JESUS

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, LORD. Son of a carpenter, Child who loved his mom and honored her - grown man , son of God, sent to die for our sins and free us in his holy name. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, LORD.

Please put Christ in Christmas!

He couldn't possibly love us anymore. Think of how much you love your child - as every parent knows, nothing compares to the unconditional depth of love we have for each little one given to us to bless our lives. God, in his love your you and me, as simple as we are, in a sinful state so often, took the son He loved more than anything else and offered him to death on the cross for our sins that we might be free from the law and become filled with Christ's spirit. All our sins were paid for, sll the horrible thoughts we've had, all the disgusting things we've done. He felt the pain for each and every one of them. How then is it so easy for us to take his name out of the holiday to celebrate his birth. He is our savior - He SAVED US! Please let him know how much you appreciate what he has done. Make an attempt to put Christ back in Christmas this year. When you smile and offer seasons greetings, let his spirit speak through you to the other person and allow them to feel the love only Christ has for them. Turn seasons greetings into Merry Christmas this year and celebrate as never before. Our redeemer lives!!! I love you Lord!!

To love as God loves

I want to love. Some people aspire to be the greatest artist in the world, or an NFL star, or the best accountaint in the world. My passion - I want to love. I want to love like Jesus loves. He sees the heart and hears the pain and touches the area with his Love. If only I could reach out to the aching hearts, the fearful of the world, the children who are so confused by the ever increasing evil that our society perverts them with, touch their spirits with your love Lord. Please don't let another wounded soldier die. If you csn use me to show the soul your love than please let me be an instrument of your peace. Many have told me that I need to learn to detach myself from others pain. It is not good for me - I feel others pain and if I am experiencing it myself. Fight it as I may - there continues this drive in me to heal the broken hearted. I know so well the pain of aloneness, the fear that Satan can fill our minds with.---- I know the battle. That's exactly what it is. -- a battle--- between good and evil. The lies that we're feed, the perversion that is imposed on us by t.v. and theinternet - all so appealing, so beautiful on the surface ----- so destructive, so evil, leading to spiritual death in reality. With one touch from you Lord, the spirit rises. You can erase the evil- you can calm the screaming spirit. Your love changes it all. Please, please, please let us all feel that love and fight the good fight against whatever battle might come our way. We are more than conquererers through Christ. And me - I just want to believe, as much as I don't want to hurt and feel the intense pain of others, I so desire to touch those aching spirits and give them respite from the pain. So contradictory- so overwhelminingly complicated and painful at times, and yet the most freeing, absolute thing in this whole creation - Your love. Let the touch of my hand calm the heart of the sick, the lonely, the devasted, the fearful, Your children, Lord. Let me speak words of comfort of truth of you - lead those in bondage to the open, bright fields where your love resides. Nothing left so say - just this desire to reach out and give your people hope --- the need in myown life to be constantly lifted up by your grace and comforted and loved as a little child running to her father and receiving a secure embrace. You are my God - you are the essence of my being. Make my path clear, help me to do your will -not mine. Erase this constant grieving in my spirit for those who don't know you and can't access your grace if I'm stepping out on my own. Please - I sincerely do not want to speak without it being in your will. Lead me Lord - show me your will. Help me to love like you if that be your choice to me and allow me to be effective in showing that love to those who need you. Amen and amen!!!

