Good and Bad Days: We All Have Them

Matt. 13:48 (KJV) “Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.”

Good days and bad days: we all have them

I’m sure we all have our good days and bad days; we know they’re bad when things go wrong and we see them as good when everything falls into place like a row of dominoes. While yes, I admittedly suffer from PTSD, I myself see more good days than bad and to me, they are all positive steps toward my healing. 

Jer. 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

As home slowly becomes more familiar to me, I feel the healing in the core of my being. The first few weeks though, of being home, felt like an unending carousel ride. That very first Monday I was Mrs. Popular in that everyone wanted a piece of me. I had calls from the home health nurse, the physical therapist, my oncologist office and the Cancer Center’s radiation office. Emails were sounding in from my mother in law wanting to come see me, sister in law auntie and uncle, everyone wanted a piece of this broken woman and how do I tell them all to just SHUT UP in a polite manner? 

My first Monday morning was an assertion day, I was going to take hold of my surroundings, my activities, and my appointments. I was not going to be TOLD to come here, or do this or do that, I would tell THEM what I was willing to do! I was going to take back what I lost!

First up, the home health nurse, Mandy, the woman I had only met on that day I was exiting in an ambulance, yes, she could come. Physical therapist, yes she was allowed. The oncologist? I’ll see you sometime next week. The radiation nurse, I asked if it could be put off for a week as I regained my bearings now that I was home. They were fine with that, setting me up the following week for my two (week) five-day sessions. Ten treatments in all to the healing left femur.

The emails were more targeted to my husband than me because it hurt to type on my laptop. I didn’t have a bend and stretch out mobility, I had a stiff-as-a-board-lay-there-and-be- good, semblance. Computer stuff would have to wait for a spell. I’d send out a 'hey' to friends and let them know I was still alive and as I knew they would be, they were more than understanding and just happy to know I was home. 

Monday was going along smoothly except for me missing my husband who had to go to work with worry on his mind trying to remember if I was set up well enough to be alone. Since we fibbed a little to get me home, I assured him I would be fine, and I was. As scary as the surroundings were, I was HOME and that was good enough for me! 

Now keep in mind, I had not bathed in twenty days. A wipe-down at the hospital but not a thing at the nursing home! Not a wipe, not a rag, nothing! I even used my own kleenex when I had to do my business. So when my mother-in-law wanted to bring his uncle to the house because he’d be ‘in town’, I had to say no way! I was not up to ‘visitors’, I needed to HEAL. I needed time! It all felt so rushed and the kaleidoscope began with its pretty colors and I was getting dizzy.

She said she understood but could her friend from church bring out food? I think she mentioned cookies or something. I told hubby to gently say, NEXT WEEK! Dang. I loved that everyone was so concerned, but I felt like the people who just lost a family member and friends would clamor to come over and bring food at the most inopportune time. Not to be rude but please send love, condolences and give them some space and time. Not a month, just breathing room. Please, don't turn this into how you lost someone and loved those people doing that for you. I appreciated EVERY bit of stirring also. I was suffocating and I needed to BREATHE! 

All appointments set, I slept. I slept and slept some more. Now it was time to move onto healing. The home health nurse brought me a hair-washing cap. You place it on your head, rub your fingers intensely and voila, your hair is water-free washed. It worked marvelously! She supplied an ample amount of body-wipes, and hubby he produced a bucket of water and a rag where I felt refreshing water on my face for the first time in twenty some days! Moving right along. 

I did have the nurse in tears, not bawling because they need to maintain distance and composure in their job, but her eyes were brimming at the sad painful story I’d tell. I had to get it off my chest so each person, professional or family, my story spilled into their ears and leaked from their eyes. They were shocked, then amazed at the strength I carried. I made it perfectly clear it surely was not me, it was God that they saw IN me! 

My healing was nothing short of astonishing to all who were witness to me. The radiation nurses saw me go from gurney to wheelchair within a week. From assisting me onto the slab to minimal help to no help needed at all. This was happening in a ten day period of time! 

