The tears that no one sees....

We have been so blessed in our life. I look back at the marriage, the children and the grandchildren that Bill and I have been blessed with....but today it all seems so clouded by this dark cloud. I HATE THIS DISEASE. I hate what its done to me, I hate what its made me, I hate that it has taken so much of ME away.

So many of us have been through what I would call a "dark night of the soul," I experienced it probably about 7 years ago. It was a time in my life where God seemed so silent. I prayed, I dug deep into scripture, I listened to uplifting messages but it just seemed that God had pulled away his hand from me. It scared me, I didn't know if I had done something that had displeased him or why the silence all of a sudden. I thought I would die, I couldn't do this life without him and without the strength that he provided me and the words of knowledge that I needed always at the appropriate time.....then silence.

In Samuel, Saul found himself being imploded upon by the Philistines, he prayed but God did not answer, not in dreams, not in visions and not with a word. I know its in these times that it is a time for us to sit patiently and wait upon the Lord. But this isn't supposed to happen to me. I feel as though I'm trapped in a body that has totally gone haywire. It's tiring to wake up one day and feel utterly normal and function normally to sometimes hours to a day later completely unable to accomplish the smallest tasks. Tears come as there are days that my physical body and mental body is so tired of fighting and not knowing when this will ever end.

It's difficult being in crowds of people as the dizziness sets in and then the disorientation follows. None of us want others to see us fail, to see us in a state of frailty. I've found out how really small and insignificant we really are in such a vast world. I remember the day of my grandfathers funeral....as we pulled out in the funeral procession that the outside world was continuing on with life. How could this be? This man that I knew was a man of God, he served the Lord with all that he was, nothing in him was ever evil or un-christlike. How is it that everything didn't stand still at this moment....after all....it did for me.

On the day that I'm placed in the ground or any of us are placed in the ground....the pile of papers that need addressed on our desks, the phone calls that need returned and all the things that we see that have to be done......will soon be forgotten. But the time that I spend with my children and my grandchildren molding their lives and showing them how to live in Christ is all that will really matter.

It's been a down day today as I had to turn down doing the Women's Ministry once again this year. I can't even plan a haircut in advance as I don't know from moment to moment if I'll be upright or laid out begging God to end this misery. All I ask for is my health back, all I ask for is that from today forward I can get up daily and enter the world as everyone else enters....without wondering when its going to hit me. I think I'm having better days, but unlike before when I felt bad everyday....now I can feel great and have the wind knocked from my sail in a matter of minutes. When will this torture end. When can I begin to enjoy life again, when can I feel good again. When do I get to pick up the pieces of a terrible 2 years and turn this around to a story that God can use.

The best beauty comes form the worst pain.....

It's a battle that rages from day to day. Although I do feel like I am getting better when I look back at the past year....it still is so hard to not be what I used to be. I just got over having 3 days thatI believed where good days, Bill says "well you had better hours in the day, but not necessarily good days. Then Saturday evening at 5 pm it all started creeping back, I hate when it starts to come back on....because everytime I have a few good days I tend to get a little excited that maybe this is finally all over. So yesterday and today have been not so fun. Sleep has become a thing of the past.

I lay awake until 1 am if I'm lucky but mostly 3 am or Sunday morning I got in bed at 5 am, for Bill to be getting up. Kind of felt funny...that he was getting up and I was finally going to bed. Then when I do sleep the dreams are very vivid. I dreamt yesterday morning that my mom was sitting on the bed with me....she was saying something to me but for the life of me I can't recall what she said.

I know God has a story to tell through this. I know that everything that has happened in my life God has used to give glory to himself. I also know that throughout scripture everyone that God used had difficulties along the way. Character builders!! I am ready for that time. I'm ready to have the strength and energy and feel good enough to get back out there and be an inspiration to the gospel that I stand upon. I feel like I'm traped right now in a world that doesn't use my ministry gifts. I pray daily that God would remove this thorn and my ministry can resume.

Pain and hardship builds character.....but I'm wondering how much character building was I needing. Had pride stepped in the way of my ministry. Had my ability to accomplish everything on my own strength yielded God to take me to a level that my dependence was totally on his strength. What lesson am I to take from this and in what way Lord do you want me to use this. I ask for wisdom and discernment on what God's plan for my life is and I ask for strength to endure so that through this I may bring glory to him.

Learning to Live with Lyme...

