Going With Confidence?

Ps. 118:8 “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Going with Confidence?

I say this amid a week of doubts and uncertainty. While I still feel assured doing what I’m doing is the right thing, there are those days that doubt creeps in like the mouse you never knew you had peeks his head out as a crumb falls to the floor. You didn’t know it was there but sure enough, his eyes meet yours and he scurries away.

Here I am five days away from Christmas. The weather has been unseasonably warm, the winds brutal and just like Christmas itself will arrive, so will old man winter awaken on the twenty-first of December to give us our first real winter cold spell.

I’m going to be honest here, I don’t think I’m ready for the family gathering. I’ve noticed here lately it is getting harder to pass up those sweet treats, drinks and toxic (to me) foods. I do, but it feels harder than when this all began eleven months ago.

I caved last week after going through the entire food store full of Christmas cookies, eggnog, sprinkle-topped sugar cookies of seasonal red and green colors, biscuits and breads, turkeys and hams. I rounded the freezer section and WHAM there it was – a pizza – Maximus Supremus it said, with a window to gaze at the topping filled pizza. It somehow jumped into my cart and to my husbands' amazed eyes he questioned my choice. “I want pizza!” I exclaimed with tear-rimmed eyes and made it to checkout with pizza in tow.

That night for dinner I gobbled five pieces of the delicious cheese-filled topping exploding pizza after shoveling the small slices in my mouth savoring every single bite. Not without guilt, I might add because yes, the measly two pieces that were left, I left for my son to eat. Eleven months of not caving and cheating on my protocol went out the window for a brief moment in time when I indulged in satisfying my flesh! I caved!

While my husband himself has remarkably slowly given up his addiction to sugar and Pepsi, not for me, for his own health, still can eat what he wants. Most of the time the Doritos, or cheese and crackers, or the three-flavored popcorn in a tin, doesn’t bother me, but here lately with the facebook walls lighting up with sugar cookies and toxins that would kill me paint the walls in hopes of satisfying the ones that they will only slowly kill. 

The holiday is all about food and family here. It’s not about exchanging gifts, it’s not about seeing family you haven’t seen all year, it’s about getting together and sharing a meal. I remember last year on Christmas we were hit with a torrential downpour with hail, lightning and thunder crashing all around the vehicle almost keeping us from the visit. But we made it to our destination safely and of course, we had a great time. Their concern (after seeing we all made it) was wanting to know how I was doing and I basically said fine and that I’d have a doctor visit and would know more. And boy did I ever learn more. At the time I thought I was suffering from MS but little did I know it was much worse.

This year we’re going to be hit with a seasonal cold spell! Twenty-three degree high is predicted for Christmas Day. While many across the nation have already dealt with the blustery cold and snowy season, the fifties have spoiled us. This tiny woman, forty pounds lighter, might feel the biting cold more than I have in the nine years since I’ve been in Nebraska.

While I feel I’m doing well, I don’t feel ready to be seated around a table full of delicious smelling food that in years past I ate and enjoyed. I have to watch as people overload their plates, go for seconds, complain about needing to lose weight as they head to the dessert table and proceed to get two helpings. I have to remain silent as people overindulge, laugh and chuckle as they fill their faces, while I can’t as I’m writhing, holding back tears. I am going to need iron strength not to carry the bitter taste in my mouth that I have right at this moment.

Will this stop me from fighting my fight with everything I have? By no means! I am not faltering just because a Christmas party declares I NEED to eat the toxic (to ME) food served. I declare that I have at least twenty years left in me, assuming the world even lasts that long. I have a spiritual family online that loves and cares that I succeed and will lend me prayers where I need. I know I may come off as confident and secure but know, there are times I break, I cry, I pout, then remember to whom this season belongs to and am reminded that my strength lies in Him! I will go in confidence only because I know I am loved. 

Prov. 3:26 “For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.”

Merry Christmas my Spiritual Family! I am counting on your prayers to carry me through with confidence! God Bless Everyone!

Elaine DeBoucher made this for me

Sometimes I Just Need A Break From...

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 (NIV)

Sometimes I just need a break from…

… the disease

Apparently, it’s the disease ravishing the nation, running rampant through the bodies of millions, dripping from the eyes of everyone who is touched by the disease. Everywhere I turn the stupid word turns up. Cancer is taking over the airwaves more than diabetes, autism, or heart disease, the word is everywhere I look and is the very reason I won’t use it.

You’ll often read from me that I have this ‘crud’, or this disease, and maybe even call it ‘the C’ but rarely do I use the word cancer. Facing this mind-numbing illness by choosing to do everything non-conventionally I can’t help but see the word but I’ll be darned if I use it all the time. I don’t want to use the word out of denial or fear, oh no, I know this illness has me in its grips and is wrestling with the very cells of my being. I don’t use the word because I won’t own this parcel that has taken over my doorstep.

Sometimes I need a break from the disease that has taken over my body and will define the rest of my life partly I need a break because I’m drained from information overload. I wake every day and thank the Lord for giving me one more day and then I begin to write. As a writer, I dig into research before I place one word on my journaling pages and that can be more overwhelming than the diagnosis itself.