And Again the Rain Falls

I am alone!!! God reaches out to me but I find it so hard to feel his presence, his love. I FEEL alone!!! The pain is unbearable. How does ones life come to this discord? I wake every day praying to live my day for my Savior. That's the desire of my heart - to love like Jesus did!!! To even comprehend the depth of such a desire is overwhelming. To be more like you, Lord. Yet no one sees you in me. My own accuse me of incomprehensible things to me. If I can't even imagine such actions, how do they then come to the conclusion that I am involved in some scheme - some evil attempt to hurt those I love so dearly. And then to bring Jimmy into it and acccuse him, a totally innocent loving man, will nothing but good intentions towards anyone, to be devising evil and purposely hurting those who mean the world to him. I'm confused, hurt, alone. There is no one to address. The are all so close minded and lost in their self-centeredness that they really don't see the chaos and pain they are causing. So, I'll choose to live this day. I don't know how but I know God is bigger than all of this and He will somehow bring peace into my heart. I feel so deceived- so used- so totally alienated from those just a few weeks ago I trusted implicity. They have no love for me and they have no integrity. I can say this in all honesty - I have never chosen and will never puposely choose to hurt anyone or anything. My heart desires so much to help , to love, to fill that space left in each of us from our losses, our defeats. I see a major split on the horizon - lost holidays, angry words, slander. Why am I the one always to be judged so strenly. I need to sleep. My mind is spinning, my heart aches I can find little meaning to my exisence. I really need you, Jesus. Straighten out my heart, deal with my attitude, and pleae, please, let me find those in my life who can and will honestly love me. You have put Jimmy into my life to show me your love for me. Thank you so much for him, Lord. He is such a good husband, kind and loving father, adoring grandfather. He chose these things in his life - it was not jus a matter of life making it that way. How wonderful to be chosen to be loved. For someone to conciously choose to speak kindly to you, to walk with you through the valley of death, to offer you love genuinely from the heart of God. So now I'll rest, try to escape what torments me. My fear - that when I awaken it will still be here. Each of us desires that love in our life - I need it to survive. Restore it in me OH Lordl.

Please love your neighbor as yourself! A command for us to try and follow. How much more than should we love our familiies. Seek the good everyone. Focus on showing them God's love through you,

All has been said . Exhaustiion has set in. Lord, David and Cheryl, Lorraine Fryer, the Bailey Family, Betty and Bob, the women in the study group. All need you , your love , your peace. Help us all Lord and control these things beyond our control. Please save my family!!!

What a difference a day (or two) can make

It's Tuesday, Phillies are playing, and I"m sitting here with Jimmy and my pups and stIll I feel so very alone - that old feeling that is so familiar to me that I fight constantly to gain peace in my life. Lies all day. My head is swarming from them. They start at a moment when I am weakest - when my emotions are high due to circumstances around me. I just learned a dear friend's child is coming to the end stages of her cancer. A little child. My heart is breaking at the mere thought of her in pain and the emotional injustice her family is and will continue to suffer. Then something happens in my life - someone lets me down, falls short, all things that are familiar to the human race , but given the timing, seem magnified to an unimaginable point ------ and the pain begins. The feeling that no one loves me, that I am alone, that they are tired of me, sick of my illness. It seems so reasonable in the midst of the storm. Why would they make plans to go somewhere this weekend without thinking of me? After all, I haven't spent any quality time with them for weeks. They're always busy. But I love you is always the response to any questioning. If you don't want to be with me, you don't love me. Saying a word is so easy - living it is something else. My soul pines for the reality of God's love for me. I've been striving and studying and praying - trying to forgive the past and move on - trust when I am told I am loved. Lord you say to look to you. I am trying so hard - my insides ache from the turmoil when these types of situations come about. I see the evil that passes through my mind and catch it as it tries to convince me to lie, over react, anything just to get their attention. Not only is that deceitful, it takes me further from my Father , who actually has the love for me that I so badly need to feel evidence of. So here I sit, not quite so thankful and filled with joy as when I last wrote. I need Jesus. I cannot do this alone!! Fighting this self-hate is way beyond what I can withstand. The pain is unbearable and leads to evil and destructive thoughts. As I write this, I feel a release of some of the pain - the ability to release it into the universe and to have it dissolve in the expansive universe where it can't hurt another innocent human, who , was abanoned, neglected, unloved. Help me to grow Lord. Let these time become less and less. I choose to believe that you will do this in my life - that is what gives me the will to continue. My battle is tiring - I need to rest in you. I find myself asking for some amazing evidence of your love when, I repentently remember what you have done for me. Lord, you died for me - for these very moments when I fall out of grace, when I get lost in my own thoughts, when my mind loses focus on you. I hope to look back on this in the near future and see that I have grown more secure in your Love and the love of others. That seems so distant - when I reach this level the aloneness seems so unbearably real. It's merely by faith that I move on. Bless me Lord. See the faith that you have given me and increase it so I can glorify you. I'm so tired now - I need to rest. My mind is weary, my body weak. I weap Lord. Be with me now as I try to enter rest. Give your beloved sleep.

