Elmer and I have been married going on 44 years!! When he was diagnosed for stage 4 prostate cancer 18 months ago, we had a " We got this" attitude. He did traditional treatments and herbal, and dog wormer, and diets. He said from day one he draws the line with Chemo. If it came to that, well he would be done. He was doing so well it seemed and we almost forgot he was sick some days. Then things changed. Cancer found a way to thrive in the face of all we were doing. Only 18 months and my husband is under Hospice care. We don't know how long he has, but we are all trying to make the best of it and in the midst of me "being strong". Me not crying in front of anyone, me keeping busy so I don't have to come face to face with out new reality, I feel lost. I am lost. My flesh has forgotten or maybe turned its back on the truth that God, himself hold me close.
When we give our life to Christ, we are told we are found. We now are in the safe haven of his arms, for eternity. This gives us peace. Hope. And hopefully direction. But sometimes life tosses you about and makes you feel lost in it. This is not our soul which God himself holds close. This is our flesh, forgetting God, himself hold us close.
Elmer and I have been married going on 44 years!! When he was diagnosed for stage 4 prostate cancer 18 months ago, we had a " We got this" attitude. He did traditional treatments and herbal, and dog wormer, and diets. He said from day one he draws the line with Chemo. If it came to that, well he would be done. He was doing so well it seemed and we almost forgot he was sick some days. Then things changed. Cancer found a way to thrive in the face of all we were doing. Only 18 months and my husband is under Hospice care. We don't know how long he has, but we are all trying to make the best of it and in the midst of me "being strong". Me not crying in front of anyone, me keeping busy so I don't have to come face to face with out new reality, I feel lost. I am lost. My flesh has forgotten or maybe turned its back on the truth that God, himself hold me close.
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For the last year I have had to face death every single day! I have stood up to it face to face. Firm in my foundation. Firm in my strength. I will not let it see me shake. I will not allow it to destroy me. And yet, I fear it. I fear what happens after it. I fear what is to become of me!!
My husband of 43 years has cancer. He's stage 4. He's almost 2 years into it after diagnosis. He is declining. He's not afraid. He has peace. He gets to go. I have to stay. How do I stay? Staying is so much harder than dying. Life is harder than death. Yes, he feels the pain, the suffering of the cancer devouring is body. But I feel it too. I have pain watching him die. I have pain seeing him go. I have pain watching our children and grandchildren deal with him dying. I built a shield around me. I cant allow my family and friends see me weak in this. They need me to be strong. But in doing so I feel I have no where to go. No shoulder to cry on. Even though many have offered, I need to be a stone. cold and hard. So I cry alone. My head reminds me I am not alone. God is walking this with me. He has my back. He has my soul, and bottles my tears. I know he will make beauty out of these ashes, but my heart says its not fair! Why? Death of love ones happen everyday. Im no more special than the others who have lost. So I suck it up. I carry on. Keeping busy so not to think. The day will come too soon when I have to face it. I don't have to face it today. “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 3-28-23
There is no better motivation to clean like finding out you have company coming. The Dusty ceiling and cob webs seem to grow before your eyes. The fence needs mending but it isn’t important until the cows get out, then its a rush to fix it. And what about living? Are we living well? Are we accomplishing things we hope to, need to? Touching lives in a positive way? Making sure our love ones know they are loved and important. Do the people God brings before us feel HIs presence in us? What if you were told you were terminal? You have limited time? Would that change how you view your life? Your relationships? What you want or need to accomplish before you go? Well Im here to remind us, we are all Terminal . We all have limited time. This body will die and our time on Earth will come to an end. What are you going to do before it does? Our world today has many heart breaking moments, many scary trials, fear, disease, illnesses, hate and indifference . And when we stop living fully, we are allowing the thief to take our breath from us. Get out there!! LIVE!! There is so much beauty , so much love and so much worth still out there. FIND IT, embrace it, grow it. By Living we defeat the enemy. By living we are making sure those we leave behind, have hope and encouragement to LIVE too. Joy does not depend on life circumstances. It depends on our internal hope in Christ. We can be in the middle of the storm and still have joy! God gave us a gift when he sent his son. He freed us from our sins, he opened heaven gates to us!! That alone is reason enough to have joy…to live. To live well!!! The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly . John 10:10 NAS Is church just church? Or does it mean more? Is Scripture just words you read, or do they speak to you? Is worship just fun songs to sing or are they a cry up to the Father? Is your Christian walk shallow? Or can people feel Christ is near when you are near? Are you living a deep relationship with our Father or are you lost? So many times I feel I live in the shallow end and lost my way to the deep end. God is calling his children..COME. Trust me to keep you from drowning. Trust me with your pain, trust me with your fear, trust me. He only has good for us! Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 Today I was reading in Nehemiah 13. He had to do some reforming there where the people have fallen short of what they were taught. They new better but did not do better. We have all been there. I found myself in Gods presence reminding me of my short comings. My failings. I felt like he was reminding me that I needed to fully get engulfed in his word. I admit I have fallen short, Pretending everything is good, everything is as it should be. But its shallow. A shallow relationship is not an important relationship and I had made my relationship with God shallow. I pray. I say I love Him. I call on him but I have failed to truly wrap myself in his presence. The last few years have been a struggle. As with many of us, life can push us away from God instead of toward him. This morning he gave me a visual of how my relationship with him is. Im standing on the ocean shore. The waves are coming in and I allow them to bathe my feet. I bend and splash some water, getting sprinkled from the burst of the waves. He shows me this is how my relationship with him is. A whole ocean to bath fully in, to become drenched in his love and I am standing on the shore. Yes its peaceful, safe...but my soul feels sad. There is a longing I don't understand. It makes me feel like my heart will burst. I close my eyes and take a deep breath...God is calling me, wants me to jump in..let the waves bathe me fully. We can continue to live each day as if we have a deep relationship with God and satisfied with the waves bathing our feet, or we can jump in. Allow the waves to take us deeper in his love. So many times I have been here. Realizing my relationship is wavering. Im so so thankful God offers grace. Like the ocean waves, we can count on him to break the shore without fail. Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10 Working through hard stuff is, well hard. But when it's important, we do the work. With fatigue it can take me 3 days to finish a project, sometimes longer. I get frustrated because in my head I can get it done quick but in reality, my body does not keep up. When we deal with family drama, it's no different. We have to do the hard work and sometimes we just feel like we have no energy left. But family is worth the hard work. Church can become a place we have to go, instead of a place we long to be. Our relationship with Christ becomes labored and difficult. We run out of energy and drive. But this relationship is the most important and it deserves work. We will get out of the things we put the most into. Do you put enough into your relationship with God? He's worth the work. And tapping into that source of strength and power and healing and energy helps in all areas of our life! Blessings!
