buried in a pile of blessings...

That's how I feel today.  I told you about being so happy that my baby son has found the girl who seems to literally complete him.  How much my husband and I love her already, how we can look back and see how God Himself placed her in our lives.  She feels like that missing piece in our puzzle.

Yesterday was an odd sort of Sunday.  For the past almost 6 weeks, Our Girl has been coming to church with us.  Baby Son joined the church last Sunday, which overjoyed us, of course.  It's been a hard couple of years worshipping & serving The Lord apart from our children.  But we see how God is using our First Baby Boy to minister to the youth in another church in his wife's hometown.  We are thankful that God didn't call him to a place far away from us because I'm not sure that this poor mama could have stood the pain of them leaving us & living so far away.  

But our Baby Son hadn't made up his mind yet where he wanted to make his church home.  The last church we all belonged to for many years, well, I think I talked about it in a previous post...  so I won't repeat it now, but needless to say, we were thrilled to be able to sit in a church service with one of our sons, and now, with his sweet girlfriend as well. 

So, yeah, we had this great early service, then Baby Son came with one of the young boys that spends a lot of time with the boys, came to the second service.  

I got involved in a conversation with a lady from our Emmaus community & found out she had a prayer need involving her husband who is a recovering alcoholic.  Then another lady, both of them were serving as greeters that day, from our Emmaus community came over, and the three of us talked for awhile, then the first lady decided she'd better go so her husband wouldn't think she was talking about him so the second lady and I talked for some time.  Hubby was outside talking to some other people.

This lady began to share about "randomly" (ha! nope, totally God's will!) being put in the path of a man she'd met before through the counsellor at our church.  This man was suicidal at that time, & this morning when our care pastor brought him to this lady, she recognized him.  She was asking for prayer for him.

Then, Hubby came back in looking for me, and this lady wanted to talk with him about the man and see if he had any ideas for getting the man involved with some other Godly men who would hold him accountable & check on him, etc.  We had a prayer for the man and (woo!! chill bumps!)  God just met with us and it was like we had another church service while in the auditorium, the second service was taking place.   :)

Hubby ended up getting to talk to the man, because we stayed and waited for second service to let out so we could talk to our son, too.  This particular Sunday, Our Girl had gone to her home church to try and get some resolution about where she should be attending church.  

Baby Son was planning to go with her, but one of the other boys who spends a lot of time with my kids got sick and called Baby Son to come get him... yes, instead of caling his parents, he called my son.  

What a great testimony to how my children are ministering to these kids.  So, Our Girl and Baby Son had gone to pick up this boy, they tended to him for some time before Our Girl left for home.  She will be an RN after her graduation this May, so it was so good she was there!

So back to our Sunday... our First Baby son was out of town with his wife for their FIFTH ANNIVERSARY!!!  Goodness, that seems like such a long time, but at the same time, not long at all.  So anyway, it was just me, Hubby, Baby Son & Our Girl and the boy who'd come to church that morning.  

We sat in Subway, eating our late supper after going to an amazing singing service at our church that evening... and we started talking... and the subject turned serious as it related to Baby Son & Our Girl...  when it got to the point where she and I were both about to cry, we decided to head home to finish our talk. 

We had let her know that, due to some thick tension in her family, that she was more than welcome to move in with us if she wanted. Or she was welcome to stay for a night or two, whatever she needed.  We were letting her know we meant it, we hadn't had second thoughts about it and how much she means to us... how much we view her as our own daughter.

She said while at Subway that she was working up the courage to tell us something, so that's when we headed home.  Once we got home, she proceeded to tell us how much she felt like a part of our family, how Hubby and I had filled a sort-of void she had for a close relationship with her parents & and we all talked about the future.  It was a great time and then the boy who had gotten sick came back...

The other boy, who had been with us at Subway, asked about hearing Our Girl's testimony, because she'd mentioned wanting to tell it to the boys because she felt it would help them or at least let them know that she knew what they were dealing with.

So, she and Baby Son drove back to his house, where she had left a hard copy of her testimony with him to read, and she came back up and read it in the firelight.  I had heard it before at Emmaus, but Hubby hadn't.  We all sat in silence as she stood on the other side of that firepit, with Baby Son's arm around her shoulders for support while he shined a light on the paper for her.  It was such a sweet time of fellowship and love.

I am just completely buried in this big pile of blessings and sometimes it makes me scared that something really bad is coming.  That there's no way my life can be this full of God's love without something in the future that will rob me of these blessings.  Or that maybe God is "blessing me up" before a time of struggle and trial.  

I honestly don't know, but I am not going to spend my time worrying about the future.  If I have learned nothing else during this time of God teaching me about what fear really is and that it should have no affect on me, I have learned to appreciate each and every blessing and not diminish the goodness of them by worrying about things that haven't happened yet, or may never happen at all.

How silly!   So, if you need to find me, look under that great big pile of God's love and behind this big doofusy grin.  I'll be there.

Blessings to you!

happy, happy, happy...

So okay, true confessions... I've never seen Duck Dynasty. Never watched an episode in my life. We don't have cable or satellite, just Netflix & Hulu, neither of which offer Duck Dynasty! However, I see tons of references to them on Facebook & have watched a lot of youtube videos of Phil or Willie or Jase preaching or giving a testimony.

And.. I have this t-shirt that is MORE than a few years old.. probably .. I dunno, 10 years, maybe? And it has this big lowercase "h" on it with the word "happy" underneath. So when I wear it, people wanna ask me why I messed the quote up because I've learned that someone on the show is in the habit of saying, "Happy, happy, happy!" *sigh* I'm sorry, I just can't be fashionable AND a tightwad, okay? LOL!

All that to say this:: I am really happy lately.

Why? Well, maybe I've just realized that God's way beyond good to me. As of right now, I have a double-ear infection (AGAIN!) and am waiting to be sent to a specialist to see what's up with that, and I've just agreed to go back on some antidepressants to see if that doesn't help with the fatigue & the just plain don't-want-to's I seem to have all the time.

And still, I have to say, I'm happy.

For one, God's been answering prayers around here. For me, for my husband, for my children... He's just been all over us lately and I'm SO grateful for all He's done and continues to do!!

This past Sunday, I got to hear my first baby boy preach his first sermon. How humbling!! How hard it was to listen & see him up there behind the pulpit, proclaiming the word of God & realize that THAT is my little blonde-haired snuggly bug!! But it is, and God's SO good. MmmMM!

And it is looking like God's answered my prayer for a Godly girl to come into my baby son's life. And the way He's done it is nothing short of amazing. He's showing Himself to me at every turn. I'll say something about it to a friend and then either my baby boy or my potential new daughter-in-love will say almost the exact thing back to me. LOL! It's just been a joy to be alive lately, watching God do His thang in and anround us.

I have to laugh at the "potential new DIL" comment... do any of you remember Dolly Partin's song, Potential New Boyfriend?? LOL! Go listen to it & laugh with me!! ROFL!!

But seriously, I met this girl through Emmaus and actually worked sorta with her on the last Young Adult Chrysalis and when she gave her talk, I heard her say something my sweet son had said... she was waiting for God to bring the right guy into her life.

My heart kinda jumped as I thought, "Oh my goodness?? Could this be a nudge from You, God?" It took about a month, but through another Emmaus friend, the bug was put in their ears about each other & their first time ever meeting each other was a canoe trip down the Rockcastle River.. in the rain.. with our whole family. LOL!

This little gal has the sweetest personality & she's so loving & generous with that love. She feels like my own daughter already. Matter of fact, she is very close to both my husband and me, and we told Baby Boy after the first week, "Son, if it doesn't work out for you two, we think you should know, we're keeping her anyway." LOL!

And so now, almost a month later, they are praying about whether this is the relationship He wanted for each of them, if they are to move forward with the goal of marriage sometime in the future. And all I can do is stand back and be amazed at how much pains God takes with the desires of our hearts, and how much He has to love us to take the time to deal so closely and so personally in such matters. Woo!! He is just SO GOOD!!

I am trying to be patient, trying to just wait, just hold on & see His work and His plan fulfill itself. I don't wanna mess any of it up by trying to hurry things along. I'm just so glad to see my boy happy and feeling complete for the first time & so happy to have such a dear friend filling that role.

Woo!!! Praise Jesus!! \0/

the truth about fear...

Wow... my life has been amazingly crazy the past several weeks. I've been busy with working Emmaus walks, I was asked last-minute to go to a REC for women (Residents Encounter Christ-a prison version of an Emmaus Walk) in Nashville.

I went on the very first women's REC at this same facility last year. I worked with the prayer team on the outside, though. I only went into the prison for two of the special services. This year, however, I worked as an assistant table leader! It was SUCH an amazing experience.

I was so torn about whether to go or not. Not because I was afraid to go inside, since I'd been there before, but because I was afraid of not being able to relate to the women or to give the right counsel to them.

Yes, I was in fear.

I have learned a lot about fear this past year.

