

Poetry Sunday ~ Seasons in the Sand

Matt. 19: 24 "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Seasons in the Sand

On wayward sand, I stretch my hand

as frothy water flows

on the solid Rock, I stand

relieved of passing woes.

The seasons of my mind are lit

with every wistful shower.

The Spirit’s here where I sit

to fill my every hour.

 Morning comes He breathes in me

the dawn of a new day.

He gives me sight so I can see

the path I went astray.

On wayward sand, I stretch my hand

granules in my clutch

I'm taken by the wavy band

the grains I dare not touch.

It's much easier for the camel

to pass through the needle's eye

Than you who’s merely mortal

to seek answers in the sky.

The seasons of my mind unfold

His Word for me to preach

As ribbons of the Truth be told

like footprints on the beach.

Quotation Saturday ~ Seasons - Changes

Pss. 55:19 “God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.”

SEASONS

“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
[Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841]” 
― George Eliot

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.” 
― Lewis Carroll

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.” 
― Yoko Ono

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."

[Meditations Divine and Moral]” 
― Anne Bradstreet

“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters on Cézanne

 “The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.” 
― Henry Beston

“SEASONS OF LIFE

Sometimes I fall
And feel myself slowly wilt and die,
But then I suddenly spring back on my feet
To go play in the sun outside.
I am no different than the weather,
The planets or the trees;
For there do not always have to be reasons
For the seasons turning inside of me.
The magnetism that swirls
In the sky, land, and sea
Are the exact same currents found twirling
In the electric ocean within me.
I am a moving vessel of energy.
And if my emotions do not
Flow up, down,
Within and around,
Then I am not alive.” 
― Suzy Kassem

CHANGES

“Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.” 
― Joss Whedon

“Half of me is filled with bursting words and half of me is painfully shy. I crave solitude yet also crave people. I want to pour life and love into everything yet also nurture my self-care and go gently. I want to live within the rush of primal, intuitive decision, yet also wish to sit and contemplate. This is the messiness of life - that we all carry multitudes, so must sit with the shifts. We are complicated creatures, and ultimately, the balance comes from this understanding. Be water. Flowing, flexible and soft. Subtly powerful and open. Wild and serene. Able to accept all changes, yet still led by the pull of steady tides. It is enough.” 
― Victoria Erickson

“The purest form of faith happens when you reach the bottom of your reasoning and find there is nothing that you can do that will make sense out of what you have been through.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

“Sacred blessings and divine opportunities appear in your life disguised as unforeseen changes and challenging circumstances.” 
― Miya Yamanouchi

“When you receive God's love, it means you're getting close to Him, spending time in His presence, opening your heart to Him, seeking to know Him, and desiring to be more like Him. Remember that choosing to receive God's love changes your life.” 
― Stormie Omartian

The Path

Pss. 16: 11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

The Path

The path is one I walk down

throughout the many seasons

Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall

for many different reasons.

Trees they seem to shiver

sleeping through the cold

As life unveils  mysteries

daring to unfold.

Autumn carries whispers

of prayers through the breeze

I trek through the rubble

with God there I’m at ease

Then with undue warning

the snow sweeps right on in.

Blanketing my frigid soul

to show me where I’ve been.

The New Year thus progresses

to cradle a weary heart

I’ll strive to be the beacon

all Light will I impart.

Bursting blossoms come to life

the entrance of the Spring.

New hope I’ll give to one and all

through messages I bring.

I look back down the winding path

I’ve shared all Light with you

never letting darkness reign

on days you’ve struggled on through.

As the season changes

each one holds its own key.

The path is just a mirror

that I wish the world to see.

 

 

Poetry Sunday ~ Seasons in the Sand

Matt. 19: 24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

Seasons in the Sand

On wayward sand I stretch my hand

as frothy water flows

on the solid Rock I stand

relieved of passing woes.

The seasons of my mind are lit

with every wistful shower.

The Spirit’s here where I sit

to fill my every hour

The morning comes He breathes in me

the dawn of a new day.

He gives me sight so I can see

the path you went astray.

On wayward sand I stretch my hand

granules in my clutch

You’re taken by the wavy band

the grains you dare not touch.

Tis easier for the camel

to pass through the needles eye

Than you who’s merely mammal

to seek answers in the sky.

The seasons of my mind unfold

His Word for me to preach.

As ribbons of the Truth be told

like footprints on the beach.

 

 

Poetry Sunday ~ Seasons Change

Ecc. 3: 1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Seasons Change

Crippled leaves cross the field

Wispy winds stir by

Gone is heat from raging sun

Winter’s frost draws nigh.

Trees are green, orange and yellow

Progression has begun

Seasons melt a new one reigns

With the setting of the sun.

Combines wipe the farmland clean

The cows are sent to the meadow

Trees they weep their leaves are gone

Harvesters reap what they sow.

Clouds they form a serpentine flower

Displays of a heavenly hue.

Blue erupts from the gray

The angel’s seasonal stew.

Sprouting ceases as summer ends

Russet rests on the floor.

Pearly white will welcome the season

Salting the ground once more.

 

 

 

 

Poetry Sunday ~ Seasonal Change

Pss. 102: 26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

Seasonal Change

* ~ * ~ *

The winds came briskly at the start of the day

sweeping the fields while out to play.

The sun partially hidden by bold dark caves

peeking out in increment waves.

The dormant trees bend to and fro

as new spring blossoms hang on and grow.

Shivering in winters seeming last touch

deadened limbs break off and such.

Just as in life wild storms erupt

making the soul feel somewhat corrupt.

Wrestling with the maniac season

calmly you pray for a justified reason.

Slowly you’re rid of worn out sorrow

you’ve reached a path to a better tomorrow.

Reclaiming your soul you fuse with God

standing strong upholding the rod.

Rejoicing now with hymns of praise

the cloudburst passed with sun-swept rays.

There’s only one storm you’re sure to win

The realization that your God’s within!

Poetry Sunday ~ Sandhill Crane

Is.40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

The Sandhill Crane
***
The fields are alive with murmuring sound
I see the crane ever dancing around
They stand, they sit, all over the place.
like a babbling brook with a stony face.

When one takes flight they all follow suit
to the skys they twine with a bellowing hoot
Flapping, grappling on awkward stilts
painting the sky in patchwork quilts.

A new field awaits their homely roost
giving their journey a relieving boost
A stop in Nebraska just passing through.
Visitors pay homage to this sandhill crew.

Finding the sanctuary a yearly reprieve
until they decide to leap and leave.
Journey’s end to their timely stay
The sandhill crane must now fly away.

Acts 1:7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.


Seasons come and go...

*** 

There are seasons that come
and seasons that go
seasons of essence
where we all must grow.

Fall for the foliage
we shed our past
silent sorrow
that never last.

Winter, the snow
will shelter our pain
blanket our soul
with granules of rain.

Spring’s the time
for life to bloom.
sprout through the season;
a fresh soul to groom.

Summer the season
renewed growth surges.
the year now complete
the new you emerges.

Poetry Sunday ~ Seasons

Acts 1: 7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
***
Seasons
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp***

There are seasons that come

and seasons that go
seasons of essence
where we all must grow.

Fall for the foliage
we shed our past
silent sorrow
that never last.

Winter, the snow
will shelter our pain
blanket our soul
with granuled rain.

Spring’s the time
for life to bloom.
sprout through the season;
a fresh soul to groom.

Summer the season
renewed growth surges.
the year now complete
the new you emerges.
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp