The Story Continues

John 7: 16-17 "Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

The Story Continues

The story continues. As you know I've been having side effects from Herceptin; pretty major ones too, and I was fearing to go to the doctor. Earlier in the month I had my issues, Hubby had his unending cold/pneumonia, the road crew had their issues with digging up the roads after the flood and my house had its problems with the toilet leaking water all over the floor, in the basement and also the roof needing a major renovation, not having been done in twenty years or so. Then there was the sale of the property and the takeover by the new landlord. Whew, what a month of May, and it isn't even over yet.

The month May blew in with winter still hot on its heels. Yes, winter, meaning 35 degrees at night, meaning heater clicking on during the day, meaning cold in this drafty old house. I don't even know what issue to tackle first. How about small to big? 

The flood. Washed out roads all over Nebraska and we being way on the outskirts of town saw our road dwindle and wash away. The graders who tried to grade the road saw there was nothing to grade so a new plan was in place and that was to the pave the old dirt road after I don't know how many years. I know it's been a wish of mine for some time. That was at the end of March and beginning of April but storms and cold kept them from work. A month later in the middle of May, we're now seeing signs of the paved road and people can almost go back to normal. Almost...still a five-mile detour routes and we wait.

The house sale. Sitting at my desk my husband turned to me from his desk announcing, "Well it looks like it's been sold." I knew he was referring to this, I think it was 124 acres of land, out here for sale with our houses on it. I didn't know whether to be happy or relieved that someone might finally come and take care of the place. 

Let me refresh your memory. There's my neighbor, who has a nice house but seeing she is hoarder, that niceness gets swallowed up by what we might deem as trash. Then there is the trailer she once rented but kept for her, at one time four dogs, which all have passed except for one. But pallets and empty blowing flower pots, cars and trucks ruin that of ever becoming anything but a trash heap. Hopefully, someone saves the dog.

The landlord came and introduced himself a week later and he seemed like a nice enough man with his wife in tow. I'll just call them Jed & Josie. Good Christian folks too. I don't know, there is something about Christians that exude a living God and well by no mention of religion but casually mentioned they attended church on Sunday, I felt they were good people. He said he'd like to have our dilapidated roof looked at right away before it ever becomes a problem. I like him already!

Year after year each time an internet guy went on the roof he informed us to inform the owner of the bad roof, but nothing was ever done. The old landlord would come around and plow the grass after it got waist high, and trim trees, but year after year the grass and trees came back in full force.

Not this year, this year would be a different year! It would be the year of floods, rain, cold, and nothing but my Salvia flowers survived. That's how cold it got, everything froze under there. May 19th finds us rising to 40 degrees with 38 windchills and our small space heater coming in handy. Mind you it was in the eighties all week.

And wouldn't you know it, this was the week that the toilet would leak, through the roof, to the basement and an ensuing mess followed. This landlord was not concerned with a patch job on the toilet, like the previous landlord had been for years, no, he wanted to rip up the floor, have the toilet fixed and new tile laid! He wasted no time!

Now the roof. What should have taken one day to redo, they were met with numerous patch jobs from the previous owner, and had a four-day job on their hands! They were going to come Wednesday but changed it to Thursday. Thursday at six am. they arrived. By afternoon it was quite obvious the job would not be done in a day and by Sunday after much death of plants and destruction of what little garden I had, was now gone.

And to top it off, the owner on Saturday decided to rip down thirty-year-old trees that were breaking up concrete in his huge shed. The trees needed to come down. But on the day of the roofers? My anxiety hit an all-time high and an attack ensued. I was being picky, wasn't I? I had tolerated the barbaric treatment of my garden for three days but this day hubby had to work. 

I was good the other days sleeping through much of the chaos but Saturday, the neighbor who was now roofer, allowed his kids over and the screaming kids and hollering men mixed with hammering, banging, and heavy machinery moving trees, yanking trees out by the roots, and 100lb. me in a wheelchair. The pain was at an all-time high, everything happening blindly overhead and the curtains weres drawn tightly closed so as not to see the animosity surrounding me. Hubby came home around two pm. to make sure I was okay and I wasn't. Full-blown anxiety attack!

I won't share the ugliness of it all but by Sunday I was feeling somewhat better, but guess what, by the end of Sunday it started to rain and they were ALMOST finished. Really just a matter of cleaning their mess which they would tie down and come for on Monday. Monday came...and they didn't.

The owner came Monday, in the rain and had his Bobcat move a lot of the material tied down, and a bucket to the roofers' other piece of equipment. One trailer still smashing my plants and garden ornaments stayed (about twenty-foot long) and another sits out in the middle of the lawn smashing the saturated grass.

Chin up, Joni! Two doctor appointments today and one tomorrow, you NEED your strength for the unfinished paved but muddy roads. The Lord has tossed me a cyclone and I'm making a small tornado out of the situation. I have no choice. I'm sick, the events are upon me and I have to move on. We still have two more days to get through and the weatherman says about two-and-a-half inches of rain before all is said and done, on a state that has already declared flood disaster. Lord be with me NOW!

Prov. 4:10-11 "Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.

25-26 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established."

Salvia

It's Hard...

Pss. 63:8 “My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.” 

It’s Hard…

As you know I haven’t written in awhile and many of my friends might be wondering how I’m doing. A meme on Facebook wishing you a good day doesn’t tell you, a meme exclaiming all is right with the world is not a picture in my window that all is well and a meme certainly can’t carry the pain I have on a daily basis. 

I’ve stopped complaining about the cold, wind and snow that left the trees bare right up until this week when we did a leap into summer, no spring, right into summer. We were in the thirties and forties two weeks ago, then bam the eighties. That is not a complaint by any means but it kind of throws you into the unpreparedness of the seasons.

All I have in my wardrobe is turtlenecks and fuzzy socks and they don’t bode well for eighty-degree heat. I have pants that don’t fit, shirts that drape me, and pains that won’t leave me. At one hundred pounds even my size six jeans is too big so now I don’t even have shorts for the summer. I have tennis shoes and sandals but I prefer wearing clothes as to not scare anyone from looking at this skeleton of a body. 

