Attention

Friday, March 24, 2023.  I was getting my coffee this morning and saw the mug I gave Jeff at Christmas sitting there; the one with the picture of him with his arm over his mom’s shoulders standing in front of the Sound in the Outer Banks.  I thought how much I miss her hugs.  She gave the best hugs.  She truly was a mom to me.  She filled in all of the places that my mom had left behind when we lost her.  She gave me attention, and I think that’s the greatest gift anyone can give.  It’s what we all crave.  We had such a special relationship.  She made all of us feel that way, but it was true.  She formed a special and unique relationship with each of us.  One that made each of us feel like her favorite.  And I think we all were.  Because she had such a big heart and so much love to give, we could all be favorites.  

As I was thinking about this, it dawned on me that that’s what makes our relationship with Jesus so special.  The attention and the love for each of us that’s unique to our relationship with Him.  Each one of us is His favorite.  Each one of us gets His undivided attention.  Being a Christian means we’re all striving to be more like Him, and though Mom was a flawed human being like the rest of us, when it came to love and attention, she set a high bar.  Thank you, Jesus, for her example in my life.  Help me to keep reaching for that bar.  Amen.  

Paths

Wednesday, November 16, 2022.  Just hours after I wrote my post yesterday, I got a call moving my appointment up to just two weeks away.  God at work in my life again.  It got me thinking of how I got to this point.  I read that with this infection the sooner it’s discovered and treated, the better your chances of limiting lung damage. Mine was discovered through a CT scan of my heart.  The scan was done because an EKG showed that my heartbeat was low-voltage.  My heart was being checked to see if it was the cause of my fatigue.  My heart was perfectly healthy, but they saw the tiny spot on my lung which grew rapidly and brought me to where I am now.  So through a roundabout path God got me early treatment.  And then there’s the path that led us to where we live now which couldn’t be better for us at this point in our lives.  Before we moved to the Outer Banks, I would have never dreamed I’d be living in central North Carolina.  But living at the beach means you vacation somewhere else which is how we discovered this area.  We always thought we wanted a big piece of land and actually bought a lot to build on.  Then we decided we wanted to be mortgage-free so we bought a townhouse and sold the lot.  But after living in the townhouse, we decided we didn’t like sharing walls but we did like the perks of having our outdoor space maintained by a community association.  That led us here.  An individual home with a beautiful park, trees everywhere, and sidewalks for walkability.  There is no way I could have managed getting outdoors as much as I do anywhere other than a neighborhood like this with its level sidewalks that I can use my rollator on.  There is a line from an old Patty Loveless song “I thought I walked a twisted trail till I saw where it led me to, like a moonbeam across the water, I came straight to you”.  Looking back through the years, I can see how God led me here, but the paths in my life would seem twisted if I viewed them without the eyes of my faith.  “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:6 NKJV)  Yes.  He will.  God is the moonbeam across the water, and He will lead you to your best life if you let Him.  Amen.

My Guiding Light

Tuesday, November 15, 2022.  I have a MAC lung infection.  I just read more about it, and I wish I hadn’t.  I was diagnosed in the weeks after the bronchoscopy I had on October 7th, but I couldn’t get an appointment with a pulmonologist who deals with these things till February.  They’re trying to get me in sooner, but part of what’s happening now is they’re trying to find which antibiotics will treat this.  Apparently, there are many strains and it’s quite a long process to nail down which antibiotics will work.  Once they do, I will probably be on two or three antibiotics for up to a year.  The side effects from them can be pretty awful, and I’ll need continual testing to know when the infection is gone.  In the meantime, the infection itself can possibly cause significant lung damage.  Those are among the things I wish I hadn’t read.  How am I going to get through this?  I was getting scared and upset when a line from a prayer I say every day to my guardian angel popped into my head.  “Protect me from every influence of Satan that I may not fall into sin.”  (Of course, it didn’t just pop into my head.  God was comforting me.)  I don’t think worry is a sin, but I do think that it’s Satan’s influence that can steal our joy.  And I’m not going to let that happen.  I don’t know anything for sure yet, and worrying isn’t going to help at all.  Jesus says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34 NIV).  So I’m going to do my best to take each day as it comes and enjoy this time before the treatment starts.  And who knows? Maybe the treatment won’t be that bad.  But even if it is, I’m going to draw my strength and my hope from Jesus.  “…Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5 NKJV)  Praying, talking with Jesus, and drawing comfort from my Bible are the things that will get me through anything.  I might temporarily stumble because I’m human, but I’ll always find my way back with Him as my guiding light.

Grief

Sunday, November 6, 2022.  We’ve all heard that grief comes in waves.  It washes over you, overwhelms you, and then backs off until the next surge.  Eventually, the waves don’t crash over you quite as hard, but like the ocean, grief is always there waiting to drench you again.  What I’ve been thinking about lately is how you move on.  When we lived at the ocean, we used to walk out to see it all the time.  We’d sit and watch, entranced by it.  And it was always a struggle to decide when to walk away.  There was always one more wave that we wanted to wait for.  Obviously, we had to walk away at some point, but we always knew we could come back because the ocean is always there.  Grief is like that.  It’s always there, and it’s so hard to make the decision to walk away from it.  You feel like you’re leaving you’re loved one behind somehow.  But unlike the ocean, you can carry them with you.  The hard part is separating them from the grief; realizing that both can exist but they don’t need to be forever tied together.  I’m certainly no expert, and I know each person grieves in their own way.  But when I was praying about how to move forward after losing Jeff’s mom, God put this image on my heart.  We lost my mom seven years ago yesterday, so I think this week in November will always be a difficult one for us in the years ahead.  I was able to think of my mom without it tearing me apart at some point, and I know we’ll get there with Jeff’s mom, too.  My moms didn’t have the opportunity to know each other too well here on earth, but I’m hoping they’re having a grand time up in heaven.  I know I’ll see them again someday.  In the meantime, I’ll carry them both in my heart as I slowly walk away from those waves.  

