Pondering

Two mornings in a row I've woken up at exactly 4:52 a.m. Both mornings pain has woken me up.

You see, I was rear-ended in my car two weeks ago tomorrow . . . and even though my car wasn't damaged much, my body has taken a toll.

My chiropractor said I was 'askew'. My neck and back have hurt in ways I would have never imagined...and if that wasn't enough...

My right wrist has begun to 'tingle.' There's a certain way I can move it that causes a pain to shoot down through my fingers and up through my shoulder. It causes me to tear up and stop everything, stand in one place and say "ow" very loud all by myself.

My doctor says it's a 3 word something. We're using some kind of sonor treatment that puts deep heating down into the very nerve fiber of the area...and then I sit like a little old lady with an ice pack on it in the evenings....

But these last two mornings, the annoying pain has woke me up...

and it's so quiet outside. All I hear is the humming of my refrigerator...but other than that it's so quiet.

Slowly as it closes into 6 a.m. I can hear people stirring...the mother and daughter who live below me start their morning slamming doors and anything else they can slam. I believe they live with a lot of frustration... if anyone has ever been to my condo they know just how hard these women shut their front door.... it shakes my whole condo.

They like to check to see if the paper has come...at 5:45 a.m., 5:50 a.m., 5:55 a.m. until it usually comes around 6:30 a.m. The paper has arrived at 6:30 a.m. for the past four years...they don't seem to know that...I don't understand why they don't.

Then I think how alone I am. No, I'm not lonely...I'm just alone. Sometimes I am so happy that I can be at my leisure...but sometimes I wish someone else was here to hear me say 'ow'.

I cannot believe that in two weeks my baby will be 30 years old. I remember when I was 30 and my mom was 54...she seemed so old to me. I wonder how old I seem to my daughter (and even my two sons!)
I don't feel 54 in my mind. I shudder to think in about 13 years I'll be "retirement" age, and I haven't succeeded to made a mark ... I haven't had my 15 minutes of fame for helping someone, for being a good citizen, for making a difference in my part of the world... and yet...
All three of my children know Christ. That in itself is something I should proclaim from the mountaintops.
When my children were young, I remember them thinking I was "one of those crazy, zealous Christians." I remember one evening taking each one of them separately into my bedroom and anointing them and giving them to God. I had olive oil and my NASB Bible that is still so dear to me---and I prayed.
In my Bible on May 15, 1988 I wrote "My children's anointing" at
Hebrews 12:12-15 "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."
I prayed that my children would have godly wives and husband. I prayed that they would make wise choices and I prayed that they would never ever forget the prayers that their mother sent up each night for them.

"God sustain the roots that my children have been raised with...remind them Who they belong to. Give them wisdom to make the right decisions and remind them how safe they are in your everlasting arms. Help my children to stand firm in what they know about You. Help them to seek Your face dear God as they make life decisions. In Jesus' name I ask, Amen."

Some of my prayers have been answered... some of my prayers have been repeated over and over as satan dealt his vicious blows when my children were weak. Some of my prayers were reminding God what I prayed for so many years ago when I wept over my children's precious heads.

Today, I read about God's amazing grace in Joel 2:25-27, "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm —my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the LORD your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed."

I trusted God with the hearts, minds and bodies to my children then and now I pray the same prayer for my grandchildren. I adore God's choice for my godly son... a wife who is strong in the Lord...and my grandchildren are being raised by a daddy and momma who depend on God.

I cannot wait to see what God will do with the unanswered prayers that are still out there. I wait with 'tiptoes of expectancy'.

My Favorite Time

It's 12:45 a.m. . . yes that's 45 minutes past midnight. This is not my favorite time. I should be sleeping, but that's sporatic for me. One night a great night of no movements, just sleep...then the next night, lying in bed feeling every twitch of muscles, feeling and hearing my heartbeat and wondering why my body is so busy and noisy.

I was in a car wreck last Friday. As I approached the cars in front of me, realizing they were all getting out of the way of each other, I did the same. As I stopped I leaned forward turned my head and part of my body to the right to try to get into the right hand lane to avoid the apparent 'pile up' and then WHAM my car is hit... I feel my car go up in the air and then back down again and I'm thinking CRAP. That was not my favorite time.

At work about an hour after the accident, my head starts hurting. My neck is aching and I'm thinking 'oh no I think I'm hurt.'

I call my chiropractor Dr. David Arpin, he is able to see me that afternoon. We do all types of tests to make sure my head is still attached to my body and I don't have breakage, and then he does what he does best and relieves the pain by pushing, shoving and adjusting .. then electrical stimulation to my neck and back muscles to help the healing process. This is not my favorite time.

After several calls to the other's insurance company, I'm finally getting my car looked at on Saturday. The agent doesn't know the name of the business and he doesn't have a phone number, but he told me the address on Patton Avenue...and who in their right mind wants to travel down Patton at any time of the day. Not me. But I'll go and it won't be my favorite time.

Then the agent wants to meet with me to discuss 'closing' the physical aspect of this claim. And I'm thinking the way my body feels right now, I'm a far cry from closing any thing. And that won't be my favorite time either. I am really hurting and I'm not quite ready to let someone dismiss my pain just so an insurance company can keep their money so the top execs can go on a round the world cruise.

I'll try to go to bed in a little while...just took a pain pill hoping it will take the edge off this uncomfortable ache from the top of my head to the middle of my back... and this is not my favorite time.

