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!

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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.