I’m slowly changing up my protocol, I’ve gone gluten-free so I can eat food, but nothing seems to be working these days, and I think my PH is so wonkey, that it is keeping me in the disabled column. The extremely cold horrendous snowy winter was not a friend to my illness in any way.

Then there is the grass that finally turned green and with days on end of clouds and some rain, the grass began rapidly springing up like a time-lapse show of growth. Then there was the thought of mowing; that was my summertime pleasure. I knew in this condition, my summer would be spent in the house and no pushing the lawn mower from one row of overgrown grass to the next. I more than likely would just be sitting at the window watching it grow as the world outside the window went on around me.

Yes, I do have a husband and a son who are more than capable of mowing but my son works about forty-five hours a week and my husband’s schedule has changed to five days a week. Granted he only works five hours a day but no one feels like coming home, after being on your feet for hours on end, to mow the lawn now, do they?

I had been asking for a riding mower for the nine years that we’ve lived here but it was just not feasible on a part-time salary and only one person working. It was on my bucket list of things to do before I die, own a riding mower. Yeah, that’s sad, mowing makes me that happy. 

When we first moved here the owner had a really nice riding mower and I took care of all three properties for four hours a day. Each week a new set of growth sprung up keeping me happy and busy until the belt broke, and the owner never got the machine fixed. He didn’t care; he’s a millionaire and doesn’t have to look at the three-foot-high grass. Hubby’s mom gave us an old faithful rusted up push mower that lasted until a few years ago when it finally went kaput! Even then we’d thought of a riding mower but illnesses kept it out of the budget. A newer push mower was affordable, somewhat.

Now this year I’m faced with an illness that should’ve kept the option of a riding mower out of the equation but I can smell my husband’s fear. It's hard; he’s trying so hard to be supportive and he even tried giving up sugar and cigarettes for me but fear won out. Not everyone is as strong as I am and I totally understand where he is coming from. I think everyone has some small measure of fear in the back of their minds that this just isn’t going to work. No one has DARED voiced those sentiments but instinctively I sense the emotions.

On Thursday, the third of May, he let me know he was stopping by Walmart for a hitch for his truck (I thought he already had one). I assumed the hitch was for a trailer so he could take his mother a bench he made for her for Mother’s Day. When he got home and I prodded him for information he announced he needed to find a trailer for a riding lawn mower he was purchasing. I cried. Tears of joy leaked down my cheek and a faucet full of tears came streaming down. 

I told him, “Don’t you dare tease me!” He assured me he wasn’t. I asked if he could get it delivered and he announced that they wanted $250 for delivery. He called around asking if anyone had a trailer, his brothers' trailer had bad tires. I was calling around asking to borrow money but to no avail, maybe the rider wasn’t in the cards. 

Friday morning came and when the small trailer his brother-in-law had was just that, too small, he decided to go rent one. Not realizing how cheap the rental was, after a lot of running around from store to store, he finally arrived at Walmart to pick up the floor model riding lawn mower to deliver to my waiting heart.

When he pulled up with the mower I couldn’t stop the tears. I was visualizing the many hours of enjoyment on the mower and how my husband went above and beyond to see me happy even by going in debt to own this machine that was now lighting my face with tears of happiness.

After about twenty minutes of the how-to’s, I was well on my way to mowing my lawn! He took the trailer back and left me alone with my new friend, Murray the mower; not a John Deere, or a Craftsman but Murray was MINE, all mine!!!!

When he returned home half of my lawn was already mowed. It’s a big lawn and I had to save myself some to cut the next day. I parked the mower right outside my window so I could wake the next day and see that it all wasn’t just a dream.

While walking and maneuvering might be hard this summer, mowing my lawn will NOT be a problem for any of us. Life is hard all around, not just for me, for everyone. My petty annoyances are nothing to what some other people have to go through. I am blessed to be alive, I cherish every moment I get, and I’m most thankful for a husband who loves me more than the sun shines, the earth spins and flowers bloom! (But no, not more than pork chops)

Be blessed and be grateful! God created it and it was good!

Suffering...

A white tiger who had suffered at the hands of man but is now in a sanctuary to protect and save his life 

3- 11- 09

Jer. 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

Suffering...

Why does God allow so much suffering? I totally feel like I’m on a boat drifting on the water that is full of sulphur, the product of an erupted volcano, and the tiny boat is taking on the sulphuric acid water and is slowly disintegrating.

The NIV puts the Jeremiah scripture like this:
Jeremiah 29:11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’” (NLT)

They changed the words to say plans for you; good not disaster. A future and a HOPE! I’ll take the words any way they come these days because, in my suffering, I cling to His every word, because I know nothing else. 

The other day my hubby woke with a stiff neck also. Now we both have sore necks and we attribute it to the new mattress. We lived so long sleeping on the fifteen-year-old mattress our bodies grew accustomed to the dips and curves, with the new firm mattress, we need to reacquaint our bodies form to the mattress and it's taking its time getting to know us. 

I told my hubby that our bodies are getting older and these pains come with age and it’s been pointed out to me more than twice in just two weeks, ‘getting older is no fun’ from the elders of the world. Since the older generation has planted that seed in my mind, I now feel as if it is my aging body. Time is degenerating my skin, my insides, my everything and it’s only a matter of time before it totally disintegrates. Thanks, elders, here I just thought I had an illness at my young age.

It seems around every corner people are negatively dumping their thoughts on me. It’s as if they’re saying I don’t have enough with my suffering let me dump some more on you. From my mother, “You’re HOW much older than Steven? You better take good care of him, there are plenty of ‘young’ girls out there.” To my mother-in-law stating, ‘this getting old stuff isn’t much fun’. Out of context, it looks harsh but they didn’t know how bad I’ve been, only the people who REALLY care and KNOW me, know! Thank you to my dear friends.

I have done so much suffering in my life I thought I’d have a spell of no suffering but then I laugh, no suffering, that is funny as all get out. Just as I said yesterday that God loves us all the same, uniquely, individually but the same. He knows our suffering and is more than willing to give us comfort during these trying times. I cry out, ‘Lord, give me comfort. Comfort in life and comfort in death.’ Eggshells scattered all around, tread lightly.