I had a sobering encounter with how satan uses fear to control us. How he puts it in our paths to get us to shift our focus off Christ! I have come to realize that fear is NOT an emotion. When we express fear, it comes out as emotion, but the cause of this fear itself, is NOT an emotion. You see, when I was able to recognize fear as only a tool of satan, it has enabled me to slowly learn to rebuke it... to overcome it, to give it to Jesus to take care of while I go about my business doing whatever it is He wants me to do.

*BIG SMILE*

While working on the prayer team last year, so many things kept happening... the toilets quit working (talk about a distraction!), the inmates inside the prison were experiencing lots of different things--one was freed from a spiritual oppression/possession (I wasn't there, so I'm not sure which) and while we were talking and praying about these things on the outside, this loud banging noise started on the floor above us. It was very late and the prison team had just gone to bed and would have to get up very early, so one of the four ladies in the room went with me upstairs to see what was going on.

We assumed that it was some of the kids who had also been staying there, but when we got upstairs, there was no one to be found. We could still hear the noise, but it seemed to have moved to another location. The lady with me became very frightened. We decided to go back downstairs and once we reached the bottom step, the noise stopped. We ran into the college guy who was acting as host that week and asked him about it.

He told us he hadn't heard anything and that the kids who'd been there had left that evening.

....

We were stunned, and yes, fear ripped through me. I don't normally deal well with evil spiritual type stuff. The lady with me was so frightened and I didn't know til later that she was a fairly young Christian. My reaction, which was much calmer only because of Christ, made a big impression on her.

We went back into the prayer room where the other two ladies were waiting and told them what we'd found out. Soon, though, the noise started again. Somehow, the same lady and I went back upstairs, this time to get the spiritual leader of this REC to come pray with us.

He led us in the most, at least to me, calming, focusing prayer and even though he was only with us for maybe three minutes, I was so calm after he left. We decided to continue praying, and I started us in praying aloud, and I don't even remember the words I said, but just remember thinking, "Wow... is this really me speaking?" and that I was getting SO much strength and comfort from the prayer.

The other three ladies with me still talk about how empowering that prayer time was and how much they got out of it. God was in that room with us and the banging noise was not heard again.

That is when God started working to teach me the true nature of fear.

It was one week to the day that we had left to go to that REC in Nashville last year, when I had the lawn mower accident that sliced off part of my left heel. That was a months-long ordeal in which I got to see the Lord's handiwork each and every day as He healed my foot. As He continually surpassed the doctor's projection for healing and finally walking again. Even though satan had tried to attack me physically, I had no need for fear. God showed me that so personally and so thoroughly.

And He continues to give me the opportunity to share with others the insights He's given me. I was able to speak to one of the inmates at my table about the true nature of fear, what it really is, what we're really saying to God when we worry.. "I don't think You are capable of taking care of this.."

Each time satan has tossed fear at me, and each time I've been able to reject it, God has grown me a little more. Now, I am by no means some super-brave person who has no fear whatsoever. It still ripples through me from time to time, however, these days, I reject it. I turn from it to face my Savior Who I KNOW goes before me and covers my back at the same time. I realize more and more that when scripture says we have nothing to fear, it literally means NOTHING.

No monster, no worry, no illness, no physical need, no spiritual need... NOTHING.

And that is the truth about fear.

Blessings!!

G-

sluggish...

That's me. I've been like an absolute slug for the past four or five days. Sleeping WAY more than normal & still never feeling really rested. I've been wearing my C-PAP machine at night and everything, but still feeling just lousy. Ugh!

I really think part of it has been depression. Not sure WHY exactly. Nothing really going on to make me feel any more depressed than normal. I mean, well, hopefully you *know* what I mean... just that there's nothing going on that would make me feel any different than usual. I am always feeling some level of depression, it's just that most of the time, no one notices it. It's not so severe that I can't function, ya know?

But the past few days... SHEESH! Maybe part of it was because The Man was out of town for a couple of days for work. ?? I dunno. I mean, that usually doesn't make me any worse. It's not like he's never done that before, ya know? And there's really no drama going on in my life right now. I have just felt like crap-ola for the past few days.

BUT... thank God, today, FINALLY, I started feeling more like myself. The Man was off work yesterday because of Good Friday, and so he ran around and did some errands, then he worked on building some kinda contraption to haul the canoe in the back of our pickup instead of tying it on top where the straps would rub ... can't have that on the spiffy pickup now can we?? Nope! :)

So, I slept most all day yesterday, then this morning, he got up early-ish to go on a day trip with our Babiest Boy, Casey. They packed up and left me laying in the bed. That was fine with me. I sure haven't felt up to trying any of these hiking trips with them. I'll have to tell you about the one where all three guys went on a 15+ mile hike. Oh boy, was that a doosey!

Anyhow, around noon, I dragged myself out of bed and actually felt almost human. I wasn't ready to crawl back into bed after an hour or so, which was a great improvement. When The Man called me around 3pm to say they were almost back, and wanted to know if a friend of mine had called to let me know that she was coming to our church's Saturday service, I told him I was actually feeling some better. He wanted to know if my friend was coming to know if he needed to hurry to make it home in time for us to go or not. She hadn't called, so he and Case took their time. He called again around 5pm to tell me that our oldest son & his wife, who had gone for a short hike in another county, had locked themselves out of their vehicle and did I want to go down with him and Case to unlock their car. I said I did.

In the meantime, just shortly after the guys had made it home, my friend called asking if I was at the church!! I called to see if she was by herself, and if so, I would have had the guys drop me off at church before they went to help the kids, but her husband and another couple had come with, so I made my excuses and rode out to a place called Turkey Foot to "rescue" Corey & Melissa.

They drove me around the camping area there so I could see what it was like. This is a place they want to make a first hike for me when the weather warms up. With my Yucky Foot, I'm a little leary of trekking too far, so we're gonna start with something short for me.

Anyhow, the kids wanted to treat me and Tommy to supper for the trouble, which was so sweet of them, and around that time, a couple of the kids from our former church called to say they were in our town & wanted to eat with us, so we just headed toward home instead of eating in Jackson County.

We met up at DQ and I had SUCH a fun time laughing at those silly boys. They are two of the three we sent on the last Emmaus Chrysalis Flights, and they're so much like our own kids, even calling us Mom & Dad most of the time. I laughed so hard & so much I ended up needing my inhaler, which frustrates me because it happens every time I get really tickled, but it was so worth it.

And now it's late, I'm getting ready to head to bed and The Man?? Well, he's decided to sleep outside in his hammock (a camping/hiking tent-hammock... I'll post a pic soon as I find one on here) to see how well he's equipped for these temperatures. LOL... ah, well... so it'll just be me and Tucker in the house tonight. Which is fine as long as Tuck doesn't decide to bark every time The Man comes in the house, which won't be much, I hope.... and if he doesn't snore too loud. At least I can put a C-PAP on The Man. Not so for Tucker, though....

God bless and BLESSED RESURRECTION DAY to you & yours!!

five things...

Okay, so I have been watching the DVD we got from our church's community groups director today. There are basically six sermons with discussion questions and WOW... there is so much to glean!!

I have never really listened to Andy Stanley before, but I like him. He is much like our own pastor, but not quite as dramatic. LOL! The DVD is called Five Things That Grow Your Faith. You can probably get most all of the materials online, even the messages included on the DVD.

Check it out if you are a small group leader or are considering becoming one!

community...

I think I shared here how my hubby and I became the "leaders" of our church's community group. A community group is what most people refer to as "small group" or "accountability group". If not, well, we joined the group right after we finished a 6-week course that was basically a church-info thing. The church we attend is huge & definitely qualifies as a "mega church" in this area. But it's so radically different from any other traditional church in our area, they used to have this short "class" of sorts to let people understand the what's & why-fore's about the church. However, it was entitled "Next Steps" and some folks thought it was for new Christians. We're hoping they will start it back up all new & improved because it was a big help to us and let us ask questions we had about the doctrine and practices of the church before we joined.

So after the Next Steps group, we joined a group that, at the time, the pastor was a part of. That's before our church expanded to a second campus in the next town and his wife started her internship at the hospital in a town 80 miles away and they began a life of residing in two different places, travelling many miles every week! The group grew so large that it split at one point, then they broke for summer vacation. After that, when it was announced that groups would start meeting again, we and two other couples showed up at the usual room but no leader was to be found. Someone said they were still on vacation. We didn't know for sure, hadn't had any word from them, but we had one new couple there, so we just carried on as usual, discussing the sermon notes. The next week, the same thing happened... the man who had previously led our group wasn't there and a different new couple had come to join us.

After that second week, I emailed the guy who oversaw Community Groups to let him know what we'd been doing, to ask where the leader was & to find out if the group had moved or something. The reply I got was an apology for letting that happen, and a congratulations for "stepping up" and notice that we would now be listed as the group's "leaders".

Egads!! I wasn't expecting that! It made Tommy a bit uneasy because he didn't see himself as any sort of church leader, but after praying about it and talking it over with a couple of his friends, we took it as something the Lord wanted us to do, and plunged ahead.