It has been six months since I was diagnosed and I have been working on healing myself inside and out. I didn’t allow the oncologist to drill in me their fear tactics of an imminent death sentence because I knew what attacked too many members of my family and it wasn’t the diagnosis that killed well over ten members it was the toxic chemical treatments. 

Research, research, and more research needs to be done for this battle to be won. The crud will not be the end of my journey. I have a rewarding purpose in life and defeat is not in my vocabulary unless I use it to say I am defeating the disheveled cells wreaking havoc on my body. But sometimes I just need a break from…the disease.

I know my extremely supportive friends understand if I don’t write every single day or if I sit silently as I scan my facebook news feed, they’re pretty awesome in understanding me. They tell me often how they could never do what I’m doing, or eat the foods I’m eating or even have the discipline to sacrifice what I do on a daily basis.

When I gave my life over to the Lord at the tender age of fourteen, my life took on a new shape a new meaning and pretty simply put became all about sacrifice. I’ve sacrificed so much over my life span and to me, it is all worth the journey because while many will die a fruitless death and be put into the cold ground to shiver their bones for eternity, I am promised eternal life. That for sure is my driving force as I’ve lived half of my life already.

If we as Christians are willing to sacrifice all for God, why are there many that won’t sacrifice lusts of the world, the cravings of their stomach, the feast of their eyes, the destruction of their souls? Why do they call me extraordinary when I am only doing my duty and being a dedicated servant to the temple entrusted to me to take care of?

Through my strength, I am shining a beacon of hope to those that might not have any. I am a pillar of brazen beauty flourishing in the road of turmoil. I am overcoming obstacles that were once thought impassable. I am showering the world with my faith and everything that holds me during these troubling times. May they see in me the God that I serve, the Spirit that dwells within me. I know my spiritual family will all understand if sometimes I just need a break from… the disease.

Matt. 6:20 “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:”

There IS Hope

Job 11:18 "And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety."

There Is Hope

After a week-long bout of depression, I see that there IS hope in the future. The more and more I learn I can see and feel a future of Hope and promise. Knowledge is power, prayer is powerful, and moving forward is Hope-filled.

It all began last Saturday with a city-wide garage sales event. Not intending to hurt my feelings in any way, my husband commented after I said I love junk, I can’t wait to buy more, he said, “Careful, you don’t want to be like Lisa.”  Lisa is my neighbor and she is a hoarder. You know, like the kind you see on tv that they do TV shows about? Yeah, my neighbor is like that with flower pots, pallets, end tables and bikes and more strewn all over the place and three vehicles she doesn't use because ‘they need work’. I’m more of a nic-nac fan. But the comment hurt and it brought me to silent tears.

I came home with a cross, a carved angel, and two other angels to add to my collection. That’s what I like. I spent less than five dollars. My collection of angels began when my dad bought a beautiful angel for my sister and at the time, my ex-bro-in-law didn’t ‘allow’ angels in the house. His reasoning was it took away from thoughts of God and became idol worship. I know how sound that DOESN’T sound, so I switched with my sister, the angel for my beloved pig my dad had bought me. If you don’t know the difference between God and angels, then you need a little more than your Holy Bible, my friend. I also own a Precious Moments collection as well as Dreamscicle Cherubs, compliments of my mother years ago growing up. 

By Monday my hurt had festered and I didn’t feel like writing, walking or riding my bike. The funk was real and I felt like a shattered bottle on the ground. No, it wasn’t just that comment, it was also my feeling like a failure as a mother. I botched raising a good son and I feel the ramifications. He wants to move to Kentucky to meet his online girlfriend. Please, no comments or advice. This is a real hurt I need to work through. In time I may be able to write more. But the good news is, today he has a job interview! 

By Wednesday I was begging for prayer from my spiritual family. Finally, my mood wasn’t because of food. I am getting better on the food moods and I’m a bit confused looking at a twenty-year-olds body in the mirror and feeling like an eighty-year-old woman with leather skin and all! I need to meditate. Yeah, even that stopped for a few days and I FELT the difference of not meditating as my days WITH meditating.

Job 6:11 "What is my strength, that I should hope? and what is mine end, that I should prolong my life?"

I’m going to go through this storm of my life fighting. If only it were just one illness, maybe I wouldn’t get down, but three? Why is God all about three’s? (Trinity ring a bell?) *winkwink* I have been fighting psoriasis my whole life, arthritis for about four years and now this disease that crept up on me like a snail crossing the busy highway!

Wouldn’t you know, that the healing remedy for all three illnesses require the exact same supplements? They're all tied together, like a woven blanket, the illnesses are just unraveling threads. The good news is I’m doing everything to heal all aspects and the recent purchase of Tea Tree Oil Shampoo and Conditioner has shown great results in just two days of use! So that perked me up a bit.

And don’t worry friends, I don’t care how down I get, I never give up on my Morning Prayer and worship and bible reading. NEVER! I am committed to God and worship only Him! He is the one helping me sail through this being my lighthouse in the storm. The angels are just for warmth when I need a hug, and comfort when I feel down. God has never let me down, and this path, as slow as molasses filled that it is, I’m HEALING! I feel it and SEE it.

All praise and Glory to God! 

Pss. 71:5 "For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art 

my trust from my youth."