Coming Clean

It is something I have been thinking about for awhile. I'm taking Breaking Free with Beth Moore right now. She said last night the the enemy likes nothing more than to make us feel alone in our bondage. While I was taking Esther with her, she encouraged us to be willing to share less than perfect parts of ourselves to encourage others. Since then I have been thinking of how to “tell the world” as it were what I have gone through and that I came through on the other side.

It has been a rough couple of years. There were struggles in my extended family. My father went through a period when his health was very grave. I had a couple of health issues of my own. Some very dear friends of ours moved out of state. Our nephew who lived with us for so long also moved out of state. And the crowning touch was the loss of our church community. We had gone to the same church for 20 years. God had been encouraging us to move on for awhile. We had one last thing we were hanging on to at the church. When that thing was taken away, we knew it was time to go. Unfortunately, that left us without the weekly support of long time friends to get us through the rest of what was going on in our lives. It was hard.

It started slowly. So much so that I didn't realize what was happening until I was fully in its grips. "It" was anxiety. It took me by surprise because I have always leaned more towards depression than anxiety. The physical symptoms became quite pronounced: palpitations, racing heart beat, shortness of breath, pains in my chest, trouble sleeping. The emotional symptoms were just as bad. It mostly took the form of fear. I didn't want to be alone. I knew I was going to just drop dead. I was acutely aware of every bad thing I did to my body. I lost some weight, but that was about the only good thing going on. I was a mess.

I turned to my Bible and prayer. I felt most in control of myself when I was actively seeking God. Unfortunately, my life doesn't allow me to spend hours on end in prayer. I finally broke down and called my doctor. He was understanding and prescribed me an anti-anxiety medication. While it didn't completely take the fears away, it calmed me down enough that I could focus on getting better.

I studied and prayed when I could and things got progressively better. I hated being on the meds and weaned myself off after about 6 months. I need to say that it wasn't because the medication was affecting me negatively in any way. I would never have known I was even on it except that I didn't feel like I was coming out of my skin. I just didn't like the idea of taking a medication of any kind. I even hate to take ibuprofen.

I wish I could say that was the end of it, but it wasn't. I was better to be sure, but I wasn't free from all anxiety.

The turning point came this fall when I went up to the front of church and asked for prayer. I told the pastor what I was struggling with and he prayed for me. I think this was significant because it was the first time I had told anyone outside of a very tight inner circle what I had been dealing with. I think there is victory in asking for help and trusting God and others with our weaknesses. He prayed and said some things that clicked with me. Right then and there the physical symptoms went away. I had a really good week. I went back for a second dose of prayer the next week. I just wanted to make sure. You can't have too much grace.

Since then I have been OK. That is not to say that the temptation isn't still there to go into that way of thinking. I have to work to keep my thoughts on the right track. I have to stay in the Word. I have to be in touch with God during the day. I work to keep the bad out, but it is working. I know what I have to look out for.

So what happened? How did a nice girl like me who loves and tries to serve God get in such a mess? I think I just let my guard down. I felt troubled by what was going on around me. Things were piling up and piling up and I wasn't drawing any closer to God for some extra help. I was allowing empty spaces in my heart and head and Satan was all too happy to fill that empty space. He filled it with fear and doubt and fear and, oh yeah, fear.

And you know what? I bet almost anyone I met anywhere never had a clue what was going on in my head. I have pride issues. I know I do. Forgive me, but I am a work in progress. The thought that anyone knew that I took medication to keep from going out of my mind was humiliating to me. I don't like to admit that I am weak at times and just need some help.

So I say all of this so you will know you are not alone. You are not the only one who has ever felt this way. Yes, you. I know you want us to think you have it all together and praise God if you do. But are you just pretending to have it all together because what would people think? Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think you are just like me. It may not be anxiety, but you have issues! You love God, but you are human and weak and need Him and others. I know that is true of me. And I'm not afraid to say it. OK, I'm a little afraid, but I am learning to deal with that.

Pride. The next frontier.

Explain This To Me

Help me out with this. For the first time in my life, I don't look as good as I think I do. Work with me here.

All of my life I have been reasonably unhappy with my looks. Now, don't get me wrong. I know I'm an attractive woman. Even in high school I knew I had something to work with. But I was never happy with what the results were. I was always too heavy or my hair was just wrong or this or that, but it was always something. I just couldn't quite be happy with what I saw in the mirror. I guess I'm just a product of my environment. We should all sue Vogue.

Anyway, I have always approached a mirror with a healthy dose of trepidation. I knew I wasn't going to like what I saw, I just did the best I could. There wasn't disappointment really, just an acceptance that I would never quite reach my expectations.

The difference now is that I go to the mirror with a different attitude. Now I go to the mirror expecting the best. I feel pretty good about myself and oddly, my reflection is not keeping up its end of the bargain. Every time I catch a look at myself I'm always shocked. I mean, I know I look way better than that. Surely my skin is not quite as affected by gravity as it appears. I know my hair looks better than that. I wrote the check for it! What is the deal?