I never thought I would find myself in this position, in some way we all see ourselves as invincible.....but that all changed for me in May 2009. I had decided not to blog about Lyme because I didn't want lyme to define me.....but as time has passed I find myself reading other lyme patients blogs just to reassure me that someday I'll remember what normal is again. Lyme is such an unforgivable foe.....it affects every organ system of the body and can migrate from one place to another from one hour to the next or from one day to the next. It all began with some mild confusion and what seemed to be panic attacks. I've always been a very emotionally stable person never waivering between good moods and bad moods. I was always happy and always focused on the good in every situation. But I found that I would feel tearful for no reason at all, I would get disoriented to the point that I was afraid that I was loosing my mind. Embarrassed at first by the symptoms.....I didn't tell anyone what was going on. I had recently started a new job and my nurses would come up and talk to me and it was a surreal out of body type of experience as if I was standing aside watching what was going on but not really being able to comprehend what was being asked.....Ohh, I did the best I could at covering up the symptoms, but then I began developing a fever, swollen and very painful joints. I worried about rheumatoid arthritis as the joint pain had affected my toe joints which was very uncommon. Then the dizzy spells began....my commute one way to work was an hour and on many days when I was the opening coordinator I would get up at 3 am to be at the surgery center by 4:30 so that I could get myself together and begin to prepare for the nurses arrival at 5 am. I would have many days that pulling over 4 or 5 times on the way to work to vomit was not uncommon, many days where the center line moved back and forth on the road and I would find myself not knowing if I was in the correct lane or not. As the lyme began to take its toll, I ended up having to resign my position (a job that I loved dearly) as my mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer at the same time. It's hard to help people to understand the face of lyme unless you've experienced a day in it. A lyme patient can change on a dime. Great one moment and useless the next. I've went to bed on more occasions than I care to remember wandering if I would awaken the next day. Then only to be tied up in a political battle over the treatment of lyme. It seems that the CDC has its set of guidelines to treat lyme which entails a month of antibiotics and then they say your cured. I settled for this for about a year. While on the antibiotics life was at least functionable but off.....life was a living breathing hell. Most doctors steer clear of treating lyme because many doctors that treat long term lyme are being sued for doing such by insurance companies. I was sent to see a rheumatologist due to the ongoing joint pain and he immediately says its not lyme its rheumatoid arthritis. I've got the positive lyme results in my hand, know that I've been bit by a tick and know that I've been sick ever since. WHAT part of that do they not understand. I've been told that its just post lyme syndrome and that the symptoms just have to run their course.....easy for them to say when they aren't running daily fevers up to 100.6, living in excruciating joint pain, so dizzy that a drunk could walk a straighter line than I could, heart arrhythmias, nausea, vomiting, migraine type headaches and oh the inability to sleep the one thing you would like to do when you feel so bad. But yet they say this is normal....finally after much research and a God moment I was given a phone number of a lyme specialist that has actually had lyme himself. I have come to learn far more than I ever knew or wanted to know about lyme disease. I want my life back, I want to wake up in the morning and be ready to tackle a full day of work, mowing, landscaping and all the things I love to do...but instead I wake to joints that are froze up and find myself having to soak in epsom salts just to be able to move. I've tried to keep active and walk up and down the driveway.....many a time carrying a phone with me because I wasn't sure if I could make it down the driveway and back without blacking out. Lyme has though given me the ability to slow down and see whats really important in life. I now see how hurried everyone else is and the impatience of people today. I have learned that life is full of uncertainties and that each day that I have a good day is a gift from God. It's my hope that through this writing people can begin to understand the devastating toll that lyme presents and how important it is to prevent this disease. This is the card I've been dealt right now....not the card I asked for but the one that I have been given. Life today is definitely different than what I thought it would be at this time of my life but I'm learning to appreciate even the small gifts in life. Don't make an illness wake you up to the beautiful gifts of life that surround you everyday.

Don't Know How I Got Here...