My oncologist even showed signs of wonderment at my speedy recovery time. Not only my Oral Chemo and blood cell count healing time but my physical mobility healing time. All were displaying awe and wonder and were quite vocal in letting me know that this was nothing short of amazing. Doctor’s will not touch the ‘miracle’ label, but here I was, in their face, a living breathing healing miracle!

So as I have good days and bad days, it is all a part of the intricate veins of healing. People sometimes think healing happens in the blink of an eye but they need to know and understand how to appreciate the time and effort that goes into producing a work of wonder. Noah’s Ark wasn’t built in a day, the great Pyramids didn’t appear out of thin air and Jesus Himself took nine months to make a physical show. One step at a time is truly meant to be one breath at a time, and it is never our time, it is always His time. 

All praise and Glory to God! AMEN! 

Ecc. 3:11 (NIV) “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Overwhelmed? Take it to God!

Blizzard of 2009

talk about overwhelming

1 Peter 5:7 (NIV), “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 

Overwhelmed

Have you ever been overwhelmed? Here lately my pain has overwhelmed me to the point of frustration and I don’t like that part of me, angry Joni.  The holiday took more out of me than I thought; I felt exhausted, tired and just totally done with the world. So what did I do, I took a time of rest! Something slashed me right across the face; maybe it was the 26 degrees below zero wind chilling temps?

While I love the cold I cannot and will not embrace extremely bitter, skin scarring, back biting cold. The winds alone feel like little shards of glass being plunged into your skin and any part of you that is exposed will surely freeze on impact and bleed when you thaw, so I stayed inside. While I consider myself somewhat of a recluse, the walls begin to close in on you and smother you in the bitterness of the season.

Top that off with a chronic pain and you have a recipe for disaster waiting to spin out of control and spit in the face of anyone that gets in your path. I try not to allow my pain to get that out of control and what is my saving grace? Well God of course. Prayerful meditation.

I realize that when people become so overwhelmed with say (snow) work, classes, bills, pain; their ability to fight is hidden and they shut down and give in to the ‘okay, you win’, worry and stressing about the overwhelming event, if you can call it that. It is what it is and that is LIFE. 

The only way that the events in life stop is if we die, and well, we don’t want that to happen, so what do we do? We deal with everything on a daily basis, sometimes by the seconds of the day and we need our prayerful meditations to just snuggle us tightly and get us through our life event. 

You know how people have huge walk-in-closets where they store everything but the kitchen sink? Yeah, I don’t have one of those. And then there are some smaller more reasonably sized closets; yeah I don’t have one of those either. Then there are the broom closets where you pack all of your junk in there until the walls are about to explode; yeah, I have one of those!

I’m telling you now, the bigger the closet the more problems of being overwhelmed you’ll encounter. People tend to hoard their life in a walk-in-closet when they only have a pantry size cupboard, that is when the overwhelming sneaks up on you and you burst. What to do? Take it to God and leave it in his mansion. He has plenty of room but you know what, He doesn’t store your problems or hide them or pile them back on top of you when you least expect it, nope He carries your junk effortlessly to the shores and places them by the sea. You see where I’m going with this? 

Have you ever watched waves crash on the shores? I remember when I was small we used to go to Ocean City, Maryland. I’d build sandcastles right close to the water but not too close for the waves to come and wash my beautiful creation away. By nightfall, the tide had moved in and my sandcastle became a part of the sea, no longer a part of me. 

That is what happens to our problems when we take them to God instead of storing them in our closets. He places them at the waters edge and it takes very little time for the hoarded problems to wash away. 

