Today is FULL of Possibility!

I've been up since 5 a.m.  I woke feeling mentally refreshed for the first time in a week.  I have a small headache which feels like it's from muscular fatigue, this is less physical pain than I've started a day with in a week.  Interesting to note that there's no rain in today's forecast.  Hmm.

Anyway.  This week is the first my husband has been returning to his "normal" activities since his symptoms got so bad a year ago that he was asked to stop going in to his volunteer gig.  Yay for our marriage that even after a year of virtual constant companionship with each other, we're still (mostly) happily married.  (No one is ALWAYS happy.  Chuckle.)  We're adjusting: he physically; both of us emotionally.

I decided at the beginning of the week I needed to shift my attention a little from being the warm caregiver to being the organized person who gets stuff done in our house by the deadline when there is one.  It's gone fairly smoothly except that last week we unintentionally added a major commitment to our weekly calendar.  Let me explain.

One of my love languages is to prepare and share meals with people I love.  I realized yesterday I subconsciously learned this by participating in Sunday meals my mom prepared and shared with guests she invited over from church.  Those were times of smiles, hope, and calm in a child's world made hell by an evil stepfather.  I wanted those times to last forever.

I think my sister-in-law claimed Taco Tuesdays because she wanted to see us and we weren't up to going out much anymore, so the party started coming to our house on Tuesdays and we rotated hosting between us, her and our other sister-in-law (widowed) and her boyfriend (recently remarried).  Thursdays were soon claimed by a friend of my husband (his father was my husband's friend first, the son has turned out to be a better man).  I've grown to love this young man and his wife very much.  We've never gone anywhere or done anything but had dinner at our house but I love them to pieces.  I take it back, we've been out to sushi with them once.  They accept me for who I am, in this much humbled state.  I'm blessed.  We also rotate hosting with them.  It's all pretty casual.  If we cancel last minute it's no big deal.  If it's your turn to host, you can invite another couple.  You can serve anything you like, homemade or not.  With dessert or not.  Vegan or not.  It's up to you.

This is how Saturday happened.  Christmas 2018.  Someone knocks on our door.  It's our neighbor, kitty corner to us.  I'm too dizzy to go to the door.  Eddie answers and accepts her homemade goodies.  Summer 2019, I tentatively wave at her and thank her for the goodies.  She talks a mile a minute.  She tells me way too much about herself.  I instinctively like her.  I tell Eddie, he cautions me to go slow.  I tell him that our neighbors told her not to approach us because we might shoot her, we have guns.  She tells me some people in the neighborhood are casing our house hoping to break in and steal our guns.  She stops over another day when Eddie and I are outside together and I introduce them, she talks a mile a minute again, then asks me if we know anyone who's looking for a wife.  I laugh and tell her no, but I'll let her know if it comes up.  Thinking yeah right.  That's what women always want and men never do.  Now Mark had been on the periphery of people I'd met through my husband for a while but he seemed a bit racist and I don't do racism AT ALL, so I was keeping him at a distance.  My husband had allowed him to come by our home but first schooled him on our beliefs and let him know ANY kind of racist language would get him removed from our home.  Mark has been absolutely respectful and I appreciate it.  After my neighbor asked that question, the next time I saw him, it popped into my mind and I asked him, "Are you looking for a wife?"  He said "Yes"!  Long story short.  They decided to meet but then she seemed to get cold feet so we agreed to provide our kitchen table as their neutral, safe setting.  The following day, Saturday, they had their first date at our table and Mark hosted.  I don't know what the future holds for the two of them.  God does.  I'll be content to watch from the sidelines.  They do make a cute couple, if it's God's will.  Lol.

I'm preparing to replace my cell phone which has been broken more than a year and to visit my grandchildren this year.  Both have inspired me to put my electronic photos in the cloud and into albums.  I was looking at photos from a vacation when my youngest was 15 years old.  I hadn't surrendered my life to God yet.  I knew He existed, but I was still trying to please Him on my own.  I didn't understand without Him in control, I couldn't please Him.  Some of them really sadden me because they show my inner struggle so plainly.  I desperately wanted to love the man I was married to and I wanted him to love me.  He didn't.  I was throwing myself at him and he was just confused.  Physically, I was more comfortable being around my child, than my husband.  I was around other adults but I wasn't with them, they didn't know me; I didn't want them to really know me but I really wanted to be seen and known so I did my hair in braids and ran the beach like Bo Derek.  We were in Mexico and they allowed teens to drink.  I was angry with my husband for drinking so much he vomited down the hotel wall while asleep in bed next to me but I took my 15 year old son to a dance club and let him drink mixed drinks and dance with older women while I drank mixed drinks, smoked cigarettes, and watched them drink.  I thought I was being a good mom.  What was I thinking?