I don't know how I got here...not in that sense of the word. I know about the birds and bees, momma and daddy and the like...I mean how did I get HERE to my blog site today. I wasn't even trying to get to my blogsite and I must have hit a wrong button and now I find myself here. I don't want to be here today. My mind has seemed so foggy lately that I avoid my blogsite thinking that I don't know what I am supposed to write and are my thoughts clear enough to convey what my heart feels and thinks right now. I don't know if it just fatigue from taking care of a dying parent, the remnants of lyme or is this just me right now. YIKES, hoping its not the latter of the three. I miss work...I know...most of you are saying wow I wish I could have an extended vacation. NO, you really don't. We all get this sense of accomplishment from our jobs, for what we do everyday to make a difference in some way. I'm struggling with that lately. I look around me at a world that seems to go on with everyday life and I want my old energy back, I want my old mind back, I want my old life back. I guess you could say I feel stuck. I feel like the turtle that you stumble across in the timber that is lying upside down on his back wandering first off how he even got in this position to begin with...he didn't ask to be upside down, left on his back with no physical means of turning his now upside down world upright again. He lies there and just watches as the timber scurries with life around him, the squirrels gather their nuts...oh, yeah they notice that he is now upside down but what are they to do....so they scurry on their way continuing what their day was set out to accomplish. A deer passes by and gives the turtle a glance of..."hey...did you notice that your upside down?" NO really, I was just checking out what the sky looks like from my rounded shell of a back!! I had read a book once by Sheila Walsh called "The Heartache That No One Sees." in it she had wrote about the church and how we all march along as one happy band until one of us falls...the others pause for a moment...but soon they continue to march on, without even looking back. How many times have we failed as the church? How many times has one of our very own found himself lying in the timber, upside, with only a rounded shell to hold him up and no way of turning himself back over to march along with the rest of the church. In second Corinthians Paul is writing to the church in Corinth....Paul of all people has spent his fair share of time in the timber lying flat on his back wandering how he got where he was and how would he ever get out of it... there was even a point in Pauls life where he said that he was torn about dying or living. To die would bring life with Christ but in life he would spend his time teaching from his back experiences leading people to Christ and giving eternal life to those that knew no life. Anyway....in second Corinthians Paul is explaining to the church that in this life we will have hardships, we will suffer, we will despair even of life. "Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us" 2 Corinthians 1:9-10. Though my days and many of yours may be like that turtle lying in the woods. God has a plan....and he may very well have let us roll over....stuck on our back just so we'll be forced to take the time to see and focus on His plan.

Happy Mother's Day Mom...

Its so hard to believe a month has passed already...and boy was I sure not thinking that Mother's Day would land on the exact day that mom passed. Guess we both should have had better planning on that part. I haven't blogged in awhile as I am still trying to wrap my hands around these new feelings and emotions that are going on in me. Feelings and emotions that are not familiar to me, that I don't know what to do with. Bill told me the other day that it was kind of like getting married for the first time...a place of emotions and feelings that we had not experienced until after we married and we grew to love and know one another. Or kind of like the first time they lay that new baby in your arms and all these emotions well up inside of you....will I be everything that this little being needs, can I love unconditionally, can I be what all of a sudden is expected of me as..."mom." I've lost alot of people in my life....grandparents and great-grandparents, but this new feeling of letting my mom go has been one that I have found to be such a painful journey. I didn't realize all my mom was too me until she is no longer here...mom, friend, confidant, that ear to hear all that troubles me in life. I find myself listening for the phone to ring only to find that it doesn't ring anymore with mom's voice on the other end. I don't like tears, I like to celebrate the good things of life and to work past those issues that I cannot change in life. So to me these emotions and feelings are something new to work through. I guess time will begin to heal the heart....but I do believe that God created in each of us a special place in our hearts for mom that is never meant to be filled with anything but mom. So this mothers day mom...is going to be rough. But as I continue to work through the emotions of it all...you are never far from my thoughts nor my heart.

Just Sitting Down in the Throne Room of God...

I was overwhelmed today by the presence of God as we celebrated mom's life. I can't help but be overwhelmed by God's presence every time I get a chance to worship. Well very seldom during a funeral do you get a chance to to worship, but much to my pleasant surprise our worship pastor played the new modern version of "It Is Well With My Soul." At first the song just played but then he had the words to the song up on the big screen and the words just started to come out and then as if I was hearing an echo those attending the funeral echoed the words behind me.....everything in me was busting at the seams....I just can't worship sitting down in my chair as if I was casually singing to the King of Kings. I finally couldn't stand it anymore and being in the front of the church I didn't want to draw attention but everything in me couldn't stand it anymore and I had to stand to my feet to worship a God that I am not worthy to SIT in the presence of. I like being in the back of the church. I like praising God knowing its just Him and I and no one is watching. I love my quiet time spent just listening for his voice. I so remember as a child attending church and seeing everyone sitting down singing in a dulldrom choir like monotone voice and at that time that was what I knew of church....but then as an adult I came to KNOW what a relationship was with Christ and just sitting and worshiping the way I had known as a child just didn't seem worthy enough of the most High God. So much in me wants to turn around and YELL to the whole congregation "if you were standing in Heaven right now and you were face to face with God, is this how you would be worshiping." YOU ARE!! Whether your in your car, in your house or standing in church God is before you. Worship with all of your heart. And when I am STANDING in the throne room of God worshiping with everyone else there.....I don't even know if I'll be STAND...I may be the one flat on the floor before my maker.

Redefined Life...