Football Sunday

So we're all sitting here getting ready for the 1:00 Eagles vs. 49ers game. All the excitement around me - amazing how really involved my men get involved in these games. It's serious business for them - like they're there playing the game themselves. I have to admit, I do enjoy watching a good game and I really love the atmosphere in the house game time. It's family - people you love getting together just to live life. Such an amazing gift from God - our loved ones. Whenever the day gets too long or a situation seems to be taking away your calm, think on the ones you love and what joy it brings to you to have them in your life. Next summer we're hoping to rent a house in the Poconos to hold all five of the kids with spouses and all the grand kids. Every time I think about it I get so excited inside - like a little kid at Cristmas. The thought of us all being together can actually distract me from negative thinking that trys so hard to work its way into my life. I want to thank God for giving me these people in my life - they are my joy (and that includes my pups). Today is Football Sunday and I am so thankful!!!!!!!

F R E E D O M

Dorney Park today for two of my grandchildren. Boy, did they have fun. I'd have to say they actually looked exhausted by the time they got home from the park around 7:00. Now Buzzy and CJ have a long ride to Elizabethtown - I pray they go safely. Today was a little rough on me. The girls had asked me to go with them to Dorney and at first, I looked on my calendar, which was filled, but thought, " heh, you only live once. I wanna see them have fun.", so I set about to make all necessary changes to my calendar. Then that sweet calm voice spoke so gently to me, reminding me that running around an amusement park for 12+ hours could be a real catastrophe should the right circumstances come into play. There it is again - facing reality, dealing with truth. I am a 60 year old woman who has been fighting cancer for almost 8 years now and it has taken its toll on my body, my emotions, my energy level, my life. I realized how selfish I was being by pressing the issue that I go along with them. They are young, full of life - like a fawn in the early morning leaping out into the open meadown. Let them enjoy the day at their pace, overextending themselves, getting slightly sunburned, becoming exhausted physically and mentally. They loved it ----- and so did I, from right here at home. They sent me some pictures while they were there and stopped at our house as soon as they came home. I know I was with them in every way that really matters even though I didn't make a presence. I love those boys so incredibly much - enough to actually let them go and enjoy life without me hovering over them. Was it hard - yes., I have definite seperation anxiety issues and have a sense of panice when I can't be there, in control, making sure that strap is on right, checking their heighth carefully insuring they are adequate size for the rides they choose. So today I grew, and I loved in a more mature, God-like way. We all made it - we're all safe and most importantly, we still all love each other very much. Not being present didn't change their love for me at all. WOW - for me that is a wow. Maybe I can really come to a place of believing that I can be loved just because I am. I pray so - in that lies the freedom God speaks of. Now I'm tired - but of course I can't sleep yet until I know Buzzy and CJ got home ok. Then - my head will hit the pillow with a fury. Thank you for today, Lord. Thank you for teaching me, loving me, loving my family and for dying for me. You, Jesus, are amazing!!!