The other night I had a dream, one where our landlord came to the house for an inspection. The first thing he did was looked in our closets and started moving stuff around telling me that this closet needs to be organized. I woke with the overwhelming sensation of needing (no not cleaning out my closets!) but to organize my problems and prepare to load them up and take them to where God was standing and waiting for me to unload the accumulated junk in my life.(worries, problems, pain, stress) 

Sometimes we wait for a deadline to come upon us then turn to God when we should have been turning to God all along. We might think, ‘oh this is just a small problem (whether it is pain, bills, a dilemma) that we can handle on our own’, but we soon realize via the intensity, we’ve stuffed our closet to the max and there is no room. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve taken so much to God that I feel I overwhelm HIM and can handle the small things on my own. Boy, was I ever wrong! Like I said, He has a mansion the size of an ocean to store your problems, to Him they are but a grain of sand. Have you ever seen a grain of sand? To me, it is smaller than a grain of salt. To Him, my problems must be smaller than a grain of sand!

Don’t be afraid to take the small stuff to Him. Allow him to organize that closet to where your little pantry looks like a humongous walk-in closet upon opening and allow the sea breeze to swiftly wash over your face lifting your hair in a whoosh to carry your problems away.

It’s that simple, take your overwhelming worries to God. Don’t hoard the small stuff either, it just clutters the closet. ;) 

Matt. 6:6 “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Thoughts For Good Friday

Gen 1:2 “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

What if this world was a reality television show for other planets? 
Look at it this way, it IS a reality tv show to God and He is watching us and what we do with His world. 

God’s nature, in essence, is Love, Life, and Spirit

Everyone who knows me knows that I am indebted to God and am eternally bound to Him but as I blog, I try to see God from a non-believers perspective and try to relay the message for the reasons behind so many believers in the Word. 

I personally can’t fathom a ‘no such thing as God’ theory. To think that millions of molecules just formed into existence that we call human, and the same infrastructure formed into the animal species lower than man. If you believe in evolution then why have the human species stopped evolving?

If you believe dinosaurs were on the ark that Noah built, in the form of alligator’s and crocodiles then you believe in evolution, not a supreme Creator who made everything ‘in the beginning’ who was happy with what He created. You might find a group of scientists who believe that theory and try to sell you THEIR version of creation but if we are to believe that God himself is the creator, please don’t spin an evolution tale on the dinosaurs and confuse people.

1 Cor. 14: 33 “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

I’m not indebted to God and trying to dissect the words of the bible at the same time. I live for God because through Him the bible taught me to live, love and be filled with the Spirit that has been indwelled in me since conception.

I don’t put a spin on the Word, I don’t judge people for being different than me and demand that they live by the word I live by and that is just what has caused so much dissension in the different beliefs of the world.

I know atheists who don’t believe in God but believe in a spiritual force. Sorry guys, that spiritual force that is driving you is the same spiritual force driving me but my Spiritual force is Sacred to me and you don’t feel that your spiritual force is sacred and that is why you feel uneasy with the world and all their ‘hokey pokey’ beliefs.

Just like the Apocrypha, the books that were TAKEN from the original text of the bible, maybe unbelievers feel like we’re leaving something out and not sharing the entire story with them. It’s as if us religious nuts are holding a secret away from them. 

Maybe when THEY [unbelievers] read the bible they saw incest, rape, murderers, a mean and angry God who people followed out of fear. They never saw any truth because they were blinded, backhanded by the truth. Does that make sense?

They see miracles as coincidence, technology as a part of evolution, and good and evil as masks people wear. I see miracles as a thread of hope and as a promise kept. I see technology as evolution since the beginning of time when the first fire was lit to now when we light our stoves with the turn of a button. 

I believe Jesus is the Son of God, just as I believe the Immaculate Conception took place. Why do I believe in the Immaculate Conception? It is no different than the Earth being conceived from nothing (time and space) and made into something (breathed into life). Just as the Earth suffered through growing pains, with the dinosaurs, the ice age, Jesus had to experience the same suffering so that the entire earth, not just the animal and human kingdom, could be saved from extinction. Through Resurrection Sunday, the Spirit saves us. 