I’m sure there are many of you out there saying, “Suffering? You don’t KNOW suffering like *I* know suffering.” I think each and every one of us sees our suffering as worse than the others, yet you need to understand, our suffering is unique to us as individuals. He has a different plan so each person has a different type of suffering. Your suffering is no harder than mine, nor mine yours; suffering is suffering plain and simple! Like a fine garden, some just need a little more tending. I’m in the ‘overly brown garden needing lots of tending’ stage. 

I would like to let my dear friend, who for the past year has sent me funds monthly! Yes, monthly, to ease my burden of paying for supplements and anything I need to ease this pain I suffer with daily. They need to know how GRATEFUL I am because I don’t believe I thank him/her enough. I will keep my benefactor private for now because the Lord knows and that is good enough for all of us. Help is vital to me and so much appreciated, I’m honored that God chose this person to help me. My love to you!

This week I purchased (waiting for it to arrive) a reasonably priced neck traction device that chiropractors recommend for stiff necks and such. Since I can’t afford a chiropractor and gave up taking Naproxen for my pains, this device will aid in the pains in my neck! There has to be relief for me somewhere and maybe this will be the device I need to find a little reprieve, a little comfort. Just letting my dear friend know, the funds are going to assisting me in staying alive! Take that to heart, you’re doing great, my friend! This also relieves a lot of stress from my hubby who has to pay for medical insurance for me, organic food, and anything else this newly high-maintenance gal might need.

While suffering is part of the plan I often think of those that never suffer and have a ‘looks can be deceiving’ life! I honestly don’t think they are not suffering, I just think they have a veil so no one sees their distress. I also think we all suffer and share differently. They might hide their pain out of shame or because they don’t want to be that person that always laments and whines about everything from a stubbed toe to a broken nail. While I usually don’t share my minor discomforts, here lately it’s all I have to offer, muscling through the torment daily with a Popeye of a God who is carrying all of my heavy burdens, and He never complains! *big old smile*

My days are being spent away from the negative dumping ground of social media. Facebook is taking too much of a toll on me and I know my friends understand my time away or they wouldn’t call themselves friends now, would they? I’m told that I’m like a bad penny, I’ll show my face again, but now, the time just isn’t right. When it is, you bet your bottom dollar I’ll come back raring to make you all smile! It’s what I do best.

Spring will be arriving soon, as will my New Year, and my days of isolation may be coming to an end, I pray. I’m assured of that with the warming of the afternoons, the Robins hanging around the brownish/green lawn, and the longer days. I’m not adding sunshiny days because they are still sporadic, soon though, soon! My suffering might have an expected end in sight, one of HOPE! 

May God be with you all! 

Pss. 33:22 “Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.”

Jesus suffered more than us all! 

My pain is nothing!

The Road Less Traveled

 2 Cor. 10:17 “But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” 

The Road Less Traveled

Out here where I live, the roads less traveled are marked as ‘road not serviced’ meaning the dirt road is not graded and will be bumpy and uneven in places. We sometimes go down these roads just out of curiosity and intrigued by what lies ahead.

I’ve noticed in these very trying times, many people are more than likely to stick to the here and now familiarity. To me, it seems God is not allotting time for the familiar and is throwing us all on the road less traveled. I see over and over again people thinking that they control their circumstances and don’t really rely on God. It’s as if He is the ‘go to’ guy and not the depended upon King of Kings that He is!

When I was diagnosed with this ‘dire disease’ that everyone has their own ideas about, but me, being different as I am, I chose the road less traveled. On this bumpy and at times uncertain road I’m met with the ungraded surface of people that don’t understand and are not willing to even learn. Is society so set it in its ways that there is no room for growth?

I’m alive in a time of miracles and people move in a robotic routine state on the conveyor belt of life. As winds and storms take aim, as civility has ceased to exist, as doctors are no longer the healers of their profession but basically drug dealers with a license, the world is in utter chaos.

I’m alive and grateful for every living day. As I continue on down this road less traveled, I don’t have to see the hurried people on the highway of life. I don’t have to be a witness to the ‘me first’ society on the roundabouts that hurry people along. I don’t have to be a part of the political correctness of the world. I bow to no one but my Lord and Savior.

While blessings abound in my neck of the woods, I do get to witness God and all His glory. While some might not see a simple change in the schedule as a blessing, I don’t and never have believed in mere coincidences. We’ve had high winds for close to forty-eight hours now. I’m not talking about 10-20 mph winds, I’m talking 30-35mph sustained winds which means constant and unending, with GUSTS hitting the fifty and sixty mph range. Two whole days of unending wind, which doesn’t make travel easy, now does it? 

It doesn’t show up in news reports of our wind because I’m out in the middle of nowhere in a state that basically is invisible in a country overrun by big cities facing their own impending storms and damage. A blessing (to me) was when a girl at my husbands' job wanted to ‘switch’ days off with him. I knew today would be another day of hard to drive into work on our measly two-lane roads. Let a wind gust push you into the oncoming lane’s traffic, which happened Sunday as we went food shopping. Hubby said that yesterday the wind pushed him all over the road going to work, so I was not looking forward to both my guys having to drive in this stuff. Yes, God will protect them no matter what.

Today both hubby and son are off of work! Coincidence? I think not. A gentleman at my son’s work asked (last night) if he could switch days off and my son was more than happy to oblige. To me, that is two blessings! God is keeping a careful eye on my stress levels and keeping my family safe. After trying to venture outdoors yesterday and nearly getting pushed down the stairs by the gusting winds, I barely made it back up the steps to come in the house and the entire incident left me kind of shaken. I think I’ve lost more weight than I thought.

Today, tossed into the mix, is a light snowfall where north of me is facing blizzard conditions after a seventy-degree weekend! I thought Spring was in the air but God has other plans for the world and it isn’t a gay old merry day for Spring, it’s downright winter until March 21 and then some. Maybe another blessing will be in the forced Changing of the Clocks this weekend. Yes, we SPRING FORWARD to lose an hour but we gain an extra hour of sunlight that just might possibly warm our days. Not that I’ve seen much sunlight this winter anyway and I’ve done an abnormal amount of complaining this winter season too. I pray for change with my coming New Year celebration on April 1st.