At that time, the church staff started working on plans to "do" community groups in a more methodical, organized way. And so here we are, almost a year later with Tommy's supervisor at work (& a dear friend now) being appointed the new community groups' coordinator and getting ready for an event called "Group Link" next Sunday evening.

As I understand it, it'll be like a sort of job fair for Community Groups. People will be scattered around the large "foyer" area, representing their group and folks can wander around asking questions and getting info about any particular group they think will fit their schedules and interests.

We've been given a book and a DVD about leading and "running" community groups to be the most efficient and most helpful to folks. Of course, this would have to have happened the same time we started taking a 10-week Christian financial course, too. *sigh*

We have GOT to get busy reading the information. I'm praying it will be helpful. It seems that in the past the biggest problem, or one of the biggest, was having info about the various groups since most meet outside the church and on various days and various times. Hopefully, setting up one person to be in charge of groups info this way will help eliminate that. And they plan to have these Group Link events at least four times per year.

The suggestion is to have around 6-8 people per group, then to close that group. That way you promote community and build trust. And we have found that to be so since our group has been meeting at the church on Sunday evenings, we tend to "catch" people who have been looking for a group or who don't know that our church doesn't have a traditional service on Sunday nights. It's been good to be able to let these people join in, but in about 99% of the cases, our group is not what they want or need. Either the age range is off, the interest or life stage is incompatible or something. And they leave. Of course, with our core group of folks, we're not as forthcoming or spend the time explaining things to the new person and don't get to delve as deeply into things as we normally would.

I'm just praying that, as it looks like we may be losing the two couples who have been the core of our group (due to changing job situations, etc) we may be starting from scratch and that makes me a little uneasy. You don't realize how much you've come to depend on a close relationship with others in your group til you're about to lose them. But I guess God's got something else in store for us and I'm confident that He will place the right people in our group.

The last thing I'll mention is the fear I have, well, more of a concern, but still something I need to overcome, of having people in our group that we have trouble connecting with. Sometimes you get folks that you just can't "click" with and you stay unsure of for one reason or another. Sometimes they seem oblivious to this situation or sometimes they seem to feel the total opposite that you do and want to cling tightly to you... all the while, you're trying your darnedest to meet their needs while still feeling "out of sync" with them.

*sigh* I'm praying God settles this for us too. And I'm sure He will... I just hope it's not by bringing us a whole posse of people we feel non-comfortable with. LOL! Wouldn't that just be the way to teach us, though?

Ha. Thanks for reading... I'll keep you posted on how this goes!

Blessings!

judgmental...

of or denoting an attitude in which judgments about other people's conduct are made

1. Of, relating to, or dependent on judgment: a judgmental error.
2. Inclined to make judgments, especially moral or personal ones: a marriage counselor who tries not to be judgmental.

Don't we all know them? Judgmental people. And, for the most part, don't we all despise that quality? I know I do.

Did you know the word judgment is used 235 times in the ESV (English Standard Version) and 408 times in the KJV (King James Version)? The word judge is used 226 times in the ESV and 286 times in the KJV. The word judgmental is used zero times in either of those versions of the Bible. Maybe that's because man sort of created that word AND its meaning.

Our pastor has been doing a series of sermons he calls "Things People Hate About Christians". LOL! How do ya like that? It's been an awesome series. This is something I really appreciate about our pastor... he takes on topics that, if you grew up in a traditional Protestant church, you always wondered about but either you knew not to ask, or you did ask and wasn't given a real answer. He comes from a "religious" background: grew up in a Baptist church, his dad was a deacon, his family was always at every church service & always active in church activities. That's basically me. And it's also a lot of other people, or at least close to it.

So he tackled these issues and it's SO refreshing to hear honest answers, even if they're not comfortable to hear. For instance, one of the sermons in this series was Hypocrisy. Oooh, that stung, didn't it? He also talked about Judgmental attitudes.

Ouch. He didn't just brow-beat us about being judgmental, but he showed us that judging things, and yes, even people (by their actions (fruit) was Biblical, however, he pointed out very eloquently & logically how we should not judge "outsiders", those who are not part of the Body of Christ, in the same way we judge "our own", the "insiders", the Christians.

It's unfair to judge people who make no claims to follow Jesus in the same way we judge (or ascertain their spiritual health by what we see in their lives) people who claim to know Jesus and have made Him the Master of their lives. And when you boil it down, that IS where a lot of churches today have it seriously wrong.

For instance, I read from a local man how the preacher at his church had basically run off a couple who'd started coming there, telling them that because they were living together outside of marriage, they were not welcome.

*mouth gapes open, eyes wide* How's that for agape love? Sheesh!

Now, I am willing to admit that a few years ago, that would have been my sentiment. Yes, I grew up with the mindset that everyone knows the Bible, knows they are living in sin, and should know enough to "clean themselves up" before coming to church.

But where in the Bible does it say this or even HINT that anyone can or should try to "clean themselves" before approaching God??? Doesn't scripture teach the exact opposite of this? Don't our very hymns say, Just as I am, without one plea...??? And What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus...???

How can we get them to Jesus if we ban them from the church because they're not "living right" or whatever?? Good grief!! I've seen this happen over and over in my life. Matter of fact, in one very legalistic (judgmental) church we found ourselves in many years ago, our family was a victim of this kind of thinking. Only they were judging us, supposed "insiders", according to some additional pastor-created rules that were entirely unBiblical. Thank God we got out of there. That was one of the worst times in my life as these people literally tried to drive a wedge between my husband and myself over their self-righteous man-made rules.

*puke*

I know of at least two other families, very "high up" in this church who came out of it with broken families and deep emotional, spiritual scars. How very sad. I'm so thankful we didn't end up that way. But let me tell you, it was not easy and it was not without the Hand of God moving in our lives.

I get annoyed when someone wants to start a "debate" about Christianity and first thing they do is throw out the "Who are you to judge me?" argument. These people are in serious denial and/or have been victims of some "salt-bombing" (I'll explain that one later) harsh, misguided Christian who told them all about the many rules they were breaking as if they (the victim) should know better.

2 Chronicles 19:5-6 tells us about Solomon appointing judges in the land to decide disputes among the people. And in these particular scriptures, he's telling them to be wise because they are not working for men, but for the Lord. Oh, if our judges today took their jobs as seriously as these men probably did!

I always feel the need to point out that the Bible does NOT tell us as Christians that we are not to judge. How else are we to know what is right or wrong if we don't use our God-given minds to judge between the two? It does, however, tell us

In 2 Corinthians 13:5-6, Paul tells us to "test ourselves", and I believe that means not only our own personal self, but also those who are "like us", ie: saved by grace, a professing Christian:

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.

God is the Ultimate Judge of the whole world. Psalm 9:7-9 tells us

"But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness.
The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble."

And Ezekiel 24:14 tells us

"I am the Lord. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord God.”

That should make us take very seriously the way we live our lives, the way we treat others, how generous we are with the needy, how kind we are to the hurting...

We need to realize that our behavior affects our influence with those who are watching. Never think no one is watching you. There's ALWAYS someone watching us. Either to see if we'll succeed or to see if we'll fail. It doesn't matter if we rise or fall, they will be watching how we react to everything that happens in our lives. React with the knowledge that Jesus is in control, no matter what happens. And please, remember we as Christians are here to bring people to Christ and we can't do that if we are repelling people by being judgmental.

Blessings!

anticipation...

Every time I read that word, I hear the song in my head & remember the ketchup commercial from the 70's! But this post isn't about ketchup. It's about anticipation *ahem* or rather expectations and what can happen when we anticipate that our expectations will be met.. then they aren't.

I don't have to tell you, that leads to disappointment more often than not. I started thinking about this after reading another post about this very thing in relation to holidays, specifically Valentine's Day.

Boy, do I have some things to say about Valentine's Day.

I dated my husband for almost 2 years before we got married. I was still in high school since he graduated the year before me. During my senior year, Tommy was working all the time, first as a pizza delivery guy, then with a concrete contractor. I have to say, I never dated or tried to date the "rich" boys. All my (few!) boyfriends were just regular joes, from middle-class families.

So, Tommy was delivering pizzas when Valentine's day rolled around my senior year. I hadn't gotten anything delivered while at school, which was the "in thing" to do... y'know, so EVERYONE could see what your boyfriend got you. Yeah. I was a little disappointed, but we had a date for that night, so I still had high hopes.

Well, Tommy was late. About 45 minutes late, so I was already a little upset with him. As he walked through the door of my parents' house I was ready to grill him about where he'd been when he tossed a card toward me, then a small pink teddy bear and said, "I got a ticket because I stopped to get that stupid card."

I'll allow you a few minutes to pick your jaw up off the floor.

:::::::

Yeah, that's what he said. Seems he saw he was running late, so instead of parking in a space, he pulled up in front of the drugstore, ran in & did his shopping for me, his beloved. Um... yeah, he waited til the last minute.

That was STRIKE ONE.

Then he was late. Really late.

That was STRIKE TWO.