Isaiah 40:31 - But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. "Get your head in the game."
This quote we hear often from coaches and even parents scolding a child, popped in my head today during my walk. I don't have energy every day to walk, but try to go as often as I can. I know building muscle is key to my continual healing. But today I could have easily turned around and gone home sooner. I just wasn't feeling it lol. But Those words came into my head and would not leave! "Get your head in the game!" It's easy to allow your thoughts to pull you away from what you know is the right thing to do. Our thought direct our decisions, our paths. What ever your battle, get your head in the game! Focus on the "I can" " I got this" "I'm empowered" Because the moment you take your head out of the game, it's game over. Push yourself past the voices in your head that are telling you lies. Our mind is a powerful tool! Put it in the right hands!! Gods hands! “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8-9 The Estate Sale
While looking through a post made by our local auction house, I was reminded of a story that was told to me by an antique store owner. We were visiting about a few items she had in her store and she said she purchased those items from a lady prior to the estate sale she was going to have on behalf of her mother. She goes on to share that this lady called her up and asked if she would like to come walk through her mother’s house and see if there was anything she wanted to buy before the Estate people came to take inventory. So, she went. She said as she walked through this women’s home, now deceased, she felt a hollowness. As she touched the tops of dressers, picked up the old hair brush and mirror set, as she noticed how the women’s robe was where it must have been every morning after she dressed, she said a lump grew in her throat and as the tears began to run down her face, she realized one day, someone will be rummaging through her stuff, touching her brush set, picking her life bit by bit and putting a price to it. She said she been doing this type buying for years for her store and it never hit her so deeply as it did this time. Perhaps because she herself was reaching that age. This women’s life was reduced to an estate sale. While we all will leave behind “stuff” for our family to deal with, it is the things unseen that is more important to deal with before we leave this earth. Letting go of “things” can be freeing! Lighten the load now, enjoy the simplicity of less, and while you decrease the pile of saved “things” in the closet, think about what you have saved in your heart. Think of things you hold onto that weigh you down now. What prevents you from living fully now? Painful memories and gut-wrenching disappointments and fears. Dealing with these now and LIVING a good life, leaves memories for your family to cherish. If we filter our living through our fears and disappointments, this will touch our family. One day our life will be reduced to an estate sale but our memories we leave will live on through our family. Make those the true treasure. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6:19-21 Life certainly offers us many challenges. A lesson I am having to learn, yet again, is letting things go. I really thought I was pretty good at it, but my body says otherwise.
What I got good at is hiding things inward so deep I didn't even know they were affecting me. They were not the big things we deal, but the little accumulative things. The worry and feeling of no control. The frustrations of things going a different direction you hoped. Kids growing up, making lives for themselves. Me growing older, a shoulder break slowing me down, and with everyone moving on, my todo list grows. What I didn't realize is me worrying and fretting over all these things was making me sick. It started with a patch on my back that burned like fire. There was no rash or sores or swelling. Was not long before I had several areas that burned. My back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, front of both my thighs, my left arm and several tiny spots here and there that came and went. My skin felt like sandpaper over a severe burn every time something touched the area. Fear set in that something bad was happening. Besides the skin pain, I suffered from joint and bone pain, fatigue , heart palpitations, chest pressure and depression. Im not a cryer. As a matter of fact thats one reason I got sick, I never let things out. I kept things stuffed in. But smalls things bring me to tears now! I thought I was letting things go but I was wrong. It got to the point where I can not do more than a few minutes of work. Walking to the barn and back was exhausting. I feared my life was forever changed and I would not be able to run my farm. Then I read an article. It was about skin pain and anxiety. I was surprised. I would have never thought my current physical condition was caused by stress or anxiety. But as I read the article, it fit like a glove!! Everything they said was true of me. I laughter out loud and even cried some. What a relief!! I can fix that! All the other possibilities were going to be life changing, so this was good news for me. I learned very quickly that this was not something I can fix by myself. Knowing what is wrong does not fix what is wrong. It takes work and time and lots of ups and downs but mostly it takes deepening my relationship with God. Renewing that personal relationship where I share everything with him. It's telling those close to me what is happening, and talking about things that need to change. It's about peeling that onion back on layer at a time, even if it makes you cry. One day at a time my health and my spirit will be restored. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Psalm 51: 10-12 |
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