The (loose term for non-believer) Atheist of the world seeks out simplicity. In a nutshell, I’ll give it to them. The Bible can be surmised in three words: life, love, Spirit. Life [God], love [Jesus], Spirit [the trinity, three in one]. You’re right atheists’, the rest is just stories that man has told only from the life [God] in them. We spread the Word because it is the life [God] and love [Jesus] in us and it permeates the soul through the Spirit. 

Atheist and Christians are not going to like what I say next. If you have life in you, you have God in you. If you have love in you, then you have a piece of Jesus in you. If you have life and love in you, the Spirit LIVES in YOU!

1 John 4: “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

On this day, Good Friday, the day that man has set aside for us to celebrate the journey toward Resurrection Sunday, I am not here to give believers the Words and beliefs they already know, understand and embrace, I’m here to do just what Jesus did and that is to give hope to the lost, confused and the weary. 

Your grace is enough!

E.S.P of Writing: Part II

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin
***

Have you ever heard of E.S.P.? It is short for Extra Sensory Perception. That’s not telling us a whole lot now is it? To me, I perceive it as an Extra sense. What? we have an extra sense?

Have you ever heard your mother say, “Don’t you have the sense God gave you?” Well maybe your mother didn’t but I’ve heard it a few times in my lifetime, and I always looked back and whispered, “Yes, my sixth one,” and as she would turn her back I know I had a tongue sticking out at her. I was just an ornery child like that.

We at f2k (the FREE Creative Writing Course) have a lesson that deals with the senses. We have the normal five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, but we have also added three more to add to the effect of your writing; time, space, and the unknown.

Eerie isn’t it, the unknown? Not really: As the sky opens up and unleashes a torrential downpour this late afternoon, I wonder if the newly born kittens are dry. Look at that sentence! The sky would be SPACE, late afternoon would be TIME, and a moment of wonder would be the UNKNOWN. It is THAT simple.

And to top it off the sentence is showing not telling. You get the idea here, right? Now try this on for size.

As I walked down the street in the afternoon sun, I wondered where the aroma of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation of finding the noisy outdoor bistro on the corner.

As I walked down the street (space) in the afternoon (time) sun, I wondered (unknown) where the aroma(smell) of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole (touch) to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation (taste) of finding the noisy (sound)outdoor bistro on the corner. (sight)

Notice how those two sentences, a small paragraph, used all eight senses? In our f2k lesson we ask for you to write a paragraph (READ my words, a PARAGRAPH) using the eight senses. Would you believe, it could take four and five paragraphs to use eight senses?
Keep in mind, many in the class are novice writers, but seriously?

Over six hundred people signed up for this free course, and many quit after the first lesson because they found that either, there are too many restrictions (thanks, we don’t allow porn), there are too many guidelines, (yes, when we say 500 words, we don’t mean 648)and this is my favorite, “I am a stiff shirt.” *loud laughter here*

I like kidding around with the rest of them, but really, this is a business I take quite seriously and in all of my eight senses, it tells me that this “stiff shirt” is going places, while the rest of the people continue to try and balance a ball on their nose and ride a tricycle at the same time.

E.S.P of Writing

Hebews 5:14 says: But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
***

Are we being asked to exercise our senses? Darned tootin! For when our senses diminish, like the morning mist, we will also.

When we walk through the pages of life it is our senses that bring us from one place to the other. Without the senses, life would be an empty abyss shaped as a bowl full of nothing. A senseless bowl that sits there with nothing in it. Even if it was full of mashed potatoes and gravy smothered on top, if you didn’t have your senses, it would just be a bowl.

How would you know it was a bowl if you didn’t touch it to feel the shape? How would you know the bowl held mashed potatoes with gravy, nudging its way in a steamy mist toward you, without the aroma carrying the fragrance to your nostrils? 

Even without sight, you can tell that it is mashed potatoes. The texture, the taste, the scented aroma, even the sound of the plopping into the bowl would give you an idea that you are about to dive into a delicious something. Molecules of cooked potatoes are leaping at your nose!

