I hate hospitals!
I love my mom sooo much!
Extremely grateful for my dad and my sister here. We are a great diverse team.
Encouraged by my hubbies support for me and love of our boys.
Lifted up by my prayer pillars all over the world.
God help us!
That’s it that’s all!
I am flat on my face humbled.
For a few days now I have been worried about: my mom not eating enough, the potential of her mixing up her plethora of medications and the impending diagnosis of the origin of her cancer.
Today, my mom spent the morning at the hospital because was dehydrated! It was so bad that her kidney function was being compromised.
Didn’t see that one coming!
A simple reminder that I am not in control and that I need to “let go and let God”.
Thank you to my prayer warriors who propped us up this morning. I couldn’t have gone through this without you.
One. Moment. At. A. Time.
I feel that I have a healthy understanding of what my strengths and limitations are. I know that one area I need to work on is learning how to “rest”.
I think the physical posture of rest is important for me to learn. I have endured numbness, tingling and muscular fatigue in my limbs and face for almost four years. I think learning to physically, mentally and emotionally rest is the key to my healing.
Day two in our new house and Sexy Neck modelled “rest” for me well, even with our three boys mulling around.
Hmpppff, we are two months and ten days into a six week renovation project. We bought a “smokers” house. Here and here are the sordid details. It has been a difficult process for me. More of the groaning and moaning here. But nothing compares to the constant not knowing of the “mass” that lays in my mama’s abdomen.
Here’s my mom!
As we have been renovating, we have been living with my parents in their basement. (No we don’t play video games!)
I have been completely baffled watching my mom in pain, on the couch or in her bed.
MY MOM RODE HER BIKE IN SPAIN IN APRIL WITH PEOPLE TRAINING FOR THE TOUR DE FRANCE! MY MOM WAS RIDING 90KMS PER DAY. MY MOM EVEN FELL OFF HER BIKE THREE TIMES! HOW CAN THIS BE HAPPENING? Now my yelling will stop, sorry about that.
Anyways, the ebb and flow of my parents lives has changed into this every day living of “unknowing”. Unknowing of whether my mom will get out of bed or will be able to fall asleep. Not knowing what she will want to eat that day. Unknowing of how to help or not to help depending on what she needs. When to sit beside her and when to step aside.
I am living between two words right now, the one we are trying to create in our new home 60kms down the lake and my life here living with my parents and trying to support my mom and dad through their pain and grief.
Every day though, I have hope. Hope knowing that God does know. Hope knowing that He has placed people around me who can empathize, who really listen and hear what I am trying to convey. I have hope that God wants to prosper us all, not by the words standards, but by His!
Glory to God alone. It’s okay that I don’t know. It is going to be very interesting to see how everything works out.
(This post has been percolating for awhile in my hamster wheel brain and I pray that it conveys the strength of my parents, the shock of this illness and the hope we place in God. )
I remember running in fear to and from the stop sign,
searching, looking for the boogie man.
I remember monsters lurking under my bed and around every
corner and in every closet.
I remember fire, falling and blindness in my dreams,
sometimes I still remember those.
I remember being trapped in a bin, outside the house,
in closets, in darkness.
I remember being shut out, turned from, not listened to,
I ran away alone.
I remember sleepovers I didn’t want to be at,
many I came home from.
I remember feelings of discomfort, judgement, inability to live up to expectations,
oh ya, I still have those.
I remember fearing alcohol, the effect on my body and others.
I remember preaching abstinence from it.
NOW I know in my body the light,
I remember God’s light shining in my basement bedroom in 1995,
I remember God’s love, His acceptance, His peace, His kindness, His grace.
I remember His ways are not my ways. Everything doesn’t have to make sense.
I remember God is who He says He is in the bible, in nature, in wise people around me.
I remember the fragrance of heaven surrounding me.
I remember to trust, let go of performance and to REST.
I remember the FoRest, by the pond where God meets me.
I remember His word is alive and active in ME… yup me.
I remember to swing and to allow God to push me. Swing Joanna!
I remember that I will be healed in 2013. Glory, Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus.
My Favourite Song to end off this post:
My life currently feels like I have been living in a shaker of sand and it has all been turned upside down.
Emotionally things are tenuous as I have always been prone to exaggeration and extreme emotions, just ask Sexy Neck. The greatest thing about your Expectations being spilled out all over the earth you get to see what and who matters in life.
I am blessed with a few supportive and minimally judgmental parents and friends.
I am also blessed with good books to spur me on. The first and foremost for me is the bible, checkout Matthew 6:34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Did you notice that word ‘enough’?
The other two books that are encouraging me right now are “Daring Greatly” and a book by John Bevere. You will have go google the title because I think it is a horrible title and doesn’t justify this great book about offense.
Here is what a read today from page 82.
“God showed my wife, Lisa, five purposes for shaking an object:
1. To bring it closer to it’s foundation.
2. To remove what is dead.
3. To harvest what is ripe.
4. To awaken.
5. To unify or mix together so it can no longer be separated.”
I found these 5 purposes oddly encouraging as I thought about my life and watched my sons playing on the rocks.
(Picture to come!)
Lord, my life feels like I am crawling along the rocks, but I know that You are my rock.
Isn’t this a strange photo today? This symbolizes my life at this particular moment.
Another symbol that I am reminded of is the verse in Luke where the woman had been bleeding for twelve years (I have been living in my current town for 12 years!!!), anyways, she came up behind Jesus and touched his cloak and immediately her bleeding stopped.
I am bleeding with my need to control the future and relive the mistakes of my past! I think things are going to go a certain way, but then “inconvenient” things happen – Sexy Neck tears his Achilles, my son is up all night, another son gets sick, someone says something negative to me and we uproot our entire life to move closer to my husband’s work. (These are just a few ‘recent’ events!)
The photo above was a symbol of my difficulty towards facing inconvenient events and my need to reach for Jesus’s cloak on this very day!
Last night, I put my purse on the brown chair. This morning, I could not find it anywhere. I relived every moment of yesterday trying to figure out if it was lost or stolen. I felt sick and was almost in tears all morning, as my Freitag purse is very sentimental but also contained many valuable things.
I waited til I picked up Sexy Neck from work then shared that I thought I lost my purse. How inconvenient! He simply responded – I think I put it up on a cupboard so that the boys wouldn’t get in it. Checkout the photo. Whew!
I realized that losing my purse was no big deal, but my response sure was! When inconvenient things happen, I need to keep my eyes UP to Jesus who can heal me and help me.
I need to realize that “Inconveniences are opportunities!”
P.S. Did you notice the little white toilet screw cover on the shelf? Our wee baby loves to take them off all and move them all over the house – inconvenient or opportunity?
"Be" ENOUGH 