After mom passed Friday we called pastor Tim to let him know of her passing. Tim came out and sat with us until they came to take her away. After the undertaker left Tim took a moment to pray with my dad, Bill and I and something really hit me about his prayer for us he asked God to help us in this time of our life as we "redefine" our lives without mom in them. I had not really thought of that up until that point. I was living the day to day of caring for her needs moment by moment and had not thought of how life will function without her in it. It's taken a few days to reorganize life for dad and I we are still busy with tending to the preparations for family and friends to come and celebrate our lives and their lives that were spent with mom as wife, mother, daughter, grandmother, friend and co-worker. We know that the true realization of moms absence in our life has not really hit us yet....friends and family remind us that it really doesn't hit you for a few weeks after their passing. Moments come where the tears just flow and others are filled with such joy in knowing what her life is like now. I am beginning to see the redifining time. I've already picked up the phone and dialed her number to realize that there would be no answer on the other end. I've thought about future events and how the one person that I couldn't wait to share them with wouldn't be there.....Morgan getting engaged, Morgan's first baby, my life being lyme free, the selling of our business......As dad and I started going through some of her clothes I had this realization of how little value this life holds without salvation and the word of our testimony. What else do we leave behind....a pile of clothes, shoes, purses, make-up all of no value to her now. On her last days what did those things matter to her. What really mattered was that she had peace in knowing her Lord and that she would be spending an eternity in glory....what really mattered was the love that she left behind...what really mattered was nothing of this world. But all of an eternal value. Dad and I are redifining our life.....but one thing that will never have to be redefined is the love that we know of our father and the value of the only thing that really matters in the end....our story, our love, our legacy, and the word of our testimony.

A Life Well Lived and Well Loved.

I have been so blessed to be the daughter of one of the most amazing women I have known. Yesterday as mom was having a very rough time she had just vomited dark bile all over herself, the bed, the pillow and the floor. Dad and I proceeded to clean her up we laid her back down in the bed and I sat down beside her on the bed, as I sat her arm that was draped across her hip fell down in front of me her wedding ring slipped off her now so tiny hands and it fell right into my lap. What makes that story so ironic is that after mom was diagnosed we were driving along and mom said I want you to try my wedding rings on to see if they will need to be altered, they fit perfect......so as the ring feel into my lap and I place it upon my finger and I told her "mom, I have your ring on my finger" she nodded her head yes as if she understood. We all lay there with her as we couldn't detect a B/P and we just knew that her time was coming to a close for mom. I began stroking her now thinly face her cheekbones and jaw bones ever more prominent since she has lost so much weight. As I stroked her face I couldn't help but wonder if on the day that I was born that she was doing the very same thing, thinking about how beautiful to her was this little angel that she held and I lay there thinking the same as I held her. I figured it this way, she held me when I came into this world and I held her on her way out of this world. Mom's legacy of endearing love for her family and friends, her love of nature and her love of the father will live on as we continue where she left off. I will miss you terribly mom and I will have to constantly remind myself of where you are and the days that you are having. I can't imagine anything being more beautiful than the place that you stand right now.......and I know that we all will see you soon. There's not enough thank you's in the world to tell you how much you have made me the woman that I am today. Heaven rejoices mom. We rejoice mom, somedays through the tear, somedays through joy. But today is your day mom. I wish you could give me a glimpse of what your seeing right now.

Who Is Jesus to Me????

Jesus the genie, Jesus the 911 operator....who really is Jesus to me? I cry out in need on my darkest days but how often do I call out his name on my mountain top days. We tend to use Jesus only when we really need him...other days we set him on the shelf to gather the dust of the day. Matthew 16:13-20 In a synopsis Jesus is sitting with his disciples when he point blank asks them "Who do people say that I am"? They answer with "some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." But then he says to them "Who do YOU say that I am"? Simon Peter answered "You are the Christ the Son of the Living God." Only to be denied by Peter shorty after. It's easy for us to sit face to face with Jesus and say you are my all in all but when face to face with a non-believer we quickly forget who Jesus is in our lives. Jesus proceeds to tell Peter that he was blessed because that was not revealed to him by man but by God himself and "that you are Peter and on this rock I build my church and the gates of Hades (hell) will NOT overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Our future was built on that moment in time. God, through Jesus built his church on a single man that he knew would soon betray him. I fail him daily, I fall....but the difference in failing and falling is that in failing I give up in falling I get back up. Who do I say you are.....I say not only are you the son of the living God, you are Holy, you are trustworthy, you are love in its deepest form, you are forgiveness, you are the voice that I hear when I don't think I can get up one more time, you are my strength in these days as I grow weary. You are my God, my reason for living, the hope to which I am called, you are my all in all. Will I fail you....you know I will...but you love me still. You know my heart Lord....search it and see that it is true. YOU ARE LOVE AND LIGHT TO ME.

What Do I Know of Holy....