AND THE RAIN COMES

And when it comes, it bring a refreshing newness to the earth, a type of cleansing, alowin the spirit to feel free again, ready for the next day of sunshine. I wish our minds could just be washed clean. All the bad thoughts , fears, horrors of the past - gone with one intense session of rain. To have our minds be refreshed like that would certainly be a gift as rain is a gift to the begging earth. As I settle in for the evening, I smell the freshness of the cleaned and well fed grass, a feeling in the air of newness but now with growing closenss. But my mind remains the same - begging for refreshing,newness, achance to start it all over again, this time knowing the rights and wrongs. Instead of instant refreshing, I pray and God brings me to the place where he can imprint on burdened soul the newness of today and the love that He has for me. Confusing, yes. Reality, yes. Our thoughts, emotions, direct our moods, attitudes. God needs to be putin full control and He will bring that refreshing rain. He promised!

?

Do you see how beautiful the sky is, fluffy white marshmellow clouds that I know would be a delight to sit on and just sail through the universe. I could hang my legs over the edge and just lay back and gaze into eternity. I love the clouds and I plan to spend much time on them when my journey on earth is through. I've had this love since I was young, - God knows all about it- so I'm sure that's where I"ll be spending much of my eternity.


AND now to just imagine that peacefullness, that total joy and sense of true freedom as I sit here in the quiet, puppies by my side, snuggled close making sure they get every drop of love available from me. They are such a blessing. My little comrades. As frustrating as some of their behaviors can be, the love they give is so unconditional, so like the love God has for us. I'm sure there will be all my puppies on the cloud with me at some point in time. Can't imagine anything greater than being on a cloud in the center of all the beloved dogs from my lifetime.

Rest is coming my way- I feel the heaviness in my eyelids. Pups are dreaming and snugled close. Time for a nap. Hope all are having a great day. Take a moment and check out the beautiful, marshmellowy clouds - they just may bless your day, too.

Wallpapering

I love making my house a home. Those little touches that show who we are, what we believe, what we love!!!! Before I was diagnosed I got my license for interior designer. I was so excited - the world was out there just waiting for me. I wanted to take what people had in their homes and turn it into a new haven for them. No elaborate cost or expenditures,-- But when I started feeling so weak and tired and then I found THE LUMP on my neck, my desires and motivations were put on hold. At that time I was redoing rooms in our own home. It's an old farm house, partly 1700's, partly l800's. One room at a time was my agenda and I had finally finished the downstairs and was ready for our bedroom. I had it all planned out, a little different from what most would choose, but appealing and comfortable for Jimmy and myself. I bought the wallpaper, paste, paint, new paint brushes and trays. So excited ----- and then the diagnosis and my world turned into fulltime cancer fighting. That was 7 l/2 years ago and today I AM IN REMISSION. AND also today I am going to finish wallpapering our bedroom, which has sat there craving attention and love, its lack of attention pointing all the time to the fact that cancer was trying with everything it had to control our lives. I see now how really my life was focused around cancer and though I fought tooth and nail, I was giving it way too much power. It diverted me from the things I loved, it took my identity, which I am still in search of, and left me smiling on the outside but in fear and pain inside. NO MORE!!! One day at time I am finding the new me that has evolved. I am finding peace and I am finding time TODAY to wallpaper my bedroom. As strange as it sounds, this is really a day of celebration!!! We can actually sense it in our home. Thank you for today, Lord and for bringing me to this place. I haven't enjoyed the journey many times and I may struggle again, but today, I KNOW that I CAN and I WILL.

My Heart, Lord.

My heart, Lord. It's so heavy with all the pain and suffering around me. It drowns out my endeavors to see the good. Little children starving and going unloved - never having a chance to know the reality of arms around their little bodies reassuring them of a future that for them is dismal at the best. How sad my heart is - neighbor fighting neighbor because a hedge is growing on the wrong side of the property line. Sickness, cancer, aids, arthritis, - we are blinded to the goodness of You by all the horror of the world and the evil that man exhibits to man. Help me to be your instrument of peace, Lord - where there is pain, help me to give peace through You. Allow me to carress that child whose heart is filled with pain. Give me the love to love the unloveable.