My alarm will go off at exactly 6:11 a.m. this morning, and I would be wakened up from a drug induced sleep, not wanting to get up...but knowing I have to. The coffee maker will start brewing my coffee at exactly 6:12 a.m., which will entice me to get out of bed. I'll get my clothes that I'll wear to work, slide myself into a nice warm shower... dry off, get dressed, pour my coffee, 2 spoonfuls of Xylitol, about as much cream as coffee, a glass of orange juice, my calcium and multivitamins slide down my throat. I pour my Chex cereal into a bowl pour the hormone free 1% milk on top and sit at my table.... and read God's word. What does He want to tell me in just 5 short hours from now? What will I glean from His wondrous words? What will I begin to ponder the rest of the day?

The crunching of the cereal is gone. I sit for just a moment and just be quiet. Teach me God, show me Lord, help me to hear You.

This is my favorite time of the day.

changes are changing

There are so many thoughts jumbled in my head lately. The biggest thought is that I can't seem to get organized at home. I have boxes all over my living room where I've packed stuff from the guest room so I could paint it...over 2 months ago. Still haven't finished painting the ceiling.

I have boxes of stuff I brought home from my mother's storage shed (now, why would my mother pack rolls of paper towels?) Everything is in disarray in my living room.

I have rolls of calendars that my mother kept journals on (from 1971 and up.) I'm trying to get everything into the computer so I can make a "diary" of sorts for my siblings along with a scrapbook of pictures that I also brought home with me.

I love order. (My daughter used to make fun of me when I'd go to the grocery store...my grocery cart was always so organized.)

And yet...everything is so out of order in my life and I can't begin to put things in place. My mind is going in too many directions and I can't seem to complete a task.

In 1996 I remember the last 6 months very well. I prepared to sell my big house that I had raised my kids in--painting, cleaning the yard, cleaning carpets, wallpapering...

...my son went to live with his grandparents (Oh please...he was 21) and my daughter graduated and two days later my oldest son got married then just a few months later the house sold I bought my two youngest children and myself cars...

and then my father died. I know he was 82 years old... but he went so suddenly we didn't have time to prepare.

And my apartment got messy. I couldn't find a place for anything. Everything bothered me and I felt so unsettled.

I think I'm at that same crossroads again. I'm unsettled. Trying to get my condo ready to put on the market is taking longer than I ever wanted. I can't seem to get anything done and I'm just downright tired...

The only constant in life is change... I welcome change... I just wish I could organize my life a little better while it changes.

Diary of a Blessed Woman

Coffee has brewed and I'm drinking my first cup. Sitting at my daughter's house, early on Monday morning October 13, 2008 I have been pondering.

Life happens in slow motion so quickly. Do you know what I mean? Seems time stands still, then it's time for bed and we wonder "Where did it go?"

Just trying to relive these last three weeks is a blur...yet it seems like it's lasted for years. Driving quickly down to Shreveport the last of September. Looking at a shell of a woman who was my mother...seeing the pain in her eyes. (Just a side-bar here... my mom should be the "poster-child" for every woman who doesn't take calcium to keep her bones strong. My mother's bones deterioated through mis-use. She refused to take care of herself. She ended up with osteoporosis... and was in so much pain, just turning her head caused her to wince.)

My mother was also in so much pain through no fault of her own. She had three types of arthritis...as if osteoporosis wasn't enough...she had psorio-arthritis, rhuemtoid arthritis and osteo arthritis. These last few years she has lived have been years of constant, chronic, never ending pain.

The last time I saw her alive, the pain was etched in every pore of her face. I wanted to pick her up, take her out of the nursing home and care for her so she'd quit hurting. I wanted to scream at the nurses, LPN's and the other people coming in and out of her room, "Can't you see she is in pain...please give her something for her pain!"

I got the call this past Tuesday evening. My mom had died. My first thought was a Job thought... The Lord gives, the Lord takes away...blessed be the name of the Lord. My second thought was, my mom is no longer in pain...she is resting. I knew that my mother was now in God's hands and I could quit worrying about her....I could now quit being angry at her care-takers for the lack of sympathy I perceived.

I saw my mom on Friday, October 10. She had a stern look on her face....but not one of pain...a look of determination...the look I grew up with. My mom was a task-master. She was hard on her two daughters, cleaning, scrubbing...dressing a certain way...acting a certain way... but she was so much harder on herself. She expected perfection from herself...knowing she would never achieve it (which made her more determined than ever to be perfect)... she was so very hard on herself, she became miserable.

She never thought she was good enough. She never thought she was pretty enough, she never thought she was nice enough...her house was never clean enough, her speech was never proper enough....she never thought she was enough. When her children failed, she believed it was her fault... when the paperboy didn't bring the paper, it was her fault. When people talked among themselves in her presence she knew they were making fun of the way she looked, the way she dressed, the way she talked....and she became harder on herself.

She expected perfection...she never achieved it in her own eyes. To my mother, she was a failure.

And even though she never felt that she achieved that perfection in her life, I think her children reminded her often that she achieved something that most mothers can only hope for.

Her four children...warts and all...were Kingdom Kids. Her four children loved the Lord. Her four children had nine children of their own, who loved the Lord. She had three great grandchildren who are being raised to love the Lord.

Isn't that what really matters?

My mother was a blessed woman...and I think at this moment...for the first time in her eternal life, she is getting to see that her life and her death were not in vain. I think now, this moment she is kneeling at the feet of Jesus.... The crown she wears has 4 large jewels on it---and eventually there will be hundreds of jewels...for generations to come...and that's enough. Those four large jewels are the souls of her children...who will continue living the rich heritage of something our mom did right.

The gift will keep on giving.... my mom was blessed beyond measure. And we, her children will think on these things . . .