Because I thought I didn't need God's daily input into my activities, I made a lot of unnecessary mistakes.  Today I wish I could go back and redo those things, because they have potentially devastating consequences.  You see, a child looks at their parents and they think that's what God looks like.  I thought God was like my step-father.  And if not him, then he must be like my mother.  It took a long time for me to find the God of the Bible and the God that I have EXPERIENCED throughout my life.  He was there all along, I just couldn't see Him for all the lies Satan had me believing.

I cry when I read and consider this verse:

"It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble."  Luke 17:2

Well I know this was me because I know my behaviors and attitudes as a mother make it hard for my sons to have intimate, trusting relationships with God.  All sins are equal, therefore mine are equal to my stepfather's.  If my sins and their consequences grieved my Father, it's okay for them to grieve me too.

This I ask my Heavenly Father:

"Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, LORD, are good."  Psalm 25:7

This is what I was missing:

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths."  Proverbs 3:5-6

This is what I have since I surrendered:

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come." 2 Co 5:17

God wants me to LISTEN to my children and pray over them.

That's all I'm sure of for the moment

The Truth is I Deserve Whatever I Get

I heard myself venting the other morning about how I didn't deserve this (by this I was referring to my current health conditions which include vertigo, nausea, confusion, frequent migraines, and neuropathy).  I was saying I don't deserve this and I stopped mid-sentence.

I realized I was lying.  To myself.  And I'd been lying to myself often.  For nearly 2 years.  And to others.  I'd been angry at God because of my lies.  Ugh!

I'm more often wrong than right!

Thankfully, I'm learning to accept my condition as simply part of being human and imperfect.  I know God loves and accepts me as I am.  He's much more forgiving of me than I am of myself.  I try to treat me the same way I treat others...with grace and God's love.

I didn't treat my body well.  I started stealing cigarettes at 11 and was smoking 3 packs a day by the time I was 18 years old and stationed at Fort Gordon, Georgia in the Army.  I began drinking in high school and loved the way it numbed my emotional pain and made me feel invincible.  I drank heavily.  I blacked out when I drank but continued to do things that I didn't remember the following day and there are periods of time I still can't recall.  It's a little scary.  I'd like to do a genealogy test, but...  I didn't care much for drugs, I didn't care for feeling even less in control than normal.  Marijuana made me feel paranoid.  I guess there was a really extreme period of time where I was suicidal and popping pills without even knowing what they were, it was a shortlived phase.  I had a lot of unsafe sex over the years.  I didn't exercise regularly.  I ate what I wanted.

I'm 55 years old now and I quit smoking just 7 short years ago.  There were times when I smoked, I would think, "If you get cancer, you deserve it" and I believed that.  Well I smoked for decades.  I mistreated my body, the one God gave me for decades.

The truth is I deserve whatever I get.  God saves us but sometimes we have to live through our own consequences.  It will be okay though because God will be beside me whether I deserve it or not.  He loves me whether I brought it on myself or not.

Father God, today I come to you with a grateful heart.  I know I should every day but we both know that's unlikely to happen on this side of heaven.  I'm doing good to recognize good moments in each day.  My heart is overflowing with gratitude today.  I'm so thankful you're so patient with me because I don't learn the heart lessons quickly, never have.  Thank you for the lessons, however painful, you gave Eddie and I this weekend.  Whew!  That was confusing and scary!  I'm sure for both of us.  Deep.  He's a good man.  Thank you for restoring us and creating such a beautiful marriage for us.  Thank you for allowing us to spend so much time with family this weekend.  Eddie and I have both felt disconnected from them but we needed time to ourselves too, so as always your timing is perfect. Thank you for giving me a husband who loves you as much or more than I, who enjoys listening to praise and worship music.  Thank you for providing us with resources for our financial and health needs.  I pray we will continue to seek your will in our everyday lives.  I pray we will continue to submit ourselves to your will.  Thank you for giving me a weird sense of humor that fits perfectly with my husband's.  Thank you for giving us friends who love us as much as we love them.  We love you and thank you for all of your blessings.  You supply all our needs.  You never leave us.  Amen.