Another Day

How for granted we take each and every day. I awaken in the morning, thoughts of the chores for the day, the people I'll encounter, the things that need to be settled and how I'll accomplish all that run through my mind before I've even had time for that first cup of coffee. I am trying to learn to change my pattern of thinking and to force my first thoughts in the morning to thankfullness. Thanfullness that I awakened to a new and beautiful day, filled with chances to love and be loved. Another chance to see the glory of God and the creation He has given us to glory in. Today allows me to tell my husband, kids, friends that I love them so much and also gives me a chance to meet someone new who I can offer my friendship and understanding to. It's not really as easy as it sounds. Habits run deep. It's like a river that runs the same way every day and eventually, over time, digs a deep entrenchment into the ground beneath it. The water follows that path day after day, the flow causing the entrenchment to grow deeper and deeper. Imagine trying to change the flow of that stream of water after such a long period of time. The same holds true with our minds. Given that every day for the last 60 years I have awakened to the same basic thoughts, allowing my mind to become negative, overwhelmed, and my senses to be filled with anxiety, my new pattern seems awkward and sensually very uneasy. I fight my own mind to try and think positively, realizing that my Creator is in control and that I really don't have anything to fear. All these years I've had to fight through the day trying to come to that conclusion, my own thoughts being my enemy. Now I realize my enemy and know I can win this battle. Each day is new and exciting. All things truely do turn to good for those who believe and I WILL learn to change the path my thoughts try to take to destroy me and cause me to remain in a state of fear and anxiety. God is on my side - I know that again. For some time , though I know his footprints were surely right beside mine, I've felt so very alone and abandoned. I'm getting it now, Lord. I will be the Victor because you were first. My mind belongs to you and only you. I feel such an excitement inside knowing that, even though I am growing old and so much of my life has been lived with this negative influence, fearful always of loss and in terror at every change in my life, I am a new creation TODAY and my mind is renewed. Tomorrow morning is an exciting prospect - to direct my mind to you and your glory and the positive, exciting, wonderful things that are sure to happen. The entrenchment in my mind will lessen with every day and very quickly there will be a new river flowing, a new entrenchement in my thought patterns to know the truth and the goodness of life lived knowing You. Lord, you are amazing and I love you for walking with me through this dark time that has been trying to envelope me. I'm done for now - ready to move on to other chores , knowing I have declared what I needed to state as fact. Tonight will be great- Jimmy, the pups and me watching a movie or whatever. Looks like there might be a shower - we really need the rain. In the morning I will rise and see your face, eliminate all negative lies, and rest in your arms and see the truth. My future is so bright!!!!

The still small voice

The still small voice - that's God. The whispering in back of my mind, encouraging me to move forward, to know He is in control and will win all battles. He has been with me through this weak time and even as I feel so desolate and defeated, something inside, the spirit that belongs to my God, refuses to let me quit. I get brief glimpses of life beyond cancer. These seven years have been a battle zone - now the war is no longer being waged but my ragged body is begging for mercy. By His grace I will move on. My mind is and will become clearer and clearer as the days pass. I need to rely on drugs to continue on in this world and that in itself, for some reason, terrifies me. To think that should I stop my prescriptions I would go through some terrible withdrawal, only to end with severe pain again. So - I continue to swallow the pills that I hate. Now I need something to keep me calmed down - I am an out of control emotionally without it. Isthis my future? I want to be me again - changed but in a place that I can accept myself. I started therapy in an attempt to reach that goal. Cancer never has and never will defeat me - not even with the trickery it is using now. I have God in my corner and I WILL BE WHOLE! That is my declaration of the day, week, year!!!! I am like an egg hatching, stretching out my arms for the first time and looking at the world. Lord,help to heal the memories of sickness and unbelievable distress that plague me and hold me back from moving ahead with joy. Give me that freedom the fledgling has to open my wings and fly with no fear. Be with me now and those I love and grant all of us peace. Thank you for today - thank you for the drugs that I hate so much - they are helping me and bringing me to a new place of comfort. I'll find me again with your help. Amen and amen.

