Another Brick in the Road

It is November in Michigan and it is snowing before Thanksgiving for the first time in years. I used to when I was a kid many, many years ago. I remember because all the hunters in the family were excited to be able to have the snow to track the deer. But I don't remember this much snow nor it being this cold that the tears in your eyes freeze to your eyelashes, your nose hairs quit moving because they are froze and the snow crunches under each step of your boots.

It is 12:38 am, Tuesday, November 18 and nine days before Thanksgiving I am writing this in my bed with the electric blanket on and I am alone. This reminds me it is that time again when not everyone will have a full table next Thursday. There will be empty places shouting out to those gathered. Not all places are empty because of death but are empty because that person is in prison and maybe it has been many holiday's they have celebrated away from their families.

If it is the first is it is particularly painful for the family and the one incarcerated. The chatter around the table isn't quite so lighthearted and animated and maybe there is not a lot of chatter at all. With each beat of ones heart it aches because that person is missing. Maybe you just cannot believe that your family member is actually behind bars or maybe it is a repeat and the questions include why and how can this be happening again. There may be tears and awkward silences at the table and your wish is that this day would just be done.

I am grateful that this years all my family will be around and I am blessed to be able to celebrate with someone who has spent the last four years behind bars. It will be a first for him and his dad to be together and break bread together. My heart is full of joy.

Then I think of those who are in Nursing homes and the people who just don't seem to have anybody. I pray you will be aware of those people. Please be sensitive and maybe invite them to your holiday dinner. I am grateful that Thanksgiving is one holiday I have not spent alone and I have had an enjoyable time with the family I did spend it with but I am aware not all people are so blessed. Families are fractured, people are angry or bitter, some are just too far away, some are incarcerated. I pray they will be reached out to.

The Journey

It seems like it is crying time again. In trying to analyze this I am thinking the main contributor is the fact I have not been taking any antidepressant because of an enlarged liver and increased enzymes. But there are also some other physical problems brewing in my body too that could contribute to the tears and weeping.

So much of this journey has been lonely and done alone. Now that fact is magnified a few days out of every month where my emotions are depressed and I think and cry. And I cry over anything and everything and it has not been something I can stop. So right now I can not help but feel alone and slipping.

I thought some relief had come my way to find out it was not what I thought it was but it has been a welcome change. Financial problems continue, changes keep coming in social security, I would like more space but can not afford it, had some tire problems today and because I did not pay closer attention to my account racked up overdraft charges, that I don't want to confess to anyone, but they will cut into my SS big time. Hopefully I have that interview next week and can get a possible start date to ease the money plight that began in June when I signed for that car for Kary and Mike and the insurance killed me. Just as I was going to recover I mess up. Hopefully I won't lose the food stamps and Nov is a short month.

Poverty feels like it has secured itself in my life. I am a registered nurse, widowed in poverty and I just can't believe this is the life I was intended to have.

Then there are church issues should gays take communion? Is the gospel a "social justice" gospel? Why do we need education regarding race reconciliation? Why can't more people help with church ministries? It seems these are the same battles that have been pulling at the church since it's inception. The letter of Hebrews deals with Jews who want to revert to their tradition because it was familiar to them and easy. Romans is about Christian duties, Galatians argued grace vs law, Ephesians addresses unity among believers, Philippians looks at the love Christ has for His church, and Philemon encourages forgiveness of another. James instructs us that our faith should bring a change in our priorities and behaviors. I think all these questions are answered in the letters maybe not verbatim but in the matters of forgiveness, love and how we treat others. And I this too makes me cry.

Betrayal

This word as been circulating in my mind for a while now and has become even more my feeling regarding certain events. The word has taken on feeling for me and it describes where I feel I am at in my life right now.

The betrayal I am experiencing is not from a person but it is from my body and all the things that are occurring in my body physically right now. It is very frustrating for me to have deal with all these little nuisances. A few years ago some people told me that it is very easy to become ill in the first couple of years after a death, however I really didn't seem to experience that other than the strange bout of cellulitis I had in both my legs. In '08 I had my right knee replaced but after that it seem like I would get ill with some little bug a couple times a year. I  was able to deal with those things and in '12 it became obvious I needed my left knee replace which was able to happen in '13 but instead of bouncing back from that like I thought I would I continue to have some problems with the tendons. I have found out that I need my gallbladder removed and that has become a source of irritation. The last week or so I have been weepy over most everything.

When I went back for my RN I didn't plan on not working these were suppose to be glory days for Mike and I and then for myself but it has been almost everything but. I have done some neat things like go to conferences, travel to Nashville, Houghton, and St. Louis. But not to Ireland yet or some of my other dream places.

Much of this journey has been a journey of recovery for my emotions, my mind, and maybe for my body because I was so busy taking care of everyone else that I did not always take care of myself. I know stress can take a tremendous toll on the body but I would really like for recovery to be over. So I will wade thought this next bout of things that need to be taken care of and see where I end up.

I feel that my best days are behind me. What is God gonna do with me now? Am I even any good for Him anymore? I can listen to all the encouraging sermons and yet not walk away with encouragement. My feeling is what is gonna go wrong next. I don't feel I have the joy or expectation that a servant of Jesus should have. I think this down feeling is due to physical dysfunctions but it is present a nagging manner.