Then he called the card stupid. In front of my dad! Who, by the way, just stood mid-stride with his obligatory bowl of popcorn, grinning about the whole scene.

That's STRIKE THREE. And he's outta here!

Oh. My. Goodness!!

We didn't really fight, but then again, that wasn't the first traffic-related ticket he'd gotten since we'd been together either. But that's a whole 'nother story...

And so, yes, I married him about 6 months later ANYWAY. And when Valentine's Day rolled around again, he came home with a card. First thing outta my mouth was, "Is this another stupid card?"

Heh. Yeah... so the "stupid card" comes up every year. But not always in a mean or hateful way. These days, it comes up as a laugh. Once Tommy was chatting with a young husband who was for some reason telling Tommy the ways he "impressed" his then-girlfriend/now-wife with flowers, slipping in a fake one with the live bouquet & writing on the card, "I'll love you longer than the blossoms on these flowers." and such as that.

So, Tommy told him our Valentine's Day saga and he still razzes Tommy about it to this day. If he sees me, he ALWAYS asks if I got a stupid card.

Anyhow, so this Valentine's day, as with most days in our lives, we were running extremely tight with our finances. I was not expecting to get anything. I was busy doing up all the laundry because in a few days, I'd be leaving to go serve at an Emmaus weekend.

I never noticed Tommy slip anything into the house, but the next morning when I got up, he presented me with a pot of tulips. He knows I love flowers, but hate how they fade so quickly. These I can plant outside & enjoy for years to come. Then, after he'd gone to work I found a pink post-it note on the mirror in our bathroom with "Happy V Day!" which made me laugh because more than likely, he put "V" because he was almost late for work. That or he was afraid of spelling it wrong. ;) Then I found another pink note with the same message on the coffee maker. Another one on a mug in the cabinet. Another one on the fridge. I expected to find one on the bottle of creamer but didn't. LOL! Then I found another on the back door where I let Tucker in and out (all day long!)

I was so touched by this simple gesture. I can say that this was the sweetest Valentine's Day ever. And people, we've been married for twenty-seven years!! ;) But just the thought that he was thinking about what I'd do when I got up, each place I'd go, which cabinet I'd open or which door I'd send the dog out. I was on his mind. That was worth the world to me.

And it reminded me how God always has us on His mind, too. When things seem to go haywire and we think it's all wrong, then we find that He has planned to use whatever it is, and He's placed people or things in our paths to turn the bad into good... well, that's such a precious thought to me.

To realize someone, whether it's God or our loved one, that someone was thinking about us, was anticipating and planning for our every move... *smile* that is so sweet to me.

I am thinking the days of stupid cards are finally over.

Blessings...

hover...

I just read a post by a dear friend of mine. She was talking about how God seemed to be wanting her to "be still" while back here on Earth, her three young boys were running around, the laundry needing doing, dishes needed washing and meals needed cooking. Oh, how I remember those days.

It's so funny now that my children are young adults to look at moms with young children. I always say something like, "Don't blink. They will be grown before you know it." Part of the time, they will look at me like I'm a loon as they are tired and ragged and worn out from trying to keep up and keep it all together.

But seriously, young moms, DON'T BLINK!!! Their childhood will be over all too soon. Mark my words.

So back to Brandi's post, she obeyed the Holy Spirit and did spend some quiet time praying and she shared about all the different people she prayed for.

The list was impressive. Not because it was long or contained 'the' most tragically needy persons, but because it was MASSIVE in its scope.

She mentioned the soldiers who are willingly defending our freedoms, the persecuted who are being targeted or imprisoned for their faith, the orphans, the homeless, the starving...

I don't know about you, but when I start to think about all these people who NEED, some in DESPERATE need, our prayers it makes me feel...

What?

Overwhelmed. I feel like I can't pray for all those people. And if I do, since I don't "know" them personally, that it's not doing much good. Sometimes a particular group comes to mind, for instance abused children... and in my mind, it seems so useless to say, "God, watch over and protect these children." But is it? I KNOW I serve a God Who is well able to do what I just asked, but somehow, to my fleshly mind, it seems so inadequate.

As I'm mulling this over with a new perspective, I wonder if perhaps when I pray such a prayer, maybe there is one certain child out there who needs an intercessor. What do you think? Do you think such 'vague' prayers are "assigned" to people like that?

I dunno where this train of thought is coming from and whether it upsets me more or eases my mind. *hmph!*

I mean, if I sincerely pray for "children" but in actuality there's one child who "gets" the benefit of that prayer... well, is that fair??

*chuckle* I'm disturbing myself now. Good grief!! I have honestly never thought about it that way before.

Guess I need to do some study.

And speaking of study, since I can't seem to write one post on one topic...

I think I've told you about how the hubby and I became community group leaders at church a few months ago, right? Well, after several months, the church offered a "Covenant Marriage" course that we thought would be helpful and since our group is all married couples, we just decided to 'take' the whole group to this 6 week course.

That was a disaster. First of all, the course wasn't quite what we'd thought it was going to be. It was geared more towards couples who didn't have a decades-old marriage. Some people hated it and let us know.. and consequently, never came back to the group!

Others merely didn't like it and didn't attend the class. But they did come back once we went back to our regular meetings.

Now the church is offering a financial study, Navigating Your Finances God's Way from Compass. We were not planning to attend at all. After the last disaster, we just didn't even consider it, even though the two other couples who are core members (they're almost always at group) were planning to attend.

It started this past Sunday night, and we were there in case anyone else showed up expecting to join out group. But no one did, so at the insistence of the other couples, we went into the room where the finance class was being held.

We didn't realize there would be curriculum to purchase, but we paid for the two books and put our names on the list. It seemed as if maybe God had other plans for us in this.

So, we are now doing the homework for this course. We're reading the book Your Money Counts by Howard Dayton. It's a great book. Just reading it without the other book would be a good idea for anyone who's not as good with their money as they ought to be AND who wants to handle their money according to scripture.

Hubby and I are both feeling like it was God's plan for us to be in this class, even though it's planned to be 10 weeks long!! God will work it all out.

I gotta hit the sack now. It's almost 2 am!! Guess this is what I get for going to bed at 8 pm! *shrugs*

Blessings!

yippee!!

YAY!!!! I was up & STAYED up since about 8:30 am today!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?!?

I barely can. But yep, I'm up & not necessarily getting a lot accomplished, but hey y'all, just being awake & out of bed at this hour is a huge accomplishment for me when you look at how much I've been sleeping lately.

And, another praise report, the past few days, my blood sugars have been really good! It had got to the point that they were hovering in the 200's almost all the time, or higher after food. Seemed like nothing I did helped. But now they are comfortably residing in the 100's. It was actually 102 this morning when I got up, so thank You, Jesus for that!! :)

I really need to get busy doing something. The house, as you might have guessed, has gone completely to the dogs. And speaking of dogs, my poor Tucker needs a bath in a major way. Actually he and I both need trips to the barber!!

I started noticing my hair coming out in great number almost a year ago. Maybe in mid-spring of last year. I mean, usually anyone with a thyroid condition does loose a bit more hair than most people, but this was even more than "normal" for me. The doctor wanted to know if it was more than 100 hairs.

O.o

Are you kidding me? I don't know, I didn't count! Sheesh! So I scooped up what was left stuck to the drain after I washed my hair, pulled the new "wig" fodder out of my hair brush that I'd been cleaning every day, and stuck them in a baggie. Next doctor visit, I plopped it down on her desk. She was speechless for a second. Hahaha.

Anyhow, so since she's already checked my thyroid & found no problems there (that would cause the hair loss) she looked at my meds. She said the only Rx I had that could possibly be causing this was my blood pressure med, so I was switched to a new one.

And TAH-DAH!! That seemed to do the trick. In a few weeks, I noticed the amount of drain & brush hair was markedly decreased. So in all that time, I didn't go to my stylist because even though the hair was coming out, there was new growth behind it, so I had like a bazillion different hair lengths... some of course, right around my face. At this point, that particularly bothersome patch of hair is about 5 inches long... and all the surrounding hair is more like 12-14 inches long. Oh yay. :\ It looks ridiculous and it's getting harder to hide it.

I really NEED to go get my hair cut. But it takes forever to get in with my favorite gal... and I actually hate getting my hair cut.

Yes, I hate it. Why? I'm not sure unless it's because of all the traumatic experiences I had with salons as a child. My mother was constantly trying to get some curl in my hair, so perms galore, then I guess she just gave up at one point & had me in this what she called "pixie" hair cut. I looked like a boy. A very angry boy.

Gah!

do not be deceived...

I sometimes get caught up in, if you will, the conspiracy "theory" that there are forces at work in the world today that seek to put in effect a "n ew w orld o rder" that will seat on a throne an inherently wicked and evil "one" to be worshiped by the masses of humanity to its (humanity's) utter and final destruction.

Um, okay, yeah... I believe that. Say what you will about it, but Revelation and some En d Tim e theorists have it right. This world will end one day before we know it, and as Scripture indicates, "no man knows" when. (Mark 13:32 & Matthew 24:36)

However, we can use the Holy Bible to interpret events in the world and the many prophecies contained in God's Word, the Holy Bible, to prepare our hearts and minds, or more likely - especially in my case, calm our hearts and minds when we see these things happening around us.