Goodbye

Angie passed today. Please let me know somehow that you are safe now, no more pain, no more fear, complete peace. Let me know that what we desire so much to believe is really true - that heaven is our final place of refuge. Angie, please be comforted now and never suffer again.

So it's Friday ------

And I'm just writing cause I think maybe it will make me feel better. I need to clarify - I am so much better in every aspect than I was a few days ago when I felt completely at the end of everything, yet I have this lingering, nagging fear - what if that anxiety comes again. Are you gonna get addicted to the drugs you're taking? OR---are some of the drugs you're taking making you more filled with anxiety. Lord, please turn off my mind. I have EVERYTHING in the world to be happy for and yet I sit here and can't seem to enjoy anything. Seriously, what is wrong with me? I get moments of peacefullness, brief glimpses of joy and then a darkness seems to try to envelope me. Help me Lord!!This is the enemy trying again to destroy. I am bigger than the battle. I am a child of God and I will be lifted up. I WILL!!! I must rest now. - give my tired body time to recouperate before my next appointment. It's my first day back at the job and I'm getting through it but the battle continues. When I get up tomorrow morning and get ready to work, things will be even better than today - less anxiety, not pit in the stomach. One day at a time - I must remind myself. God help me to remember you are the Victor and that ALL things turn to goood for those who believe. Not some things, ALL!!!!!!Even this seemingly horrible time in my life will, by HIs grace, turn now to good.

Sometimes we reach these places - places we had no idea we were even traveling to. I have had tremendous emotional and physical stress extended to my mind and body over the past 2 years. I've felt the fear, worry , terror, and most importantly, the loss of faith in my God, build up to a point that is now intolerable. Were it not for the fact of synthetic drugs to reduce the stress level, I certainly would not be writing this today but rather cowering on the couch in morbid terror, hopeless, seeing no reason for life, nor a reason why I have even traveled this earth. It's amazing what stress can do to our perception and how extremely devastatingly real it is at the time. I've been challenging so many things about my faith in the last year - I feel the fear building as I even think on this. It sends that sick feeling into my bowels and for a moment paralyzes me to feel anything positive. Yet now, in His faithfulness, as I have virtually hit bottom emotionally, spirtually and physically, my God has once again shown his face and one day at atime is raising me out of the pit of Hell. I'm still not dressed - in my pajamas as the world moves about outside my window. I want to be a part of it, but a happy, positive part of it. This negative attitude that has been creeping up on me is no longer acceptable. Death has paralyzed me with fear. Why - I lost, and am still struggling with, what the value of life really is. When didthis all happen? Where did the assured mature, or so at least "I" thought, woman go? I am like a new child just finding my God again. I need His guidance, I need to him to be in control and for Him to lead me on second at a time. The sun is shining today after many days of morbid dreariness. Thank you Lord for the sun!! As always it helps us to see goodness and light. I need to rest now, my mind and heart feel again tired and little tormented, I need to reach out to my Savior and again find my peace. I am believing that I will fully and completely come out of this dark time and move completely into the light in a fuller and more fullfilling way than I have ever known. I needed to find this pit in order to climb my way out. Again, there goes that sick, gut-wrenching feeling. Much less today than yesteday. Less tomorrow than today. Soon - freedom. My next issue will be the drugs I am needing to use to calm myself down. I am so uncertain and afraid of drugs. Dependencey - here we go again, another stress issue. For now , let me rest. My pups are lying beside me quiet and resting. The sun continues to shine in the my livingroom window. I want to focus on a Christian based fm station but feel uncomfortable with that at the moment so will just watch Let's Make a Deal. Mindless but evolves no emotion. My fear and anxiety are set off so easily by the most seeminingly meaningless thing. More will be revealed day by day. I trust my God for that. Now I'll rest. Talk to you soon.,