1 Cor. 15:51 "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,"

What They Don't Say

Job 8:14 “Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.”

What They Don’t Say

Did you know that arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto's diseases and more are all auto-immune diseases? Not much unlike cancer, these diseases most of the time can all be safely treated without drugs but that is not what your doctor says. What they do say is here’s a drug and it is the only way to find relief from continuous pain. What they don’t say is that changing your diet and exercise has a profound effect on your longevity with a pain-free existence. They steal your hope.

I’ve said over and over again to change your diet, relieve your pain and illness and over and over again I hear people not having any success because they don’t have the willpower to save themselves, they’d much rather think a drug can do all the work for them.

Why is there a war on health? Why have doctors made healthy eating a back-burner portion of your visit? Why don’t they hold knowledge of what actually heals a person instead of basically killing people with drugs? Had doctors been taught this information to begin with many of our parents, grandparents, children, and grandchildren would not have died. I hear all too often that a doctor saved a life because the drug kept momma stable, alive for a few more years. Baloney!

Maybe drugs are a necessity, maybe they can help, but does the doctor offer you the change in diet FIRST as a level of defense to fight what ails you? If he told you that you had to give up dairy, meat, or caffeine would you take a drug over changing? I believe you would. We live in a self-satisfying world addicted to sugar, oils, meat, fat, and drugs.

I believe when I gave up alcohol all those years ago, on my own, without a twelve step program that was, to me, proof that I had the willpower to fight anything that was thrown at me. Granted, that this wretched disease is a little bigger than an alcohol addiction.

It pains me to see friends sick on a daily basis. Every day it seems I’m bombarded with news of people with the flu, stomach virus’, colds and everything in between. I have to stay away from the social arena for days because of the negative invasion of illnesses and the unhealthy eating habits and no one willing to change. Stay in bed, pop some pills, go to the doctor, remain sick for days or weeks. Change? That’s not an option, they’d rather whine and pop pills, it’s a safer route than change.

I often think of how far I’ve come and how tempted I am when around people who are living it up in the toxin-filled world. It’s not easy choosing vegetables over a cheese-smothered pizza, it would be so easy to choose a Pepsi over a glass of water, a chip over a grape, the list goes on and on. It’s not easy staying alert and watching every single thing that goes in my mouth. A crash is basically inevitable as long as I allow the negative influx of my surroundings to have an impact.

This calls to mind the disciples when Jesus went to pray, were asked to sit and watch, each time Jesus returned they were asleep. Each time I tell someone to help them change their diet and keep sickness at bay, they eat and eat and eat everything that is making them sick to begin with. It’s as if they’ve fallen asleep and my words fall on deaf ear. They don’t have time to change, they can’t or won’t change or it’s just too hard to change. If they’re going to die, they’re going to die happy and unhealthy. You can’t take a healthy body with you, right?

After reading yesterday’s post, you see I hit a roadblock. I’m as human as everyone else and I fall too. I only had a pizza, and it would’ve been very easy for me to cave in and drink a Pepsi, or guzzle some alcohol. I chose the lesser of two evils and had pizza. It’s bound to happen but I was not ready for the emotional roller coaster that came before the crash.

My mind plays tricks on me as I imagine each and every one of you fight with before indulging in something you know isn’t good for you but you do it anyway as a form of comfort. I needed comfort from my toying thoughts. As time passes by I wonder about things. I guess it’s normal since I’ve chosen this path without the medical field supporting me. But rest assured, I wonder.

So I hit a speed bump in my journey. Nothing new there, we’re all bound to come across one or two when fighting addictions, diet change, or on a health-filled journey. I need to brush myself off and get back in the saddle again and ride onto victory. It can be done and won.

I rode my stationary bike like there was no tomorrow and I went on a journey of riding down a sun-laden country road with blooming trees and a melody keeping me focused. It felt great to get away and when I looked out the window and saw more intense snowfall and shivering temps in the teens, I kept peddling. My bike ride took me away from the negative world into a wonder-filled palace that I’ll be visiting quite a few times until I get myself out of this funk.

The winter in life is almost over and spring is just around the corner. A time to shed clothes and peel away layers of inhibitions and be proud of making it through the dormant season into the blossoming Springtime of life! I haven’t made it yet but just a few more weeks and I’ll be well on my way to victory. Are you going to say the same thing? Are you at least trying to change?

What they don’t say is that there is HOPE for some change! If your doctor or your path isn’t brimming with hope and possibilities, it’s time to find a path that will lead to success. If lil old me can do it, I do have hope that you can too! 

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

Spring Has Sprung

Pss. 9:1 “I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.”

Spring Has Sprung

I almost had to put my two fifteen minute walks on hold a couple days because of the toxins in the fields. The farmers are out spraying and readying their fields for planting. What do they do to ‘ready’ the fields? Their big diesel fume-filled tractors roll out fertilizers and pesticides. No mask is going to disguise THAT poison. 

But it’s okay, I have plenty to do around the house to keep myself busy. Yes, I love this time of year, out with the old, in with the new! So much so, in with the new, new supplements arrived. And I took a walk, a twenty-five-minute walk instead of my routine fifteen-minute walk because I took my dog and she wandered off and I wound up going to find her and it led to a twenty-five-minute walk. 

I’m enjoying walking up the steps again, one by one and not holding the railing! For four years it has been dragging foot, step step. I couldn’t put one foot in front of the other to get up the steps but now, I’m feeling so great I can now walk up steps again!

If any of my daily readers remember before the ‘C’ diagnosis, I had suspected that I had MS. No definitive proof except for my google research.
A recent article by Dr. Mercola has led me to believe even further that yes, I have MS too. 

If you read the article you’ll see that MS is a chronic, degenerative disease in your brain and spinal column. It is an autoimmune disease, which ironically beside being treated with dire drugs; holistically it is treated just like cancer, through your diet! The exact same diet I am on now to beat the ‘C’!!! That is why I am walking better, my balance is improving, and I feel good all around. God is not healing just a portion of me, He is healing ALL of me!