You see what I’m getting at? Our senses will spell out a world of imagination and vibrant life. When one sense is lost, the others stand at attention waiting for direction, but really they need no direction because they are there just quietly activating without you even knowing it.

This is what we need to do when writing. We need to allow our senses to guide us through the words and world of imagery. Don’t think about what you’re going to write, allow your senses to lead the way into a tale of glory.

Your writing with the senses is a lot like faith. You either trust in it fully or you have doubts in your thoughts. There is no room for doubts where faith is concerned. Faith is diving off a bridge, arms flung wide open, and out of nowhere you are caught by a feather that places you in the water. A boat might come by to save you but faith is trusting that a boat will come by. Some might die, but faith will keep you alive.

You have senses to carry you through life. Taste, touch, sight, smell, sound, and in our f2k, we liberally added: the unknown, space and time. These are the senses that you will write with. These are the senses that will propel your writing to new heights.Be sure you have faith in your writing as the senses haul you from one place to the other and your reader will thank you for taking the extra time to touch them in ways no other has ever reached.

Come alive with your senses, they’re there for a reason, so use them to the very best of your writing ability. Our writing is a sixth sense of sorts. We need more than five senses if we’re going to carry our story to the heights that we see envision.

Write Right...

Manic Monday

It’s just another manic Monday.

You know, Monday is the day of the week you wake up and realize it’s not the weekend and you must face another week of work. My work consist of writing, teaching,cleaning, washing, folding, scrubbing,vacuuming, cooking, raking, and that is just the beginning.

That is why I say it is a manic Monday because the whole week begins again with the notion, “What’s on the agenda for this week?”

On my blog my work is lessons of the written word, or spoken word, or just Thee Word.We’ve come a long way in learning the proper etiquette in writing. You know some people strive at the craft for years and never get anywhere, when some people who don’t even aspire to write, get published?

It’s not a freak of nature my friends, really. It’s a blessing.

On manic Monday my post must remain short so I can get to the gazillion other things that I must get to.

First on my lesson for the week is the period! No not the monthly type, the period at the end of a sentence. Okay maybe it isn’t even the period or other punctuation, it’s space, not outer space mind you, it’s the space after the period.

I was taught that on the written page, one space after the period is sufficient but last night I had a discussion where someone else was taught that two spaces were sufficient. This led me to wonder what is correct in the writer’s world. I sure wish June would pop in because I consider her to be a grammar pro and a very reliable source of information.

Anyway, this is what I’ve found on the subject. One versus two is a place where the discussion was mainly about on the web page spacing then it turns into an English grammar lesson. He said to “use as you wish” the info on his page, so here is the gist of the discussion.

Kathy Gill told him that the current typographic standard for a single space after the period is a reflection of the power of proportionally spaced fonts.

"The only reason that two spaces were used after a period during the 'typewriter' age was because original typewriters had monospaced fonts -- the extra space was needed for the eye to pick up on the beginning of a new sentence. That need is negated w/proportional space type, hence [it is] the typographic standard."

The design and Publishing Center went on to say:

"In the days of typewriter manuscripts the extra space was necessary to separate the ends and beginnings of sentences. The space character never changed. With the advent of electronic typesetting, the software attempts to 'fit' the type to specific line lengths, it both expands or contracts the available space to make the type fit. Word spacing is where most of this space 'play' takes place."

and they went on:

"With two spaces, there is 'more' space to play with, and if space is added (which is most often the case) the results are white spots, and in some cases "rivers" of blank spots in the body of text. This makes the body both unattractive as a visual element, and distracting to read."

Now it’s your turn writing friends. Which is proper? I know what my editor friends will say, “one space”. But I want my grammar friends to tell me what is right!

Deep sigh here...I will continue to dig this one six feet into the ground until I find something concrete that I can give you!

But for now I must go. Autumn beauty awaits as manic Monday beckons me.