I heard that song on the radio today and I've heard it time after time....but for some reason today it really hit me.....what do I really know of Holy? I guess its been more on my mind lately with mom preparing to stand before the holy of holies. Mom always had such a beautiful singing voice and I remember as a child standing beside her in church and just gazing up at her as she was singing....I was just in awh of her voice...it was so beautiful. I understand now as a woman myself that her voice may not have been beautiful to anyone else but me, but because she belonged to me and because of my deep love for my mother it was as nothing I had ever heard before. I wonder if that's what God hears when He hears us sing to Him. Does he look at what he created, the son or daughter that he loves so dearly and stand there in awh of the sound of our voices as we worship Him. I had the opportunity to sit in the back of the sanctuary this morning something pastors don't get the opportunity or the joy to do very often.....but as I stood there singing I could hear the echo of voices that sang to the King of Kings, the holy of holies. I got goose bumps as I just absorbed the sound. Of course I have attended this church for years now and I can walk you up and down the rows and tell you of each of the stories of lives that have been transformed by a Holy God. Lives broken by divorce, bankrupcy, infidelity, addictions and even imprisonment. I can't help but feel a smile inside when I see their and my life transformed from surrendering to a higher calling. I sat their this morning and gazed at three of the known addicts that now live a life free of addictions and full of love and adoration for a God that delivered them. All serving God and his purposes now. But yet what do they really know of Holy? What do I really know of Holy? I have never stood face to face with someone so radiant with holiness that my eyes could not even gaze upon them. So when I see God I see only what my small imagination can fathom. I so wish mom could send a note from heaven I'm sure it would say.....My dearest Tim and Tammy....I wish you could see what I am seeing right now. His brilliance is that of the brightest sun yet a hundred times brighter. The train of his robe fills the temple and the sounds of the cherubum singing Holy...Holy....Holy is like nothing you have ever heard. I can't wait to show you all the beauty that surrounds me and the fragrances are so magnificiant the smell of fields of vivid flowers all in various colors...it is all to stunning to tell you about. So what do I know of Holy? Nothing until the day that I stand before the king of kings and Lord or Lords and He shows me.......HOLY!

You Heard My Cry....

God never ceases to amaze me. As mom rallied around last night and this morning I knew her time was drawing to a close. She said this morning that she was afraid to die. God in his infite grace gave me

Psalm 116

I love the Lord for he heard my voice;

he heard my cry for mercy. Because he turned his ear to me, I will call on him as long as I live. THE CORDS OF DEATH ENTANGLED ME, THE ANGUISH OF THE GRAVE CAME UPON ME; I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. THEN, I called on the name of the LORD: "O LORD, save me!" The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. The LORD protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me. Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you. For you, O LORD, have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling, tha I may walk before the LORD in the land of the living. I believed therefore, I said, "I am greatly afflected." And in my dismay I said, "All men are liars." How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD. I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is death of his saints. O LORD, truly I am your servant; I am your servant the son of your maidservant, you have freed me from my chains. I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the LORD. I will fulfill my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD-in your midst, O Jerusalem. PRAISE THE LORD

Notice how the name of the LORD is in all caps numerous times as the Jewish faith believes the true name of the LORD-YAHWEH was to reverent to be spoken. But to me, he is my God, my savior, my LORD, MY YAHWEH. Today Lord we lay mom from our arms to yours may she once again know laughter, joy and the beauty of your face. You are good Lord and worthy to be praised.

Reflection of Glory

We are called to be reflections of God. Our calling is to strive daily to "take up our cross," actually scripture says that if anyone of us is to follow Christ we must deny ourselves and take up our cross DAILY. I guess I forget this part somedays, I like most people get tied up in the daily grind of life and forget sometimes where I even put that cross. And deny myself.....wow....self sacrifice, who would even hear of self sacrifice in a world where the media and everything around us tells us its all about US. What happened to the days where we would open the door for someone coming after us, or when we get up to the checkout allowing the person with the few items to go on ahead of us. Where and when did we throw self sacrifice out the window. How will the people recognize us as Christ Followers if people can't see the fruit that we bear from our tree. I dare to think that God had an ultimate design for the tree of life, it was to impart wisdom and knowledge. We were the ones that chose to abuse what God had intended to be a gift. As Jesus was teaching His disciples He told them that of all the things they had witnessed him do that "WE" would do greater things yet. Greater things yet.......but we see ourselves as "unworthy" to be used so we succumb to an average Christian life when God has already told us "YOU will do even greater things than I" Jesus. Every person that God used in scripture was an average Joe just like you and I. Jesus accomplished HUGE events that changed history through people just like us. My goal is to be a reflection of the image that I see. And what I see when I see the tree is Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self control. And when they look into my reflection may they not see a reflection of me.... but may they see Jesus reflected in me.