God is not to be mocked and moreover, the Bible states that He "is not", in other words, He's already got this under His control & Authority. No matter how many "men" (meaning: humans) shout disparaging comments or statements about my God or my Savior, Jesus Christ, in the end, God IS NOT MOCKED. (Galatians 6:7) This scripture tells us that when a man (again, meaning human) smears the name of God or Jesus, he is sure to reap the consequences in the end. Don't be fooled just because lightening didn't strike you down that you got by with mocking God.

I'm posting a link to the video I just watched. It's about 2.5 hours long, so be sure you have the time before you start it. If you're like me, you won't want to pause it for anything. This is one of the best videos of its kind that I've seen because it is very factual & full of references and quotations. But also, it does not leave you with all of this "bad news" and come to an end. It offers the one and only solution to the trials to come: Jesus Christ! I had never seen a "documentary" such as this that ever offered the watcher a remedy for all the gloom that comes with an end times study or research.

NWO & demons Explained
I firmly believe that the culture of today is ripe for introduction of the anti-christ. Do I propose to know who he is? No, of course not. But I do see quite clearly that our society is more than ready for him.

If you watch the video I posted, you'll see what I mean. At least this is what I am convinced of. I think today's eager acceptance of things like vampires, zombies and aliens makes us super-sheeple, ready to believe anything or anyone who can do anything that could be considered "super - nat ural". We are bombarded with images, television shows, movies and books about all these things. Take the latest fascination with movies & books like Twilight or the Harry Potter series. There are tons of shows on these days about ghost hunters, ufo abductees and spirit-channeling mediums. And they are largely accepted at face value, as gospel truth.

And I'm not telling you they are not real.

Yep, you read that right. I'm not saying those things are not real. Because I believe they are, however, I do not take it all at face value. I believe these things are so popular and so a part of the culture because the heinous force behind all that is evil is preparing the world to gobble up the things he will present as proof of his "power".

Please don't think I'm proposing that I am an authority of any kind on this topic. I'm not, but at times, I do get very interested as I see things happen around me that clearly pave the way to usher in an evil "kingship". And I fear for those who follow these things, those who see no harm in it, who consider the deception to be fact... in short, I fear for the lost souls who are eating up this culture of the su per- nat u ral.

If you decide to watch the video, we'll chat about it if you want to leave a comment.

aw, crap!

I guess I might have overdone it yesterday. At least I hope that's what it is. I have been exhausted today. Completely wiped out! *sigh* I guess I got my hopes up a little bit too soon. And that's not a new thing to me. My poor mother, love her heart, has always griped at me for "doing too much". She could never understand why I insisted that when I felt good, I HAD to do as much as possible. Which in years past, involved doing all sorts of stuff for my boys during our homeschooling years.

I never understood how she, the woman who, to this day, will run herself ragged doing for others, couldn't see why I felt it was my duty to do all I could for my boys. She is of the opinion that my health issues should take presedence. I know she is concerned because I am, after all, still "her baby", her firstborn. But she has trouble I guess seeing me as a mom too. Funny how that is, even when her only grandchildren, my two sons, and my daughter-in-law (!) are grown and on their own now... I'm still her little girl. My mommy is so funny that way. And I love her for it, but it sometimes makes me crazy. *heh*

So now my boys are grown and I'm not the homeschool mommy anymore and I don't often have to put myself out very much. I like to be involved in our church and of course in our Emmaus community. That's really my whole life besides my family. With my daughter-in-law working now, and all of the kids working so much with the teens at their church, we don't get together with them as much these days.

Anyhow, seems I maybe overdid it yesterday & now I'm drooping a bit. But the hubs & I have a leadership workshop at church in the morning and we're suppose to help set up, so I need to have my big ol' butt in the bed because 7 am comes early... a whole heckuva lot earlier than noon, right?

God bless!!

things are lookin' up...

Wow! I was up by noon today! Go me! Seriously, if you have been reading here, or paying attention, you know I've been doing some major sleeping lately. Til way up in the afternoon! So to get out of bed for good by noon is a major step for me! Lord willing, just switching the time I take those blood pressure meds.. oh, and using my C-PAP machine will fix this problem.

I may not have gotten up then except the phone kept ringing. A couple of times it was sales calls, which I hang up on. Then it was Mom, checking on me. Then it was my mother-in-law asking if she and my father-in-law could ride with me to an Agape making party (it's an Emmaus thing ;) and then she told me that the blind couple in our community wanted a ride, too. So, okay, yeah, I can do that. We have room in our super-cab pickup for six, so no problem there.

Then about 1 o'clock I got a call from the blind lady asking if I could run them to town, first Walmart then their bank. Seems they'd gotten into some financial strain & needed to transfer some funds before 5 o'clock.

*sigh* I admit it. At first I felt very put upon. But then I prayed for God to take that away and give me a thankfulness that I am able to help them. So, I told her I had to wait because another lady from our Emmaus community was bringing over some craft supplies for tonight, but after she left, I'd be there. That'd be around 2:30.

So the craft supplies lady is a very friendly, jovial woman and she likes to talk. *heh* I found myself looking at the clock and starting to feel irritated. But then I stopped myself and just chatted back with her. And guess what? She probably wasn't here but about 10 minutes or so. And there I was feeling as if she was putting me behind schedule. Thanks, God. :)

I hurried to get my shoes on & gather up my purse & grocery list. Yep, I needed to go to town anyway, so it wasn't really an imposition for me to take this lady with me. I was a little unsure of how much she might slow me down though, since I'd never been grocery shopping with her before.

I felt so bad for them as her mother-in-law, who lives next door & helps take care of this couple, was telling me about the mess they were trying to straighten out. Something about changing when their insurance payments came out and overdrafts and interest... I just felt so bad for her. I know how it feels when something like that happens & it is NO FUN having to ask someone else for help let alone having to tell them why you need the help. :(

So after I was fairly sure both she and I knew what we were supposed to do, we took off. First we did the shopping. They only had three things on their list, but it wasn't hard having her along as I made stops to pick up what I needed. The most annoying part was how people kept stepping in front of us. She was holding onto the cart handle and I had hold of the side or front of the cart, slowing her down or turning her as necessary. Obviously they didn't realize she was blind, but still it was so frustrating! She made a comment about me being "an old pro at this", so I must have done okay comparatively. LOL!

At the checkout, I just positioned her in front of the keypad and let her take care of withdrawing the extra money. I swear, it took less time to do my shopping with her in tow than it usually does for me by myself. Of course, I would have stopped to look at stuff I didn't need if I'd been alone, so she probably saved us a few bucks! LOL! I told her as much, too.

We joked about how she was going to have to find where I'd parked because I'd forgotten. I then took her to their bank, walked her in and let her take care of the deposit there. Then we headed back to her house. I helped carry in the groceries and the little mother-in-law, who is in a wheelchair, just thanked me over & over. I told her it wasn't a problem since I had to go anyway. That seemed to ease her mind a lot.

And now I'm at home, where I discovered that my sugar had gotten a little low, 57... sheesh! And I got all my groceries put away, my low blood sugar treated & sitting here writing this post while I wait for my in-laws to come over so we can ride to pick up the blind couple to go to an Agape making party.

Wow... what a wild & crazy life I lead. And I'm so thankful for it. And SOOOO thankful to be feeling better. God is just good like that.

Blessings~

it's cool being a tool...

A tool of God, that is. That's what my hubby and I had the honor of being this past Sunday. It was snowing and had been during the night, so there was enough snow on the ground to make most churches cancel services. Yes, I know, it doesn't take much and believe me, it wasn't much, but it was enough to get on top of your shoes if you walked through the grass.

Since our truck is not a four-wheel drive, we decided not to take the hilly road we usually do to church. We went around a longer way and were headed down the parkway. I was fooling with my phone and didn't see her, but Tommy suddenly said, "I bet that woman is freezing to death." I looked up but didn't see anyone. Then he slowed down & said, "I wonder where she's going. I should have stopped and picked her up." He asked me if I thought so. I told him it was up to him since I hadn't seen her.

So he turned the truck around and soon I could see her. All humped over with a Army jacket on, jeans and tennis shoes...walking in the field, so I knew her feet had to have been soaked & frozen.

Tommy pulled over, rolled down his window and hollered, "Would you like a ride?" She said yes, she would and she was just going to the little grocery store at the gas station about a 1/4 mile down the parkway. We drove there & Tommy told her if she wasn't going to be too long, we'd just wait and drive her back home if she wanted. She gratefully said okay and jumped out of the truck.

I was struggling with feeling "put upon" and feeling guilty for it. I was supposed to work in child care during the second service and it was looking like we were going to be late for first service, especially if we took this lady home, too.

It wasn't long before she came back out and we were on our way to take her home. It turned out that she lived just off the road we live on, about a mile and a half from us. We were almost out of gas, too and had planned to make a stop for fuel after church but driving the extra distance, we were going to have to stop before going to church and soon, according to the fuel gauge.