Ninety-five percent of calories in our daily eating life are from processed foods. Our bodies were not designed to eat GMO's, artificial, and processed ingredients. This is why the nation is so full of sickness. We’re are raising mutant children who are being raised on eating toxins and we’re okay with that?

It’s quite hard to pass up that sticky bun in the donut shop window and even harder to pass up when you have a screaming whining kid who you know will shut right up with the ingestion of sugar. So you eat the bun to relieve your stress and give the child a bun to keep him in good spirits. 

Imagine sugar as a drug, are you going to allow your kids to be raised on drugs? Processed foods? It seems I myself was raised on fats and grease because our lovely government takes it’s good old time in giving a nation, the world, the truth about the harmful elements that they themselves approve to be released to our families. Do the research.

When are we going to wake up and stop the basic annihilation of our country? Or are you already on the train of bodily degeneration that you can’t hop off at the next stop? Are you so conditioned at eating unhealthy weight-gaining substances that you’ve lost the willpower to fight?

I don’t know if you understand that God, the very God you put your faith in, gave you the tools to fight any and every illness that attacks you. Our immune system was as intricately built as our DNA strand! We have the tools to fight but daily we are bombarded by the enemy and all of his detrimental attacks on the very systems in our body that God built, and that is via our diets!

If you believe in God, then you must believe in satan. You must be able to fully comprehend how both work. For one, God is not sitting up there in the sky on big white puffy clouds, and satan is not sitting below with a pitchfork waiting for you all to arrive. BOTH are IN YOU! Yup, right there in you!

You might be saying, ‘nope, satan isn’t in me, I have God in there’, while this is true, if you are overweight, you have been ingesting satan for years and not even aware of the force and power that got you where you are. Sugar is the enemy, drugs (legal or illegal) is the enemy, alcohol is the enemy. Understanding where the enemy is inside you might help you fight him off. Remember what satan offered Eve in the Garden? It wasn't a pork chop, it was a SWEET DELICIOUS forbidden fruit! (No, fruit is not the enemy, SUGAR is.)

While we have an epidemic of obesity, people would rather fight the epidemic of suicide rates and ignore the obese nation. While cancer is at an all time high, people would rather walk for more research for finding a cure instead of diving in and SEEKING a cure. You see what I’m saying? The enemy is inside you, distracting you from the REAL healing of your body. The REAL truth you hold. 

Justification of why you are the way you are is not a truth. Satan is literally sugarcoating the truth for you, so you believe him. We ALL are victims, yes even the devoted to God crowd, we’ve been duped by satan for generations but we don’t call it that because it makes us feel safer if we just say, ‘oh, I have bad eating habits.’ 

While I believe physicians have a true place in this world healing, I also believe the majority of them have been overrun by satan also by using drugs and money to feed their profession. They are not concerned with HEALING you, they are more into drugging you and pacifying your problems so you need them, your insurance, and the pharmaceutical companies for the rest of your life. Do you not see it happening worldwide? 

You are never too old to continue learning! After my diagnosis, I dove into research as if I was writing a novel. Hours upon hours clicking this, clicking that, watching this here, and sinking my teeth into something there. Eight weeks later I am empowered! I’m moving ahead and still foraging the field of knowledge that will lead to my HEALING, not to my succumbing to man, satan, drugs, and doctors. 

Spring has sprung and I have a new bounce in my step; new words to share, a new message received and new love to be spread. I kept hearing over and over that it’s all downhill after you hit fifty years old. I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be, it can be all uphill if you nurture the willpower inside of you! God Bless each and every one of you to be empowered! 

Prov. 1:5 “A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:”

Poetry Sunday ~ Sing-Song Spring

Mark 11: 23-24 "For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

Sing-Song Spring!

The cardinals all sing

They sing to the spring

All the songs of joy they bring

Red will remind life to begin.

The robin happily bouncing 

around the ground a’ jouncing

Chirping out song all day long

To signal the season to come along

March is the month of birth

Where gracious gals greet the earth

To sing out a song of spring

Marking the seasonal swing

Sounds of spring fill the air

In the month of swinging flair

Songs give praise to longer days

Birthdays dance in sun filled rays!

My mother's birthday poem! Not a sad note on the page! Her birthday is on the 23rd, wouldn't you know, the same as mine! What a coincidence. And you all know what I feel about coincidences, right? No such thing! Enjoy and God Bless! 

My Own Little World

My Own Blessed Little World

1 John 4:16 “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.”

Out here in the middle of nowhere, I sit in my own little world. People expect me to be absorbed in the virtual world but no, it serves no purpose in my life so I sit in my own little world tapping on keys writing to my hearts content. 

The mornings here in this springtime world are bathed in sunshine, after almost a month of gray clouds and rain. The crisp cool mornings are still upon us where a light jacket is needed in the morning but by afternoon, no jacket is required, just sun, grass, and endless fields.

The pivots are making their morning stroll releasing a mist to the newly planted fields. Big-wheeled tractors are making their morning rounds discharging a fertilizer to protect the greenery from insects. Then there are the cottonwood trees freeing the clumps of cotton-like substance landing on the ground looking like a newly fallen snow.

Then there is the insect world. The spiders have been awakened from their winter slumber, the flies are mounting an army to attack any living creature in their way, and the hummingbird moths have made their appearance on my Salvia bush. Butterflies flit off in the distance inspecting the newly bloomed Marigolds that resurface every year. Note that marigolds are not perennials but the mild winters have been protecting the seeds as they fell from last year and so I am blessed with hundreds of marigolds each season.

I was in a bit of depression a few weeks ago and my one friend asked me what was wrong. I didn’t really give him any clear answer but sure enough, a week later he prodded further and I told him I was healing. I had been down for who knows what reason but I was now working on myself and finding healing. That’s a friend, who senses when you’re down and actually cares enough to poke in your business to see what the problem is and checks up on you to make sure you’re doing okay. 

He assured me that I am blessed and it hit home. I began counting the blessings in my life instead of focusing on what I can’t do. You see, I’m not an idle person; I always like to be moving whether planting in my garden, digging up weeds, mowing, cleaning, and doing laundry or whatever. I type/write in the few minutes of rest that my disabled body needs, then I’m back up moving around. 