Sift Me Lord.....Sift Me

I know that I brought about all that we are going through as a family when I sat out at prayer mountain and I asked God to "Sift Me...sift me, as wheat." I thought at the time I knew what I had just asked God to do. I wanted anything that was not of him to be sifted from me. I wanted to be Holy and righteous in His sight. I wanted His will for my life, I wanted to take the right path and not veer to the right or to the left. But what did I just do......little did I know that my whole world would be turned upside down and shaken so that everything that was not of God could be shaken out of me. I have grown so much in the past year. Through all the difficult times that we have traveled in the past year-I held close to my savior...knowing that without Him all would seem lost. No, I didn't know the path nor did God plan on letting me in on where the path was leading. I just trusted Him when He directed me down the path that He has placed me on. Is it a journey that I would have chosen-absolutely not. But what knowledge, what perseverance, what patience, what hope, what joy I have gained through this journey I would choose all over again. During my time at prayer mountain God was really focusing my attention on two key scriptures. Exodus 23:20 "See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. PAY ATTENTION to Him and LISTEN to what he says and do not rebel against him. It was after this time that I continually ran into scripture after scripture about "paying attention and to listen." My journey is not yet over. God is continually sifting me into what He wants me to become. The process is grueling but what good comes of the wheat until it is sifted into a usable flour. 2 Peter 1:19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain and you will do well to PAY ATTENTION to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. I'm paying close attention these days. Lord, yes I still want you to sift me.....as painful as it may be. I am willing. I am able. Make me into something usable.

Radical Love

After much thought this morning and through the tears that continue to flow I imagined how God's heart must ache for us his children as he watches the pain and sorrow in our life. He tells us that every tear that we cry He holds in his hand. I look at the love we have for our children and our parents and can't even fathom a love greater than that, but His love is abounding it is without word.....unexplainable, unimaginable. This morning as I got mom up off the couch to put her in her wheelchair she wrapped her arms around my neck....we danced for a moment, only really to stretch her legs...but it felt so good, so secure again just holding her. We both began to cry as she laid her head against my chest, I thought this must be what God feels when one of his children weeps and he holds them close and reminds us in Psalm 34:17 "the righteous cry out and I the Lord hear them; I will deliver you from all your troubles. I the Lord am close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in Spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but I the Lord deliver him from them all" I know deliverance will come and this season of life will have its time. Revelation 21: 4 reminds me that, He will wipe every tear away from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. And he reminds us that He is making everything new!! I wander what goes through mom's head as she sleeps, does she dream or are her thoughts still. Does she feel his peace as I know His peace. What will she see as that time approaches will she be surrounded by angels, will the heavenly hosts sing as she makes her way home. Will her past family and friends be there waiting for her. God I know you are so good and I know that your loving arms are surrounding us right now. I feel you Lord. I feel you as a woman feels the warmth and strength of her loving husbands arms as he comes up behind her and encompasses her in the safety of his arms. Lord give my mom that peace. Lord wrap your arms around her, make your presense known to her during this difficult and scary period of her life. We look to you because all other loves are comprehensable but yours is far beyond our comprehension.

Am I Living the Cross of Christ

I wondered today if my life reflects all that Christ gave for me....I wondered if I was living the price that He paid to carry my cross. It was bad enough that He was beaten, broken, spat upon only to drag my cross of sin and shame to the top of that hill only to be hung upon it for something that He didn't even deserve. Where was I? Ahhh....yes, I was standing in the crowd with everyone else watching Him carry their cross as well. The load of that cross upon His shoulders had to be overwhelming for my sin alone let alone the sin of all mankind. Isaiah 53 had told about this man that God would send to carry our inadequacies. 53:11 After the suffering of His soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify MANY and He will BEAR their iniquites." I can't seem to get my small humanly hands around the fact that God would send His son, not just His son BUT HIS ONLY CHILD, only to be mocked, beaten, battered and bruised for me. Which brings my thoughts back to am I living the cross of Christ. Am I making the weight he carried worth the pain he endured for me. Would I lay down my life to complete His will for me. Will I carry the cross for someone that isn't strong enough today to carry the weight of their world on their shoulders, will I walk beside them and encourage them that the weight on their shoulders has already been lifted, Christ already carried it....there is now no need to weigh ourselves down with the weight of a sin that God has already forgiven. What I've really been thinking about is as mom enters her last hours, what can I say about my last years, my last days, my last hour....will it be said that "she glorified God to the very end." That they saw no burden that I carried BECAUSE it wasn't given to me to carry. God said give it to me....and I will make your burden light. I think today I'm going to start living more for the Cross that was carried for me. Ahhh.....I feel the weight already becoming lighter. Will you live for the Cross as well or will you have let Him carry YOUR cross in vain?

Is this your hand reaching for me or I reaching for you....