Once we got to her house, which turned out to be a rough-looking single-wide trailer that she said had been divided in half, so she was renting half of it. She'd told us that she had just moved in Friday. She said she'd went with "this guy" to pick up some furniture the homeless shelter had given her and on the way back home, they stopped at a liquor store. She told us later that he had gotten violent. She did have a cut lip. She had called the police, so the man was now in jail. As Tommy pulled up, he started asking if she would want to go to church with us, but he never even got the question out before this lady said, "Yes, I would love to go to church with you!"

She insisted on changing clothes, so we turned off the truck while she went inside the trailer. Yes, the fuel was getting that low. While she was changing, I texted the lady at church to tell her I wouldn't be able to work in child care. We didn't think it was a good idea for Tommy to be alone in second service with this lady we'd just met. The woman at church agreed with that and said they'd handle things without me that day.

The sermon and worship music was awesome and perfectly suited for her that morning. She said she loved it and would love to go with us again. We told her it'd be a pleasure to pick her up since she was right on our way anyway.

She called me Monday wanting to know if I had a flat screwdriver and hammer she could borrow. Apparently she'd got a ride to town with someone to get groceries and to take her by the jail. She said the guy who'd beaten her Friday had her key in his pocket when he was arrested and now she was locked out of her trailer because he wouldn't sign the key over to her. At that time, Tommy was gone in the only vehicle we have, so I had no way to drive down there. She said her landlord wasn't home so she couldn't get in.

I didn't know what else to do since I couldn't help her. She apparently must have waited til her landlord was back and got them to let her in.

I called her Tuesday to see if she wanted to go to Celebrate Recovery at our church. She told me she was back at the homeless shelter in the next town over. When her landlord had let her in, she saw the damage done by the guy, apparently she ran into the bathroom to get away from him and he'd torn the door off its hinges. So the landlord had kicked her out.

She seemed to be okay. She told me she was reading the devotional book given to her by our church as a first-time visitor gift. I told her to stay focused on Jesus and to keep me posted with what was going on with her.

I don't know what God meant or us to do for her, Christina, but I hope we didn't fail Him. I'm not sure why she went to the shelter in the neighboring town, instead of the one here. It was amazing though, to watch God work.

First, we never go that way to church. We usually take a much shorter route that would have completely bypassed where Christina was when we passed. Also, she told us she had felt such an urgency to "hurry" and go to the store when she had all day to get there, but she had felt an urge to hurry and thankfully, she gave in to that. Why did we have this encounter with her? I'm not sure, but perhaps we were merely the sowers and someone else will come along and water and someone else then will reap a harvest in her life.

But wow... how cool to be a tool in the hands of such an awesome God!!

oversleeped...

So, yeah, I'm still dealing with this crazy fatigue/exhaustion/whatever. I mean, c'mon, when you sleep til 4pm, SOMEthing is just WRONG!!

I went back to the doctor yesterday for a post-antibiotics check-up. She said my ears look fine & I'm no longer wheezing, which was all great. Thank God! I really love my doc. She's actually a Physician Assistant, but she's just so down to earth I can tell her anything. The dude-doc, who I also really like, is not quite as easy to talk to. He's Indian, not like Native American, the other kind (LOL!) and he is horrible about making faces. I mean, if you will notice, it must be a cultural thing because if you encounter a person of Indian heritage who is not really talkative, they will more often than not, make these expressions. I tell him he would suck at poker because of that. LOL! He's super about thinking outside the box and NOT treating mere symptoms. He wants to get to the cause of the problem, but those daggone expressions kill me. After my first visit, I just started saying, "What does THAT face mean?" *heh*

Anyhow, so I told the PA about my super-sleep-itis & her first question was do I snore? Well, um, so he says. ;) And yeah, I know I do because I sometimes wake myself up. I told her that I do and that, yeah, I have a C-PAP machine at home, but that I'd not been wearing it. She said that was the first thing. Then she looked over my meds & suggested that I try taking my blood pressure medicine at night instead of morning.

I started that last night. I'm hoping that's what it is since it is a relatively new medicine. But I wasn't all bright-eyed & bushy-tailed this morning. I slept til after noon. *sigh*

I feel like a total failure when I do that, but it's like I canNOT make myself get up! I'm going to try hitting the hay around 11pm tonight. That IS when I get to bed most nights, although I HAVE gone til about 1am a few times since all this sleep-sleeping began. I have done that before though and had NO problem getting up in the morning. I'm hoping changing the time of my bp med will help.

We shall see...

digging out...

Wow... it's been SO long since I had a blog with, well, with lots of things. Like regular posts, fancy gadgets, um, readers!

I don't quite know what to do with myself. But I do want to say THANK YOU for the wonderful, encouraging comments. You don't know how much they've done for me. :)

Back on the topic of depression... the last couple of days, I've been able to get up several hours earlier. That's a step in the right direction. I wasn't this specific before, but I have been sleeping like 14-18 hours, y'all. Yeah, HOURS. I just could NOT make myself get out of bed, other than slogging through the room to let Tucker in and out, and a trip to the bathroom, I was sacked out sleeping like a dead woman. Totally zonked and just UNable to make myself wake up.

Of course that meant I was also missing my morning meds, which includes a huge dose of thyroid (duh, the metabolism regulating hormone?!) I was diagnosed with Grave's Disease back in 1999, and since my heart rate was near 190, I was immediately put on beta blockers, had to stop breastfeeding my baby (my second & last child) and was sent to an endocrinologist for further treatment of the Grave's. The nurses there kept telling me how much better I was going to feel once they got this under control. I'd quit feeling SO tired and stop being perpetually "too hot" & sweating ALL the time and I'd have SO much MORE energy.

Yeah. Whatever. It didn't happen like that AT ALL!! The endo decided a radioactive iodine treatment, or I-131, was the best way to go. Sounds creepy, I know and I wish in the worst way that I'd had the wisdom to seek a second opinion back then, I was just SO eager to start feeling better!! I never gave it a thought and forged ahead.

ANYhow... after the I-131 treatment, my thyroid production was not decreased, but it CEASED. I mean, it went from about 5x above normal to almost immeasurable... hovering barely above zero!! I could tell the endo wasn't expecting that & definitely not so suddenly. I was to have a blood draw at my regular doc's instead of driving to Lexington to the edno's office, and the results sent to him two weeks after the treatment. They called & wanted me up there pronto once they got those results & instead of the usual month or more before going on thyroid replacement meds, I was on them in two weeks. And a high dose of them, too.

Even now, if I have to go to a different pharmacy than my usual one (where my sweet cousin is the druggist!) they always question my dosage of thyroid. It's more than double what is considered "normal". *sigh* Yeah, so ... I dunno if the endo over-dosed me with the radioiodine or if my body just really needed more thyroid than most, but anyhow, now I have a very sluggish metabolism and missing my thyroid meds is NOT a good thing. I know that's just added to my lethargy but if I don't take that by noon, I am not supposed to take it. It is affected by dosage timing, so... if I miss that rather large window of opportunity, I just miss out for the day. I know, I KNOW... alarm clock. But see, you act as though you're talking to a practical, functional person... and when I'm this deep in a depression...you're just NOT, okay?

So, yeah, I had been up and sorta going while it was still morning the last few days. I've worked on a project I have coming up for our Emmaus Community. I even went to a reunion group meeting last Thursday. And do you know, I mean THIS is how good God is, there were two ladies there that I hadn't met before. One of them sat right across the table from me. And when I shared that my biggest struggle was & had been this debilitating depression, SHE TOUCHED MY ARM & SAID, "I've been going through the same thing. I know exactly what you're talking about." And she really did, too. We talked a little more about how destructive depression can be and how hard it is to 'make it' make sense to someone who's never experienced it.

See how God looks after me? :) He's awesome like that and I really needed the reminder that He's always there for me.

Today, I got out of the house and ran around Lexington with my hubby and kids. We did not one single solitary thing that could possibly be construed as constructive or productive. But it was good for me. I walked and walked around in the mall with Melissa. I enjoyed good meals with her, Tommy, both my sons and one "adopted" son, a friend of theirs from church. I laughed my head off at their snowball fights in restaurant parking lots and monkey calls in the middle of department stores.

I may not have accomplished a thing, but I feel blessed, and I feel hopeful. And folks, it's been way too long since I felt a glimmer of hope.

Life is good, just like the God Who gives it.

Blessings...

bump, rattle...

That's the sound my thoughts are making as they roll around my head. I've got so many of them up there, you'd think there would be no room. So either that means there's more space in my brain that I thought (of course, meaning my brain is bigger!) or maybe my thoughts are smaller than they seem to me?

*chuckle* It's scary the way my mind works sometimes...

I've been so sick the past few days. The day before Tommy was to leave for camp for the boys' Chrysalis, I felt it coming on. The sore throat, thumping headache.

"But maybe I can fight it off.."