So I pray; Help. Hold Me Jesus. And wait for direction.

Grief Journey

I have found that this journey for me has meant to grieve things I didn't have as well as what I have loss. Yesterday was my dad's birthday and he would have been 82 but in remembering that was also remembering the loss of not being a father.

My dad was limited due to childhood seizures that left him emotionally and cognitively a child too. He was able to sign his name but could not read and this skill eluded him even though he eventually went back to school to learn. His parents over protected him but he was still limited emotionally. I know he could love and I remember being disciplined for say a naughty word when I "burned" my self with my play iron while ironing a doll dress. Before his death I do know he loved me as best he could.

My mom died in 1995 and I always felt she did not like me and in part that is true. I looked like my dad's side of the family, my paternal grandmother felt my mom was not able to adequately to care for me, and we lived with my paternal grandparents. All these blocks built quite a wall between my mother and me. She also talked of this wall often too which reinforced her dislike of me. I was too tall, my feet too big, I was not a male, I wore my heart on my sleeve, I cried too easily, I didn't have brown hair and eyes, and a list of other things I did not have. All of this left me feeling like I did not belong to this family and I do remember looking for adoption papers when I was about 8 or 9. The year she died I was about to graduate from nursing school and my husband told me how excited she was and how she was planning for my graduation. She love me the best she could.

I have felt envious of people who have been friends since their school days or college days or early parenting days. I feel I have one person that has been a forever best friend. But the Father has blessed me with many long time friends who have stood in prayer with me and for me and who have been there is the stormy times of my life and encouraged me, loved me and rejoiced with me.

All this early initial, rejection has left feeling like an outsider, never really accepted by anyone. It is true I am alone right now in my life right now because I am a widow. But in a couple hours I will be joining church people for Bible study. I have friends to call and to invite over. I belong to a body of believers called the church.

I belong to a Father who created me and knit me together in my mother's womb and instilled the gifts in me that he wanted me to have. He created me not my parents and I am not too tall or have the wrong color hair and eyes and I don't cry too much or not enough. I am esteemed by my Father. Just as I am and what needs to be changed He gives me the ability to do so by the Holy Spirit.

Satan lies. The lies come to thought and when I dwell on that thought it becomes distorted and I see  pictures of his lies and distortions.

Thanks you, Father for lifting me up out of the miry clay of lies.

Unquenchable: Grow a Wildfire Faith that Will Endure Anything by Carol Kent

Recently I finished a book titled,  "Unquenchable: Grow a Wildfire Faith that Will Endure Anything", by Carol Kent. I was interested in the book because I had come to realize that my faith was just there, I knew I was saved and would go to heaven, I learned God was providing all my needs but I tired and lacked joy. It seemed like it had been one trial after another since 2000 with more strenuous trials happening in the last 7 1/2 years since losing my husband and becoming a widow. The most disheartening thing about the fact that my faith was just there was that by fall of 2013 I lacked the desire to do anything to change that fact.

As I read the book and Carol's own story, and the stories of others in the book I realized that there were some red embers still burning but I wasn't in the mood to fan the flame. I could identify with just about every story in the book. I had been there and I had been through what these women had been through: death of parents and in-laws, death of my husband, problems with children and the incarceration of a child, job losses, medical and mental problems with family, my own children, and husband, family disputes, church disputes, friend break-ups, and losing my own income for six months. But they came back, they were able to turn their faith around and it was at that point I realized that 1.) my own faith was probably not where God wanted it and 2.) my faith could be set a blaze again.

Continuing to read through the chapters I began to realize that the very questions Carol and others were asking I had asked too. The ideas Carol gave to blow on the embers to ignite them again, like a blessings list, journaling, forgiving, and thanking God for daily things in my life had became less of a discipline and more of a maybe I'll dot that today. I realized I was not alone in the trials that had come into my life or the wavering of my faith and I had not been picked out of the group just to be picked on. There was work happening in my life, I was becoming whole, pure, stronger and weaker, unlike so many people God, my Father had not left me on my own but gave me a guiding compass to the place we call Heaven and until then I will occupy till He calls me home or comes back for me.

Lent started March 5, and it will be during this time that I pick up those disciplines again and put them back in to my life. I will begin to intentionally thank God for the day He has given me and the blessings that came my way. As God gives me each new task I will try to remember that, He is my helper and His grace is sufficient. I can feel the embers growing hotter as I pray.

Page Two

Well, here it is another February come and going, thankfully. This a month with anniversaries I would sometimes like to forget. The two best days of Feb are the first which is Sam's birthday and now the 25th which is Thomas' birthday. There are four days which family members left earth for their heavenly reward.

The 25th is also the day that Mike, my husband died. The day that changed my world forever and this year I am having a rough time. The tears are close and I am not sure what I will do tomorrow.

Feb 26-
The day is over and I slept till noon and watched some tv, journaled and went to bed. Also called and sang Happy Birthday to Thomas. Still feeling wispy and wondering what it would be like if he were still here but really he was too sick for that.  

Prime of Life

Loved this book. The characters were vividly described and woven into the plot of this book expertly. It was suspenseful to keep me interested. Plot continued to thicken as the story went on and there was a conclusion but also left some to the imagination. Well written for a first time book.