My disability gets me down a lot of the times. I don’t even know what the disability is but I do know if I was pulled over and asked to take a sobriety test I’d fail for my inability to walk a straight line and not from alcohol either. My vision isn’t too good either so I stopped driving for my safety and the other drivers, too. I was diagnosed with arthritis in my back but after reading the M.S. symptoms, I’m not going to rule that out.

After I throw myself a pity party, I find a healing place in counting my blessings. I know this doesn’t sound like a blessing but my neighbor finally mowed down her waist high grass. Her riding mower needed blade repair and a push mower that she bought (so that she could lose weight, she told me) was too hard for her so she had her riding mower repaired and spent four hours for three days out there in the sun, stirring up my allergies, but I was feeling blessed by not having to see the eyesore any longer.

On the cooler days, I take advantage of getting outside, in my own little world. Sometimes I mow (carefully, knowing my limits) sometimes I just sit out there watching trucks roll by, other times I’m out there, counting my blessings.

While many people are consumed with what they don’t have, what they HAVE to have, what they WANT and what they’ll spend their money on, I’m here in my own little world counting my blessings of all that I HAVE! Cherishing the fact that I have all that I NEED and want for nothing but cool nights so I can continue sleeping with my windows open and the breeze chilling me so much that the quilt is pulled up to my neck!

I know spring will end and summer will arrive, and in my own little world, that will be fine by me! I’ll just continue to count my blessings!

Deut. 28:2 “And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Spiritual Cleansing

John 7:38 (NIV) "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

Spiritual Growth

Now has come the season

Where my soul tends to grow.

Like living waters inside me

My spiritual growth will flow.

The buds begin to surface,

The flower not yet seen

Until the sun has nurtured

From sleep what they can glean.

The trees will slowly waken

Arise from seasonal cold;

The buds will peak in numbers

Bringing forth the springtime gold.

My soul will drink in measure

The still waters from within.

My spirit churning back to life

The new season I now begin.

Take from me the darkness,

As my slumber is called to rise

Fill me with living water

For to shed my winter cries.

Behold, a new me emerges,

As a bud turns into a flower.

Washed over by the hand of God

I’m renewed by a spiritual shower.

Pss. 51: 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Assessing the Damage

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.

After this weekend and the nasty storms, it was time to assess the damage. We had winds I know topping the 70 mile mark and they were sustained winds which meant they did not pause between gusts.

I knew we were crazy to do our planting in May but I was getting antsy. It’s planting season by May right but nothing about this year has been normal weather wise. While some were saying this was a harsh winter here in Nebraska because we had a few nights that dipped down to 20 below, yes, that’s 20 below zero!

I say it WASN’T harsh because I remember a few days in December where Steven was still wearing shorts to work. Then a cold spell would hit then back up to the 70’s. We had no back-to-back blizzards as we had had back in 2009 when we moved up here from Texas. We barely had any snow at all this year.

A harsh winter would have rendered my perennials dead, as in the other years, but not this year. This year my perennials and trees showed signs of life in late February early March. It would dip down in the 30’s and bounce back to the sixties and it did that for a month, so I assumed spring was on the way, the calendar said so, right?

Now anyone who knows me, knows I absolutely LOVE winter, but when springtime surfaces it’s as if a bug has bitten me and infects me with the getting outside and assessing the gardens. But working in the cold and sweating and the wind gusting and blowing your hair all over the place is really no fun. It kind of takes away any springtime planting joy.

I despise summer. Yes, despise! Have you ever baked a potato to an excess and it shrivels? That is what summer is to me, time to bake and shrivel. Not much more enjoyment for me other than sitting in my house and watching the birds and creatures on the farm go about their summer business. I’m relinquished to the house. The heat has a negative affect on my body and some days I can’t even move!

For some reason, people are under the impression summer is the time to walk around half naked and expose their body. I saw one girl walk into WalMart in a bathing suit. It IS WalMart mind you and that is where you can see just about ANYthing and everything, but seriously? A bathing suit?

To the best of my recollection, we have four seasons. In February, people were wearing shorts (in all that eagerness to expose their bodies) and two days later they were wearing their parka!

May 15^th. That is the day I was waiting for. It is supposed to be the date where it is safe to do planting because nighttime temps should be safely above 65 degrees; should be anyway. Here it is June 19^th at 6 in the morning and it is a pleasant 60 degrees. We’ve had a FEW mornings where we were above 65, but a few to me is three. Yeah, that’s about it. Spring never arrived. It was either summer or winter, but never spring.

Anyway, by May 15^th we were ready to plant! We did some tilling, got the soil ready, and planted two rows of tomatoes and two rows of peppers, I went around the outside of the house planting Marigolds and Zinnia’s, my Hosta’s and Hollyhocks had surfaced and we were well on our way, right? Wrong!

We had quite a few cold nights at the end of May (some 40’s and 50’s) and I lost a few marigolds, and the tomatoes were hanging in there along with the peppers. Then the Saturday storm hit and hit pretty hard too.

Assessing the damage. The Hollyhock leaves were shredded with nary part of the leaves clinging to the stems. Marigolds were bent over and the flowers were laying inches away from the mother stem. I had a sunflower growing and all that was left standing was a stem, all the leaves were ripped from the stem.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday was spent raking out the gardens of all the leaf debris that had fallen from the surrounding trees, and assessing the damage to the tomatoes and peppers and the newly sprouts of the Peach trees.

Survival. Truly I got a taste of what was meant by only the strong survive. A bitter taste but a taste nonetheless. I saw as leaves clung to the branches of my plants. I saw the stems standing strong after being whipped through the winds. I saw trees standing as if laughing saying, “You didn’t get ME.”  I witnessed the birth of a seedling rising out of the moistened soil. I saw life, new life going on and facing the days in the sun.

We’ve had a 95 degree day and 60 degree mornings. We’ve had rain, we’ve had loss and all that I gather from the entire experience is that there IS life after devastation. It may change perspective for you but you tend to see it all differently this thing called life.