Mom

Wednesday, November 2, 2022.  A light in the world went out last night.  Jeff’s mom died, and I’m heartbroken.  We all are.  She asked me to call her Mom when we got married twenty-two years ago, and she’s truly been a mom to me in every sense of the word.  Her death was unexpected.  She had a severe ulcerative colitis attack which then turned into sepsis.  She went into the hospital in the early hours of Friday morning and quickly deteriorated.  She had just called me the day before just to chat.  She hadn’t been feeling well but was doing better that day.  I had no idea it would be my last conversation with her, but I’m so glad I got to tell her I loved her.  She was the heart of the family.  People were everything to her.  When I met Jeff and brought my two kids into the family, she welcomed them as her own grandchildren.  She never made them feel like there was a “step” between them.  She was a gifted pianist and studied at Juilliard.  It was because of her that I found my love of classical music.  We also shared a love of books, jigsaw puzzles, and crafting.  She was always making things to give us.  She excelled at knitting, sewing, cross-stitching… We all have evidence of her love sprinkled throughout our homes.  She was a great cook and baker.  Her pies were legendary; the highlight of Thanksgiving dinner.  And she was always, always there for you offering her support and her friendship.  We’d talk for hours on end when she visited and drink endless cups of tea.  She made the effort to connect so you always knew how much she cared.  I just can’t imagine the world without her in it.  She will be sorely missed.  I love you, Mom.  Rest in peace.  

Galatians 6:9

Sunday, October 30, 2022.  “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”  I saw this verse in one of my devotionals yesterday, and it struck me in a different way than usual.  Always before, I’ve thought of it as far as my actions in the bigger world - being kind to others, standing up for what’s right - that type of thing.  But yesterday I related to it on a more personal level.  I’ve been struggling with weight gain since I began dealing with M.E.  You can’t exercise with this illness or you will make it much worse.  I’ve always tried to eat healthy, but when you are forced to be still so much, the pounds just start gradually creeping up.  My weight had leveled off and I had made my peace with it thinking there’s not much I could do.  But then it started to go up again, and I worried that it wouldn’t stop. I’ve talked about acceptance with consideration to our physical looks, but I also believe you have to do your best for your health.  And I didn’t think it was healthy for my weight gain to go unchecked.  So this time, I decided to focus on my weight loss as a critical need for my physical health.  I’ve read that inflammation can make any chronic illness worse, so I decided to shoot for an anti-inflammatory diet.  When I researched it, I came across a short video clip by Dr. Andrew Weil talking about which foods are the most anti-inflammatory.  In it, he said one short sentence that stuck with me.  “If you want to lose weight, cut out flour and sugar”.  So simple and straightforward.  I knew I could do that.  And guess what?  It worked.  I’ve watched my calories before, but with the sugar and flour, even watching calories wasn’t cutting it for me.  As soon as I took those out, I started to lose weight and feel a little better overall.  Seeing progress always strengthens my resolve, but with the holidays looming, I started thinking about all of the foods that come with them.  Pies at Thanksgiving and cookies at Christmas; I worried that I couldn’t stick with my plan.  Then I saw that verse, and it spoke to me.  It was like God Himself reaching out and saying, “You can do this.”  I will reap the harvest of my efforts if I don’t let myself grow weary and give up.  I am weary in so many ways these days, but I can be strong in this with God’s help.  Yes.  Thank you, Jesus.  

Halloween Memories

Saturday, October 29, 2022.  I loved Halloween when I was a kid, but it was a little different back then.  We carved pumpkins using basic shapes like triangles and circles, and tried to make jagged-looking teeth without cutting one of them off.  (Inevitably, I had to reattach one with a toothpick.) Nowadays, so many of them look like artwork.  Not that that’s a bad thing.  I’m amazed at what people can do, and I love looking at the intricate designs.  But it is different.  My mom used to roast the pumpkins seeds, and I loved them!  I tried doing it for my kids one year, and I never did it again.  It’s hard work separating the seeds from that pumpkin gunk!  I had no idea the effort Mom put in till I tried it myself.  Then there’s the costumes.  If you bought one in a store, it came with a hard plastic mask with an elastic band that went around the back of your head.  There were three problems with those plastic masks: one, that elastic band cut into your ears; two, the condensation created from trying to breathe in them made them all wet inside; and three, no peripheral vision.  Trying to see out of those little eyeholes was definitely a challenge.  The other option was to make one up with stuff around the house.  My favorite costume was when I put a sheet over my head and cut two holes for the eyes.  I have no idea why I was so excited about it - maybe because of Charlie Brown’s Halloween?  I don’t know, but it was simple and fun, and I loved it.  Again, I love seeing the elaborate costumes people wear now, but it definitely takes more effort.  We used to use pillow cases to collect our candy, and we’d get so much that we had to make drop-offs two or three times because they got too heavy to carry.  It was a blast!  I know some people talk about Halloween as “the devil’s holiday”, and that’s sad.  We gave no thought to anything other than having fun, and I think that’s what most people are doing today.  Whether you do Halloween simple or elaborate, if your kids are excited and having fun, then God is there.  I know He was there as I was racing around the neighborhood having the time of my life.