I wish my emotional maturity or whatever it is that makes me feel the way I do was just a little more realistic and could keep pace with my actual looks. Why can't a 19-year-old be happy in her skin and a 45-year-old accept the fact that she is beautiful even though the earth has been pulling on her all that time?

I don't want to overstate my point here. Really, I'm OK with it all and have never been overly obsessed with my appearance, but when I'm walking by a mirror in a store and I see myself and think, "I really thought I was cuter than that!", it makes me wonder what is up with me.

Bloggy Giveaways

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting another Bloggy Giveaway. You should go check it out.

On the Road to Recovery

Things are looking up. I am now back on my own computer. It has precious little on it, but I am slowly rebuilding. If you haven't e-mailed me yet, I encourage you to do so. I don't have much of an address book at this point.

I am giving Open Office a try. Are you familiar with it? It is an alternative to Microsoft Office. You can find out about it at OpenOffice.org. It is not exactly like Word, but very close. It is also free. If anyone has any experiences, good or bad, with it, please let me know. So far I have only made a few charts and school worksheets with it. So far so good.

I hope to be up and running here again soon. I have missed visiting with you all through the blog. It has been an odd new year. Wouldn't you agree?

All is Lost

It appears that my computer not only crashed, but crashed thoroughly. Almost everything that was there is now gone. Certainly the most recent things. Some older stuff is fine.

I am now in the process of mourning my losses and rebuilding. There are still efforts to retrieve that which appears gone forever, but my hopes are not too high.

If you know me and wish for me to be able to contact you, would you please send me an e-mail. I need to also rebuild my address book for my e-mail account.

I am so not looking forward to remaking all the charts and worksheets for school. I have lost more than a few pictures, I'm sure. I have to refind all of my internet bookmarks. The list is endless. *sigh* It is a bother.

Let me hear from you.

It's not me, it's the computer

While not 100%, I am doing much better.

As for my computer, well, something is terribly wrong. It looks as though I am on forced hiatus until we figure out if all is lost. *sigh* Computers. They are one of the world's greatest inventions when they work. When they don't, there are few things that cause more stress and frustration.

I Am NOT Sick!

I just wanted you to know. I'm really not. I did not wake up with a stiff neck or a swollen throat. It's not scratchy or anything like that.

I don't have a headache or a low fever. Sure, I've taken a few (handfuls) ibuprofen, but so what. Lots of people do that everyday. I just want to be like everyone else.

And I certainly don't have the chills. For heavens sake, it is 60-something degrees out today. There is no reason I would need to hold up in my room with a space heater and shiver all day.

There is no way I am sick. I take all the vitamins. I take A, the B's, a LOT of C, some D, and E. With all of the other vitamins I take I'm sure I'm getting the rest of the alphabet. You can't take such good care of yourself and still get sick, so I'm not sick.

So there. I just wanted you know. I'm not sick. Really. I'm not. Really.

The Burden of Responsibility

My baby girl is takes everything very seriously. She is tenderhearted and very sensitive. And now she is burdened.

She has a pet dog named Princess. Princess is a lab mix. She really doesn't require that much attention, but she is ever present.

For Christmas, Missy got a Nintendo DS. One of the games she got with it was one of the Nintendogs games. If you are not familiar with it, you are truly missing out on a marvel of technology. It is essentially a collection of the cutest little virtual pets you have ever seen. The dogs are darling. You train them, clean them, feed them, walk them, dress them up in bows and hats and, yes, even lion's manes. She currently has 6 dogs on the game in her care.

She also got a stuffed animal that has an on-line life. It is an ePet. I haven't paid much attention to this one, but she seems to have fun with it.

Yesterday she was lamenting the fact that she has to take care of Princess, all the dogs on the DS, and she "hasn't visited her ePet in so long it is probably starving to death!" With school and chores, she is having a tough time keeping all of her plates spinning.

My poor child. Sort of. I have to smile. I hope she is learning some lessons now while most of her plates are virtual and no one will really starve to death if she ignores them. It is a new age and our lessons come in new forms. She is not the first person to think she can do it all and find out that she can't. Maybe she will learn early on to decide what is most important and focus on that. Maybe.

Right now she is in her room - alone - playing with her dolls and stuffed animals with nary a cord in sight. Maybe she already knows a few things.

I Need A Shower

"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you." - Hosea 10:12


I just ran across this verse. I think I have a lot of unplowed ground. I need to get busy because I really need the LORD to come and I need Him to shower righteousness on me.

You?