As the Salvia sprouts new blossoms, as the Hollyhocks reform new leaves, as the Marigold releases new buds, as flowers form on the tomato and pepper plants, I see new life being shaped and formed by the devastating blows.

Ever the optimist, in assessing the damage, I see new life. I see all my plants going on and becoming stronger. I see anew spirit coming alive in my garden. They are all singing praises and lifting up their flower to the Lord chanting, “We will survive!” Until the next storm that is, when they get to do it all over again.

1 Chron. 29:12 Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all.

Poetry Sunday ~ A Vital Season

Pss. 92:13 Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.

A Vital Season

The chirping of the birds awake

The chimes ring out in tune.

The morn has come and I’m alive

Praise God my morning croon.

The trees are showing color

Leaves dance with vitality

Wind is brisk the lulling sound

Sings loudly out to me.

Winter sleeps, as grass turns green

The season bursts with vigor

I sit in awe of God’s own hand

That touches the seedling trigger.

A vibrant season stands before us

Now’s our chance to flourish.

Speak to the wind, sing out God

Allow the journey to nourish.

Eph. 5: 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

A Wellspring of Imagination

On days like this, where the wind is howling, a late spring snowstorm is sweeping across the state, and a mug of coffee in my hand, this is when I have a wellspring of ideas. In this setting, the birds have risen early and are all scattering about getting caught up in a wind gust, the sun is refusing to come out and play and school buses are plowing through the snow-covered roads filled with children wishing they could have just stayed safe at home.


It’s mornings like this when I look out the window and see the trees come alive, eerily walking in the cornfields only to realize it is the wind sweeping branches across the field and the crane hiding within them for a brief break from the gusting winds.

It is at this time my imagination is full of ideas wandering into a different realm that normal man and women dare not go. But writer’s, we’re of a different caliber; we see a story in every waking moment. Upon every tragedy that faces the nation we climb into our imagination box and create a story. Hiding within every triumph and selfless attitude that shake the people’s psyche to the core, a story is born.

Inspiration is the doorway to the Wellspring of Imagination. While normal (or not so normal) folk gripe and grumble of each aspect of their lives that bother them, the writer instead digs in and finds a story to tell. While journalist go out and seek a story to give to the people, the writer need only to open his eyes at sunrise and see a story unfold right out there window of inspiration.

As a writer, you know full well that the story is right there, tumbleweeds roll, thunder claps, lightning blazes across the sky, houses topple, trees sway, the music is words that have come alive in your imagination which sends you to the keyboard, tapping out a tale for readers to catch a glimpse of in the quiet of their day.

As you, the writer, are filled with inspiration from the previous days events, the glorious sunrise that puts shadows across the fields, the chaos communities endure places you smack in the middle with a story to unfold. You are going to write a fictional story or non-fiction that sheds a new light in the wells of darkness sweeping the earth.

You writer, have the Wellspring of Imagination right at your fingertips waiting to be expelled. There is no need for you to be dismayed because you can express what you imagine other people are feeling at the moment. The wellspring of imagination opens up to you just as a new day dawns each and every morn.

On April 18th, 2013, the snow blowing in has caused me to be inspired in ways you cannot imagine. It has awoken in me the need to write, relay the anxiety people are feeling with such  storms in supposed Spring. This is the season where trees burst forth seed, plants come alive; life, as we know it takes on new meaning. This is the season earth has taken on new tragedies, new eruptions of turmoil. This my friends, is the Season of the Writer!

Quotation Saturday

SPRING

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.
~W. Earl Hall

I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring. Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature's rebirth?
~Edward Giobbi

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.
~Bern Williams

GARDENS

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
~Dorothy Frances Gurney, "Garden Thoughts"

I cultivate my garden, and my garden cultivates me.
~Robert Brault
 
Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. ~Karel Čapek, The Gardener's Year
 
I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. And I find sufficient purpose for my day.
~Robert Brault

BUTTERFLIES

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.
~R.H. Heinlein
 
The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.
~Attributed to George Carlin
 
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
~Robert Frost, "Blue-Butterfly Day"

Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time.
~Deborah Chaskin
 
We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.
~Friedrich Nietzsche

BIRDS

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
~Henry David Thoreau
 
Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.
~W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
~Henry Ward Beecher
 
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
~Chinese Proverb

Mansions in the sky, tethered to the wind they cry. Man cannot see eye to eye, in the beauty of the butterfly!
~Joni Zipp

Quotation Saturday

GARDENS

It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought.
~James Douglas, Down Shoe Lane

There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.
~Mirabel Osler
 
Science, or para-science, tells us that geraniums bloom better if they are spoken to. But a kind word every now and then is really quite enough. Too much attention, like too much feeding, and weeding and hoeing, inhibits and embarrasses them. 
~Victoria Glendinning

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban

WEEDS

A weed is but an unloved flower. 
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What is a weed? I have heard it said that there are sixty definitions. For me, a weed is a plant out of place. 
~Donald Culross Peattie

I learn more about God
From weeds than from roses;
Resilience springing
Through the smallest chink of hope
In the absolute of concrete....
~Phillip Pulfrey
 
You must weed your mind as you would weed your garden. 
~Terri Guillemets

SPRING

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
~Quoted by Lewis Grizzard
 
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. 
~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

Where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees sweet flowers growing.
~Albert Laighton

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant"

SOUL

The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.
~John Greenleaf Whittier, My Psalm

Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other. 
~Henry David Thoreau

A sensible man will remember that the eyes may be confused in two ways - by a change from light to darkness or from darkness to light; and he will recognize that the same thing happens to the soul.
~Plato
 
With all your science - can you tell how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?
~Henry David Thoreau

The soul, like the body, lives by what it feeds on. 
~Josiah Gilbert Holland

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.

Hard Pressed ~ Happy Spring!

Prov. 7:19 For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey:

***

Well I said you’d be ‘hard pressed’ to get any personal info out of me, well here is that light glimmer of a moment, hard pressed.

I wanted to let you all know where I’ve been, just in case you’ve missed my daily posts on writing. I have some coming up but my days and nights are just full of thoughts and things that need to get done, places to go, people to see, and writing (shame on me) is way back there, hiding in the shadows.