Through the tears that randomly come now my mind searches the past, the memories we have made with mom....I saw this picture in my mind of this hand reaching down. I'm not sure if its me that He reaches out too... our whether that outreached hand is reaching her way calling her name....beckoning her to come home. I heard this song this weeks that says that "I have unaswered prayers, I have trouble that I wish wasn't there. I have asked a thousand ways that you would take this pain away. I am trying to understand how to walk this weary land. To make straight the paths I find...oh Lord before these feet of mine." When my world is shaking I never leave your hands. When you walked upon the broken earth you healed the lost of hope. I know you hate to see me cry...one day you will set all things right. When my world is shaking, Heaven stands, when my heart is breaking I never leave your hands. Your hands are holding me....they still are holding me. I never leave your hands. I never leave your hands. JJ Heller "Your Hands"
Time flys by as I remember so well being that little girl that she used to guide along in life and now I hold her hand to cross those dangerous streets, when once she walked me to the bathroom I now take her cold, fragile hand in mine as I lead her to the bathroom. I know now why she used to sit and just watch me sleep, as now I sit and watch her sleep and its beauty to me. Lord I don't want to let her go....but I know you are finishing up her new home made especially for her and that everyone that she loved along the way already are awaiting her, my brother or sister that she never got to hold she will soon meet. Her father whom I watched her cry endless tears over as he passed away. Oh I remember the pain of that day for her so much. I remember where she sat and wept and the inability to console that place in her heart that her father held. Soon he will embrace her as will Her heavenly father. What will she see.......will it be a beautiful summer day....oh I think YES, the flowers will bloom with fragrances and colors I can only imagine. Even the trees will sing songs that we could only imagine. So mom.....Fly Away Home....Fly Away Home.....Fly Away Home. That hand is outreached for you, He's ready to take you home whenever you're ready to go. We love you so much mom and nothing will ever change that love. And we will see you soon.....as in Heaven it will seem like minutes to you before we arrive to join you. Fly Away Mom.....Fly Away Home.

Darkness and Light

The world seems so dark today, tears come and go so easily as I watch mom sleeping in her chair. Her body seems so lifeless now and only a shell of what it used to contain. I had this exact picture in my mind as I thought about this blog. We travel through a dark world so full of twists, turns, valleys and mountaintops but without the "Light" how do we really know which way to go. I'm reminded of Moses when God asked him to go to Pharoh and demand that Pharoh let God's people go and Moses saying "Oh Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue....Lord please send someone else." So many times I hear God beckoning for me to do public speaking but I have this innate fear of standing in front of people. All of my life I have been the behind the scenes type of person I love to make things happen.....not just make things happen but make things happen with such passion that the surroundings themselves speak directly to your soul. Approximately a year ago (coincidence...I don't know....but prior to my Lyme diagnosis) I felt God proding me to step out and speak more to women about their passion for not just being a Christian but being a TRUE CHRIST FOLLOWER...not just reading the word but living the word. I guess I kind have felt alot like Jonah in that I ran clear to Tarshesh to avoid speaking in front of people....are you kidding....my palms sweat, my heart beats out of my chest and I just know that I will make a big fool of myself. But yet I keep hearing God say NO-because it won't be you it will be me. Is it coincidence that in the past 10 months since my initial diagnosis that I have heard 3 different sermons on Jonah....what is the deal already.......can't these pastors find any other books of the bible besides Jonah. I'm scared Lord...so much of my security has been or is being taken away from me....my health, then my daughter leaving for college and now my mother. I feel weaker than I have ever felt before...but yet I feel stronger than I have ever known. I mark in my bible alot.....if you would see my bible you would see that it looks more like a road map that's gone astray than a book ordained by a great God. I even write dates in the margins that maybe on that particular day that verse spoke directly to me. In 2006 I marked next to Luke 22:31 "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back strengthen our brothers." I had wrote in my journal and asked God to sift me...to sift us....and to remove anything from us that was not of him. These last few years God has done just that he has taken the darkness and lit the path of light and directed us to go. To not turn to the left. To not turn to the right. But go where He directs. Father give me strength, my mind and my body need healing to lead me on this journey you have lit before me. Where you lead I will follow. I want to be your light in a dark world. Through all my darkest days you are my true light.