June 2-7, 1994

I know it is January. But it is the birth month of a friend of mine who died in 1994. I have been thinking of her lately, so I thought I would share with you one of the pieces I wrote during the last days of her life. She had AIDS at a time when it was a new and scary disease. Few women had it. Few people lived long once diagnosed. She lived an unheard of almost 8 years. She was a very special woman. Her name was Joanne, but most people called her Jody.

**********

Day two? Or is it three? Long hours in closed spaces make it hard to keep track. The air is still.

Every room I enter has a noise. There is no silence. Even the quiet, empty rooms produce a low humming or soft rushing of what could be air, could be water. It is hard to tell. This hospital, this machine, this somehow living organism never rests or sleeps.

The keepers of this floor are patient and kind. The gentle but firm voice comes over the PA to announce that it is 9 o'clock and visiting hours are over. Those of us keeping vigil don't even blink. The nurses know we wouldn't leave even if they asked. I almost think they enjoy the company as much as we need to be here.

Everyone on this floor either has AIDS or loves someone who does. It is a strange club. I rather think there are similar clubs going on in cancer wards on other floors. The thought is a morbid comfort. We are not alone in our grief.

There are, sadly, several groups of us who seem to live here on this floor. Around the clock, day or night, there is always someone here. We are the ones waiting as the final stages of this new and deadly disease are played out on our loved ones. We wait. We tell stories and compare notes. We laugh and do puzzles and share big boxes of donuts. We cry.

The next morning one set of the vigilant is missing. We all know why. We wonder how they are doing and how the rest of their lives will be led. We wonder if we are next. Again, we cry.

We question the nurses and their choice to be here. How can one maintain any sense of hope while spending their days fighting a foe that always wins? Curiously, they find joy. Their joy is in the help they offer those who suffer. Their hope is seeing loved ones, such as ourselves, support and continue to love those whom society has deemed less than human, frightening, and undeserving of so many of life’s simple pleasures. These are truly angels of mercy. It takes a special person to live with the dying and not give into despair.

Finally, it is our turn to leave. We pack what all we have accumulated over the past days, what our loved one brought to this place. We redistribute flowers to others whose time has not yet come. We leave the last box of donuts for those who will follow our path. Again, we cry.

Final good-byes and thank you's to the staff are perhaps the most heartfelt and the most awkward. What do you say to someone who has watched you and helped you through five of the most profoundly sad and emotional days of your life, yet who you will probably never see again? Walking down the hall, into the elevator, and through the front door into the first fresh air in days is hard. You know you are entering a world that you no longer share with your loved one. You are leaving behind a place where everyone knows how you feel and heading into a world where people will say, “Oh, she died of AIDS? I didn’t know.” Then you know they are secretly questioning their relationship to you.

I am proud to say my friend died of AIDS. Although she did die, I believe she conquered the disease. In her dying, she found a zest for life that I see in few healthy people. She once told me she had become addicted to life.

These few days have been hard. Some of the toughest of my life. Despite all of the pain, I feel privileged to have been witness to the extraordinary passage of an extraordinary soul. The coming together of different people with different lives but a common love has been nothing short of amazing. I think it is quite beautiful and a testament to the life of my friend that people with very little prior knowledge of each other can support and love each other through such a difficult time.

My new life without my old friend will be different to be sure. Her presence will stay with me and the gifts she gave me will help me with the rest of my life. We will all miss her, but we will go on without her. She would be very upset with us if we didn’t.

We will probably visit another hospital before our days are through. We may even be patients. Yet there will never be an experience exactly like this one. Never a group so hastily assembled for such a sad occasion. Never so many lives touched in quite the same way. There will, however, be similar attending angels and loving friends, similar bonds formed. And there will be puzzles and donuts, laughter and tears.

We escaped to the 100 acre wood over the weekend. After a crazy week and a few too many cold days in a row, it was delightful to get away from the world and enjoy some warm weather. It was incredibly windy so Bambi didn't cooperate with our culinary plans for the year, but we had a great time just the same.

Boys and dogs headed out to go fish.


We girls went along, too, but we didn't look quite as cute.

There were tractor driving lessons.


Bubba found an enormous piece of petrified wood.


We visited with the neighbors.



Doesn't this guy look a little like a bear?



We watched the sun set over the pond.


We did a lot of walking in the woods. We don't have any animals but wildlife on the property. Occasionally the neighbors have been known to break through the fence and hang out on the place until they are found or missed. Since the property is heavily wooded, it is not the safest place for a cow. We recently had a small herd living on the property. Their owner finally came and got them. Well, most of them.


Do I feel a song coming on? (Private joke for dead cow lovers.)

Hope your fist weekend of the New Year was as fun and adventurous as ours was.

I'll Be Back Soon....

Provided someone digs me out!

If you ever wondered what $450.0+ worth of ribbon looked like after Christmas, see above. Well, that is actually just the first run. And one more run to the storage facility and we will call it good.


Have you ever seen such a thing? I hope to be back to real life here any minute. Boy, do I have some things for show and tell.