It all began on March 8th when beau went in for an eye doctor checkup. He was seeing him once a month after his cornea transplant surgery and all was healing well by January so the doc said, “I’ll see you in March.” Boy have we ever! March 8th came and we found out there is an infection! He’d see us in Omaha on the 12th.

Yay, an Omaha trip takes us on an eight hour journey. Four to get to Omaha, and four hours to get home, and with all my back problems, I was not looking forward to it, but it was a necessity that needed to be taken care of. On the twelfth, we made it to Omaha in three hours, but we missed the Doctor by a half an hour and was sent on to Council Bluffs Iowa, twenty minutes up the road from where we were in Omaha. (I didn’t know Iowa was so close.) Another trip was scheduled for the fourteenth and I knew the sixteenth was going to be in there too, and it was.

I drove on the fourteenth, arriving on time this time, but we were sent to a pharmacy there to get new eye-drops which took us off course for another hour and we made it home by five that day. No change in the infection and it appeared a new one had popped up! By the time I got home I was sore, and felt I had aged 20 years.

Friday I could not go. I was in too much pain, so his mom took him. They left at 6:30, arrived home at 3:30, after again being sent to a pharmacy. The hospital pharmacy, to their surprise, had some of those Celtic River-dancer's there, so at least they were entertained while waiting for the prescription. Another appointment was set for Monday.

Monday the nineteenth, I drove, through wind and some pretty heavy rain! We left 7:20 and were back home by 3:40. A new record for me. The one infection had cleared but the other remained.  And an appointment for the 22nd was made.

Ironically on Monday of this week, the rain was pretty heavy as we neared our stopping point for our half-leg of the journey. The traffic had slowed to a mere 55 in a 75 mph zone, the rain was so heavy, beating on the roof and windows like mad drops seeking shelter! I pulled off seeking a break and food! But as we got back onto the road, the rain had come to a drizzle and not far was a car off to my right with a man standing out there. There was another car, whose side was smashed in, off to the left in the grass, almost facing us. No police on the scene yet, which meant to me, ‘fresh accident.’ It also meant, *I* was protected once again by God! People do not like to slow down for the heavy rain and many had passed me up as I tried in vain to hit sixty.

I take my time, drive safely and let all the speed-demons pass me up to get where they are going to, in such a hurry, that they’d risk their life and limb for. I mean seriously, is ANY place that important to get to? The appointment on the twenty second was rescheduled because doc has emergency surgery, which makes me wonder, ‘what was God protecting me from this time?’

My birthday will be spent on the road drinking in all the beauty this breathtaking Nebraska has to offer. I’ll take my time, enjoy the view, and Thank the good Lord for this journey!

Rom. 1:10 Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

Poetry Sunday ~ Emergence

Ps. 85:11 Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.


Emergence
***
What’s this I see beneath the snow
ever so green and lush
stately blades of grass I glimpse
with sun-dripped grains of blush


The buds are beginning to burst
right forth from branches bare.
Soon will be an abundance of leaves
with twigs and arms to spare.


The fields are dancing with life right now
the squirrels they run and play.
Scampering about from tree to tree,
enjoying the expanded day.


Approaching are the winds of Spring,
the season will emerge.
The final day of death occurs
when mind and soul converge.

Quotation Saturday

PEACE

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
~Attributed to both Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi

Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
~Francesco Petrarch

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. 
~Dwight Eisenhower

We shall never be able to effect physical disarmament until we have succeeded in effecting moral disarmament.
~J. Ramsay MacDonald

BEAUTY

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~John Muir

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
~Kahlil Gibran
 
Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. ~Martin Buxbaum
 
“Some people will never know the treasure of beauty because their heart is wrought with ugliness!”
~ Joni Zipp

BIRDS

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
~Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.
~W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions
 
Use the talents you possess - for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best.
~Henry Van Dyke

My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather.
~Terri Guillemets

SPRING

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
~ Lewis Grizzard
 
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. ~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
~Charles Dickens

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven -
All's right with the world!
~Robert Browning

Prioritize

May the sun fall upon you, may the rain drizzle your skin, whatever the weather where you are, let the joy of a new day begin! ~joni
***

It is certainly hard to sit down and write, when outside the window Spring is happening all over the place. I mean, little sprouts of green are popping up everywhere, Robins are doing some kind of waltz on the front lawn, trees are slowly being filled in with buds, evident on each and every stem. Yes, Spring is happening right outside my window!

I always sit in awe of the glory that comes alive with Spring. While winter rests in dormancy, fall has its departure of leaves and summer has its scorching heat and humidity, Spring has livelihood like no other season.

I often do my Spring cleaning to prepare not only the house but my spirit for cleanliness. It’s as if, if I have a clean house, then my soul will come alive and do a jitterbug and bring into me a buoyant springtime propulsion of zest and zeal!

But Spring is also the time I prioritize. The time I take into consideration those things that are front and center, things that are important to me and have an affect on my life. The computer is not in the forefront of my life, social forums do not hold me captive, games are there but only a shadow to the real meaning in my life.

Writing! That is standing right there in my face looking at me, begging me, pleading with me to drink from the letter pool. Sure I use the computer for writing, but it doesn’t own me. I have a notebook that I can scribble in so this technology is not going to wrap its slithering arms around me and yank me into its vortex.

While the social scene is a fun place to meet with your virtual friends, it is not the end all to all of your existence. Hey people, there is a world right outside your window, balloons written with the words 'REJOICE IN SPRING' on them are passing you by as you bind yourself to a false sense of happiness.

As priorities take the stage and the curtain rises to accolades of applause, you will see that life is not going to pass you by as you sit and enjoy your priorities dance along the stage. They are within reach as you have front row seats. They are physical needs that you need to pay attention to and allow to become more important than a virtual form of bliss and decision makers.

Don’t let life pass you by as you mechanically go through the day-to-day humdrum; same thing every day. New fun, new pages, new friends and new power. Find the power within you to embrace reality, prioritize the real world, make a new beginning of each day and maybe just maybe, Spring, will ask YOU to dance!