Yeah, whatever. So Tommy going to serve at camp means he's gone for three days. Now there are special services almost each day, so I will normally go down there if we can afford the gas, that is.

We had three boys who were going to be attending the weekend. Boys that we've watched grow up in some cases, through the church. Boys who have taken to calling me Mama & Tommy Dad. So he was thrilled to be able to serve this weekend.

Not only that, but both our sons were also serving down there. One on the music team and one in a support team. So we had two generations serving... but then they needed another person for prayer team and asked Tommy's dad to serve. Wow... three generations serving on this one Chrysalis and there were seven other father-son/s "sets" serving.

What an awesome legacy! And what an amazing weekend it was. The precious testimonies of those boys was such a blessing! I'm excited to see what God's going to accomplish through them.

So I spent the weekend trying to fight off the inevitable bronchitis. I barely slept for coughing and trying to breathe. I made a batch of soup for a family who's father had surgery and went with another lady to take that out to them. That was Friday, the night Tommy left. Then Saturday, I left around 7am to get to the send-off ceremony at camp, taking a bowl of "Dirt Cake" that one of our boys requested. By Saturday night, I was quite a bit sicker & called in to our children's services coordinator at church to say I couldn't serve the next day. Then I got a text from camp saying the cake was all gone & the boys were clamouring for more. I hoped maybe my daughter-in-law could pick up the ingredients and bring to me after church the next day, but she had to take her siblings back home in a neighboring county, which would have made it too late to make the cake.

*sigh* So I dragged myself to the local grocery store, which is always higher so I seldom shop there. I realized once I was at the checkout that my debit card was at home, so I had to run back outside to get my checkbook. As I gathered my bags to leave, I could have sworn I stuck the checkbook in my coat pocket, but as I was struggling to get the door unlocked at home, the phone rang. It was someone from the store saying I'd left the checkbook. *siiiigh*

I dropped the bags inside the house & went straight back to the store, hurried back home to put the 'cake' together, then got in a hot tub to sweat awhile, took some more Alka Seltzer & got dressed to head to special service at camp & of course, deliver the requested food stuffs. ;)

By Monday morning I was feeling horrible.

Since I already had a check-up appointment scheduled for Tuesday, I didn't even try to get in to see the doctor on Monday. I didn't want to spend the day sitting in the waiting room and I didn't want to risk pushing myself/time to get to camp for closing ceremony & picking up of my hubby.

So by the time I made it to the doc's office, it was confirmed that I did indeed have bronchitis and not only that... a double ear infection! Go, me!! Woo!

No wonder I felt horrific all weekend! I seriously don't know how I made it through. But then again... I DO know::

Isaiah 41:10---"Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

depression...

I suffer from depression. That's kind of a lame statement to my way of thinking. Doesn't EVERYONE have moments in their lives when they feel depressed about something? Especially if you have survived the teenage years!

And I know there are different levels of depression; clinical, major, et cetera. I also have diabetes. Type I, not Type II, which are two totally different diseases, by the way. I've had it for almost 40 years. It sucks. But there it is, and I do the best I can to live, day after day, minute by minute, with this disease that has no remission.

I know people who have had transplants and now are no longer classified as diabetic, but the disease has left its mark on their bodies, not to mention they now must take anti-rejection drugs, so I'm not sure I'd be jumping up & down wanting a transplant. And of course, that leaves out the fact that MOST of the time, you are not "eligible" for a pancreas transplant unless your kidneys have failed & you need one of those too, so you see, transplantation is not the "cure" it would seem to be.

It is proven that diabetics almost across the board, suffer with major depression. Not just diabetics, but anyone with a chronic disease. And why not? Dealing with an ongoing disease, for which there is no cure and no easy treatment ought to depress anybody, right?

Even someone who is naturally upbeat and positive will succumb to depression to some degree at some point in their lives. It's just the nature of the beast.

Your body doesn't work correctly when you have diabetes. In Type II, it's "usually" because you have been overweight OR you have simply not been good to your body, feeding it a consistently unhealthy diet, and the pancreas just reaches a point where it can't go on your body no longer reacts to insulin as it should. Again, that's "usually". Sometimes people get mad when you infer that their Type II diabetes is kinda sorta their own fault and they could have avoided it had they just watched their diet and maintained a healthy weight.

And just to be perfectly honest, I get a little offended when people try to place Type II on the same playing field with Type I. For those of us with Type I, there was nothing, not one. single. thing. we could have done differently to avoid having this disease. NOTHING. Our pancreases are faulty, we don't produce any insulin in most cases, so there's no chance for us to change our lifestyle and get back to a non-diabetic state.

Type I isn't reversible, no matter what book titles you've seen in Barnes & Noble, okay? That's what happens when you confuse Type I with Type II... you get idiotic books that tell you if you'll just eat raw whole foods, you can become un-diabetic.

Whatever. It ain't gonna happen. There's not one single case.

Okay, so now that we're clear on the main difference between the two so-called "types" of diabetes, let's move on to the depression that inevitably comes along with it.

Do you realize that for a diabetic, there is not a single moment when this disease is not affecting our bodies in some way? Every morsel we put in our mouths, every half-hour we delay eating or the times we forget to eat altogether, the times we are more active than usual...or less active, the fifteen minutes we sleep in and delay that first finger prick to see how much insulin we should take, or the times we forget to take it... There is no respite from the demands of diabetes.

Most of you know, I now use an insulin pump, which is a wonderful device, acting as a sort of external pancreas, except that I must tell it what to do. The thing is this: after a few years of living like this, with this "thing", this disease constantly "in your face", so to speak, one tends to get tired.

I reach a point where I simply don't give a flip what my sugar is. That's the danger zone right there. And normally it is the precursor to a round with some pretty nasty depression.

Now, I have taken antidepressants in the past. They never caused any of the horrible side effects I've heard about on YouTube...although there were a few way back when I was first put on them that we discovered DID NOT WORK. But even when you find one that works great, they're not free, nor are they cheap.

So, when push comes to shove, or more precisely, when money gets tight, I start looking at my long list of meds to see just how many of them I can do without.

And also, I don't WANT to be dependent on anti-deps, either. Even though I know I feel better and get along better when I'm on them.

So anyway, the kind of depression that comes shortly after or maybe along with the "who gives a flip" attitude is vicious. I feel so desperately alone and useless. I know I'm not taking care of myself, and with each passing year, I know that my body can't withstand me getting into this kind of funk as well. I know I'm doing damage to my organs and shortening my life. But somehow, SOMEHOW I just don't care.

So I ask you, how do you deal with that? Once you get to the point where you KNOW that you KNOW and you still don't care? You can't seem to MAKE yourself care. How do you rebound from that? How do you climb out of a hole that dark and that deep?

I'm not sure. But I sure need to know. God help me climb out of this hole, help me to stay out of it. Show me how. Amen.

encouragement...

Almost 2 years ago, my husband & I joined what a lot of people around here refer to as a mega-church. We'd thought it was that ourselves, til we went. We ended up there because 1) we were running late one Sunday morning and 2) we'd watched some of the sermons online and were intrigued & surprised to find that the messages from a church that big were entirely Biblical and doctrinally sound. So, what was a place to go in a pinch became our new church home. It was like God picked us up with two fingers & plopped us down there, just exactly where He wanted us.

We got to know the pastor and many people on staff. We became active in serving in several of the church's many ministries and several months ago, we found ourselves the newly appointed leaders of our Community Group!

I tell people we "accidentally" ended up there, but I know that God doesn't do accidents, or maybe He just makes use of them for His purposes. :)

The former leader wasn't at the first couple of meetings after summer break, which left just us and two other couples who had joined the church around the same time we had. We continued on with the meetings because, well, we enjoy them so much and those two "leaderless" meetings found us with new folks in attendance.

So I sent an email to a couple different staff members asking what was up and letting them know what had been going on. I received back a note saying basically, "Great! We put you and Tommy down as this group's leaders! Thanks for serving!" LOL! My first thought was that the other two "core" couples would think we'd angled for the position and my husband's first thought was, "Oh, no! I can't do that!"

We prayed about it, we talked to the other couples so they knew what had happened...and at last, God gave Tommy a peace about it.

Then last night, He gave us both an encouraging situation to, I feel, let us know we're right where He wants us.

We had one new fella show up. His wife had to work, and so he was on his own, which was fine. We have some "singles" in our group from time to time. The church encourages people to go to several different groups to see where they feel most comfortable.

Our group is amazing. As I said, there are us three couples who make up the core, who all serve in the church's First Touch ministry (greeting, parking, seating, etc... no one feels unwelcome at our church!) and we're pretty much always there when something's going on at the church. All that to say, we're a very chatty group, everyone participates in the discussion. I think that has always made new folks feel at ease to share with us, even though most of the time, they don't come back, for whatever reason... sometimes it's just that they are not consistent.

So anyway, after everyone, and I mean EVERYone.. even the custodian, had left last night, Tommy and I continued to talk with this gentleman. He'd opened up about his biggest sin-struggle and shared that it had caused hurt in this, his second marriage. We also found out that he had attended our former church, so we had that in common, along with having close friends who still attend there.