Life...In Perfect Balance

I have decided that despite the negative circumstances of my health right now I would try to focus daily on what God wanted to teach me through all of this. Wednesday I found myself admitted to Barnes Jewish Hospital on Thursday I found myself curled up into the fetal position on a hospital bed while someone sticks an awful long needle into my back and this crystal clear fluid poors forth from my body. SOUNDS great huh. I mean the crystal clear part not the needle part. It was from this experience in my life that I learned that God created Life to be in a perfect balance. He created our bodies with just the right amont of heart, the proper amount of lung tissue, just the right size kidneys and oh by the way....a PERFECT BALANCE of cerebral spinal fluid....yeah the pretty crystal clear stuff. Well guess what without a perfect balance of cerebral spinal fluid the meningies that cover your brain sag down onto the brain and it seems as though they have lots of little nerve endings that create an awful excruciating headache when not left in its perfect balance. I have spent the last 2 days lying flat to avoid the seering pain of sitting or standing, along with the deafness in my left ear that also occurs with sitting or standing. But in all this I see it so clearly that is exactly how God wants us to understand HIM. He created us to live in His perfect balance and without him there seems to be just enough imbalance that pain starts to creep in, our lives are transformed from what we knew of them to now trying to figure out how to deal with this new presence of pain in our life.....look at a young 2 or 3 year old they run about with joy, laughter without a care in the world....the balance has not yet been broken in their lives and they know not of the pain that life ahead of them holds. But yet God offers us hope for the pain Matthew 16:20 I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. you will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, BUT I will see you again and WILL rejoice and NO ONE will take away your joy. So for now I continue to seek that perfect balance of God in my life because without him.....I'm finding Life is one HUGE headache.For by letting Christ just seep out of your life in even the smallest ways can cause the most excruciating pain. AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE WE WILL SERVE THE LORD. Even in these dark painful days.

Into the Arms of Jesus

As mom and and I sat on the couch the other night she says to me "will you be with me up until the end." Without hesitation I told her that I would carry her into the threshold of Heaven and leave her in the arms of Jesus. Guess that probably would cover the end part. I only wish I could sneak a glimpse while I'm there. I have always been a very visionary type of person. I was gifted with the ability to see the outcome of a task even before I begin it, so as I read about Heaven I have this picture of streams that are so crystal clear, stones lining the bottom of the creek beds that one could only imagine the colors as we in our own eyes have never seen such radiance. I see streets that glimmer of gold, flowers that are so fragrant that I can't help but just stand there and breath in so deep to never forget the smell. A gentle warm breeze blowing and the leaves of the trees almost applauding with each wisp of wind. I see such a glow that I can't even bear to look up because the brightness is of something I have never before experienced. And oh yes, this cotton white robe that seems to flow mile upon mile as if it never ends. Its whiter than any white I have ever beheld~Isaiah 6:1 "and the train of his robe filled the temple." And we wonder and marvel at the sight of Spring. Wow. How will I even be able to stand there to lay her in his arms. On the other hand mom, I'll fall at the feet of Jesus with you in my arms. But we'll get you there.

Lost in a World that Won't Let Go...

Have you ever felt lost in a world that just won't let go. Having never felt the pressures of dying or facing my own death I can't say that I begin to understand what goes through ones mind, but as I watch my mom and I see how she clings so much to this world that offers us nothing. No hope, no promise of eternal life, no life without pain and suffering....I wonder why it is we cling so strongly to it. Do we cling to the known and fear the unknown, do we doubt what Christ has promised us....Life Eternal and Love that is unconditional have we traded the truth for a lie? God has promised eternal life and life that is far more abundant than anything we could have ever imagined yet we face death with such anxiety. I guess I find myself strange in many ways. I feel such a glimmer of hope inside, such a sense of peace in knowing that one day I will come face to face with my creator....a God that loves me not for the things I've accomplished, not for the beauty he see's as a father but only because he calls me his child. I think of how he must feel if our heart aches for the ones that have left us to go home, how much more does his heart ache for them to return to him, for he held them and cradled them in his arms long before we even imagined a life with them. God grant us peace at this time, give my mother the joy of knowing you are there waiting for her and that you will not let her suffer alone, that you will never leave her side nor will you ever forsake her.

Chosen....Who Me?.... Who You?

God chose a child to come into this world to save us all from sin. He took

the only thing that He knew would make an eternal impact on His people. Something that we all could relate to, the loss of something so precious to us that would forever change our lives. The thought of God chosing me or God chosing you is far from fathomable for us. Who are we that we would deserve such an honor to be chosen by the king of kings to accomplish something great for his Kingdom. As we look through the bible we see so many sinners saved by grace and used by God but yet we see that its possible for them but impossible for us. Jeremiah 1:5 says. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I SET YOU APART (consecrated) I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Why do we fail to see what God has imparted to us and focus on the failure the world continues to tell us we are. God has an eternal plan for us to accomplish. I know I fail to see it daily. I fail to follow it daily. I FAIL to feel worthy of the call. Afraid of failing, afraid of falling, afraid of being persecuted. 1 John 2:20 says "but you have an annointing from the Holy One, and you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. John goes on to say in verse 27 "as for you the annointing you receieved from him remains in you". We are capable because of the annointing he has placed in us not from our human perspective but from divine perspective. Isn't it time for us to step out and be "SET APART', "CONSECRATED" for all that God has set apart for us to accomplish. How different would the bible have read if David didn't follow through as king, or Moses failed to lead the people. Where is the David in you, where has the Moses gone. Its our time now. Our time to stand up and be all that God created us to be. Consecrated for Him.