But we continued to talk, and he continued to open up about his life. We encouraged each other. He's working to redeem himself in his wife's eyes. That's a hard thing to tell ANYone, but he felt comfortable telling us. We stood outside the church, huddled under an overhang because it was raining and talked for almost an hour.

It was a real blessing to us.

What was?-- you might ask. Being an encouragement to someone, having someone feel comfortable enough to confide in us, to ask us to pray for them. It was a great blessing. And it was more confirmation that we're where God wants us.

That's what we want more than anything. To be exactly where God wants us. Sometimes that's hard to determine so it's just beautiful when God gives you a sign that you're on the right path. :)

Do we feel at a loss sometimes? You bet we do!! Do we feel we haven't or can't do what we need to or be what we need to be? Yes! Being where God wants you doesn't make you perfect. It just makes you feel safe... even when the sky seems to be falling around you.

He's awesome that way.

God bless you big time!!

the rest of the remodel...

Here's a shot of the center wall that runs from the kitchen into the family room... we have to keep it the same color in both rooms because we inadvertently pushed the door to our bedroom underneath the doorway from the kitchen to family room... there's nowhere to divide this wall.
One of the drawbacks of drawing up your own home plans, I guess, but we've learned to work with it over the years.

See?
In this shot you can see what I'm talking about... see how the door frame is just barely under the open doorway? *sigh* We didn't realize this until it was too late. Not that there was a lot we could have done about it anyway because there's no room to move the door back... ah well... this color is called Coffee With Cream. Quite appropriately named if you're like my hubby and drink what is more like "a little coffee with my creamer". ;)

And here he is, my sweet painting man. I wouldn't have such an awesomely colored home without him to run this huge roller for me.

Finally!!
Done with the center wall... now to get the real color pop going in here!! Woo!

Can't wait to see how it looks once all the rest is green!!

One wall down...two more & the family room is done::

Woo! I love it!
I really love it!!

This isn't exactly the shade of green I had hoped, but I do like it a lot...
Hang on & I'll show you what we did to the mantle...

Check it: we needed somewhere to put the boxes/electronics for the tv, so...
Pretty neat, huh? If you look at some of the earlier photos, you can see the way the mantle originally looked. I sanded it and hubby took a router to the edges of the brackets to give it a more polished look, then I painted and washed it with a dark brown, sort of like my end & coffee tables...

I really love the wall vinyls, too...

Here's the other end of the room after paint & replacing the furniture:

more Christmas 2012...

Sheesh!! I got all caught up in telling about my great eBay finds, I forgot to tell you all how great our now-traditional Christmas Morning breakfast went!!

For about 5 years now, Tommy and I have been hosting a family gathering at our home on Christmas Morning. This has to be juggled around a bit on the years when Christmas falls on a Sunday, but the rest of the time, it's pretty peaceful & this year was especially awesome.

We have family from both sides here... my parents, our kids, including of course, our daughter-in-law and usually at least one or two friends who don't have family around here. We also have Tommy's parents here and for the past couple of years, that also includes my mother-in-law's mentally handicapped sister.

This year, we had just my one friend whose sons were my boys' best friends growing up. Two of her three sons are now in the military, one of those is married with a family of his own, the other is stationed in California and the other lives around here, but had celebrated with his mom earlier. Corey did a neat thing and called one of the boys on iPhone's facetime, then handed the phone to my friend, so she got to see and chat with her youngest.

The really amazing thing about this year was how my parents hung around for games and stuff. Normally Christmas is a really hard time for my mom. Her mother passed away on Christmas morning about 6 years ago, so she's usually pretty sullen along with being tired because she pushes herself so much.

I am not sure what happened this year, but I pray it's a new tradition. She and Daddy both will usually be ready to go as soon as the meal is over, but Mom came to me and suggested we play a game.

Now folks, THAT is an odd request coming from my mother. Tommy's parents play games all the time and they usually end up staying hours and hours on Christmas morning because our Casey loves Monopoly about as much as they do. I seldom ever play that with them because I can't stand how long it drags on, but they all love it.

ANYway, so Mom suggests a game. I know she won't enjoy something like Monopoly, so I pull out Taboo. We ALL played that for over an hour and had the best time!! So much so, that for New Year's Eve, Mom asked that we all come up for supper and bring the game with us!

It was really amazing and SUCH a fun time. When we normally are left feeling like... I dunno, like anyone would feel if someone just wanted to take off as soon as possible instead of joining in any fun and games. Kinda like a slap, ya know? But not this year. I really hope this is a new tradition!

long time, no post...

Ah, yes. I'm back. My life got a little hectic during the holidays. I'm sure yours wasn't though, right? Mmhmm.. I didn't think so.

Our family had a beautiful Christmas, even though this was one of the tightest financial times of our lives. None of the family really had the extra money to do our usual week at the cabin, and we are just out of the habit of trying to buy everyone gifts... besides the fact that we just flat had no money to do that with.

*sigh* Yeah, it's a little depressing, but God kept us busy & we didn't focus on what we didn't have.

So, let me tell you what we did have...

We had two non-family get-togethers at our house. One was for my ladies group of Emmaus chicks. It's the local group of women who have all been on the Walk to Emmaus. Normally we meet each Thursday at a restaurant, or occasionally at a church or someone's home if we're making agape gifts for a walk. But with us getting the finishing touches on the house, both Tommy & I wanted to host some parties at our home. So I had about 25 people here in the middle of December. We played an ornament exchange game, had tons of food & good fellowship. It was so awesome & I was so blessed to have everyone here.

The very next night, we hosted our church's community group here. Unfortunately, three of the couples couldn't come, but of the three couples we had here, I think we all had a great time. We've grown really close to some of these people, and I guess, as our group has grown & there are basically just three of us couples who have been here all along, those other two couples were so good to us when I was injured & not able to get around back in the summer... I just wanted to do something for them. So for this gathering, I didn't ask anyone to bring food. Tommy & I did all the cooking. It turned out great.

I used quite a few recipes I'd found on Pinterest, and they were a hit. I did a lot of cooking for my Emmaus group too, but did ask for the ladies to bring something to share because I was afraid of not having enough. Man! We had a TON of food!!

During all of this, Tommy & I had been working with the First Touch group at church. This is the group that includes the ushers, parking lot guys and the greeters who are stationed not only at the doors, but all through the outer area before you get to the auditorium. I love doing this except for one thing... it means we miss out on the first of the worship service. But still, I love it. I get to see people that I normally don't, which means a lot in a church as big as ours. The last Sunday we worked, I got to see two people I'd gone to high school with that I hadn't seen in ages!!

So God kept us very busy with those things and with doing the Advent devotionals we did corporately with our church. That helped a lot and I'm so thankful that we stuck with it this year. We kinda failed big time last year!

We did spend about $50 on very small gifts for our kids & parents & I'd bought a couple of things earlier in the year for my sister & her husband, so we weren't completely empty handed, which is what I HATE, especially with my parents because my mom always buys such nice things for everyone.

She & dad gave us all some money as well, which was really REALLY nice and put both Tommy and me on eBay looking for things we wanted.

For him it was all kinds of light-weight backpacking equipment for the trip he and our boys are planning for later this year. For me? Well, I have wanted to get some Thirty-One bags for eons. I even thought about hosting a party, but I HATE doing those buy-something deals. I don't go to them because I can't afford to buy stuff, so I figure most people are likely in the same situation. I also wanted to find a really good leather purse. Well, I went over my Christmas-cash budget, but thankfully I have Bill Me Later & could go ahead and get not one, but but SEVERAL of EACH of these wish-list items!!

God's so good, isn't He?? :)

I got one Dooney & Bourke all leather drawstring bag in excellent condition for several hundred dollars less than it would have cost new. I got one of those huge 31 Weekender totes, brand-new in the package AND in that new purple paisley pattern I love! Not only that, but I saved over $30 off retail. I dunno why someone wasn't pleased with this as a gift, but I am thrilled with my purchase! I also got a barely-used All In One Organizing totes to hold all the things we need to keep in the truck. It's in a nice discontinued pattern with the snowy pine trees? I wiped a couple of smudged out of the inside & it looks like new. Saved a TON on it, too. Then I found another 31 Large Utility tote in the brown dot pattern. And I unexpectedly won another Dooney & Bourke bag that should be here any day. It's almost like new too and I only gave $30-something for it. It's all leather & looks great.

Now my problem will be being seen with the aforementioned 31 bags by the ladies I know who are 31 reps. *sigh* I'm thinking about posting a status on facebook explaining what I've done. I mean, c'mon, how can anyone fault me for buying these things used &/or for WAY less than retail? Hopefully, no one, but we'll see. *sigh* I can't let that worry me right now.

Well, I think that's it for me for right now. I'm going to try to upload some pix of the stuff we've got finished around the house. I absolutely LOVE my new green walls in the family room. It's got such a warm cozy feel now and the redo of the mantle is just awesome! Hang tight... I'll get some pix up ASAP!!

hugs~