Be a cucumber

Do you see the cucumber vine, reaching out? 

A tiny little curl, stretching, with faith that it will find something to hold on to as it grows. 

That is us my friends. 

That is the choice we have to make. 

Stretch, with faith. 

Reach out, choosing to “cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us”. 

1 Peter 5:7, paraphrased

Be a cucumber. 

I am re-reading, for the third time now, Practicing His Presence. It is a compilation of the works of two different missionaries, from two different times. Frank Laubach, from the 1930’s and Brother Lawrence, from 1692. 

When I read it the first time, over 20 years ago, it seemed striking. I was young and in college. Ready to change the world. I was going to commit every moment to Jesus. I was going to avoid every distraction. I was ready to practice the presence of God.

When I read it the second time, about 10 years ago it was a beautiful, gentle reminder. I had toddlers and time was hectic, so the reminder to give every second to my Savior was needed. 

This time it was striking in a completely different way. 

Why did I need the reminder? How had I forgotten to give every second to a Him? What was wrong with my walk!! 

And then, in my angst filled guilt trip, my Savior reminded me that He feels the cucumber vine. 

When I reach out, He notices. 

Every single tiny reach.

When I am washing the dishes and lifting up requests, He hears. 

When the music is going as I fold the laundry, He is hearing my praise. 

When the meds are more than I can take and an afternoon nap is needed, yet again, as I pray myself to sleep He is hearing that too.

This is the side of my fridge. 

Every time I turn around, every time I walk by, someone on it gets a prayer. 

Add yourself. Send a picture.

It looks full, but I will find a place for you. 

I think that perhaps my favorite quote of the book, in all of it’s simplicity is this- 

“This is the best way to act: talk a great deal to the Lord.” Frank Laubach 

Be a cucumber.

Reach out.

Talk a great deal. 

Take the time to listen as well. 

This is a gentle reminder to commit every moment, and to remember that “every moment” includes the busy ones and the boring ones, the beautiful ones and the ugly ones. Please, spend some time in focused prayer, on your knees before God. But don’t forget to talk to Him as you dig in the garden, or paint the living room, or cook, or knit or clean up spilled milk or break up yet another fight. 

Talk to God. 

Be blessed my friends.

Know that you are prayed for. 

Squashed joy?

Yesterday I sent this picture to my mom and sisters, talking about that tiny little squash peeking out, and the joy of the new life of spring. 

Today I feel like the poor little pepper plant that you can barely see being squished by the squash plant in the far left of the picture. 

 My epilepsy is being difficult.

I am tired. 

I forget to support my men when I am tired, and that makes me feel bad about myself. 

So much depends on perspective. 

So much depends on attitude. 

So very much is a choice. 

I will preach that over and over. 

Rejoice in the Lord, always. 

Even when you don’t feel particularly rejoice-full.

Even when perhaps you feel slightly squashed. 

The enemy of our Savior does not like it when we are joyful, so I am fairly confident it annoys him when we share it. 

So share that joy, even when you are feeling slightly squashed.

Rejoice in the Lord, always! 

Again I will say, REJOICE! 

Where the focus lies

 I read an interesting blog from someone else talking about chronic illness, saying that perhaps this Coronavirus is giving those without sickness a view of what life is like for us, those who are fighting to stay alive. 

 The daily not knowing.

 The “realness” of life.

 I don’t think Coronavirus has affected me much, emotionally. Fear, and the fight against it, is a daily thing for me. I have been fighting against diseases that want to kill me for my whole life. I have packed my husband up and sent him off to jump out of planes and be prepared to not come home for nearly 20 years. Covid 19 truly hasn’t been anything. 

No, the past has prepared me for fighting already. 

 I wrote this following paragraph, a quick jotting down of my feelings in the notes section of my phone, in October of last year in the middle of a really bad blood sugar day. It isn’t the first time I have felt it, and I doubt it will be the last.

 I am tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of trying. When someone has cancer they are allowed to just quit. It is almost seen as admirable and honorable. I am not allowed to just stop taking meds and let the disease finish it’s run. Diabetes and epilepsy are both ones you are supposed to beat. Or at least fight. What if I don’t want to? What about when I am tired of fighting, just to stay alive. 

 Please Lord, give me some energy to keep fighting. One minute at a time.

 I remember that soon after Joey Feek passed away her husband released a film showing the journey of their last years, their last joys, their last battles. To Joey, with love. We watched it soon after it was on video and I had to admit to Andy that I truly was jealous of her. She got to go home. She was able to be free, to be done with the fight. 

 He didn’t like hearing that, obviously, and looking back I can understand his reaction... and that is why I am unsure of how to post this here. I need you all to understand that this isn’t depression. This isn’t a death wish. This isn’t me being suicidal. This is just honesty: there are moments when having to fight my WHOLE LIFE to stay alive gets exhausting. Exhausting like running a marathon. Like birthing a child. Like fighting a war. 
 You are tired, both mentally and physically. You don’t truly want to quit. You have things you are looking forward to; finishing the race, holding that baby, winning the battle. But sometimes in the middle of it all you are just so tired that you almost forget how to breath. That is life with multiple diseases.  
 I think that Louisa May Alcott said it so beautifully, describing Beth’s last days in Little Women,
 "...to make her forget the mortal weariness that was almost as hard to bear as pain." 

Mortal weariness sums it up. Just so very tired. Two seizures, a blood sugar of 355 and one of 42, all in 48 hours is enough to make you just so..very... tired...

 A couple days ago when the sun was shining and the birds were singing and I was pulling weeds and enjoying flowers and finding tomatoes already starting to show their beautiful selves, well, the tired wasn’t as heavy, it wasn’t as tiring. 

 Tomatoes, peeking out!

Just a spot of beauty

 I am not always exhausted. Not always. 

 But since March was so ugly and I am “at risk” with a compromised immune system and don’t want to end up needing the ER because of an over abundance of seizures, my neurologist has put me back on another (of my old) seizure meds (in addition to my current one). So, I am in that lovely stage of working my way up in dosage, slowly adjusting to the exhaustion then adding another pill so I can be even more exhausted again. 

 It has been a rough couple weeks, emotionally and physically. It would have been, even if there hadn’t been multiple deaths across the country from a disease that we don’t understand. That’s the thing- my body is always failing.

 I am always, always, choosing to fight to stay alive. 

 Choosing to have joy, or not. 

 Choosing to see the tomato plant and rejoice, or not. 

 Choosing to pull the weeds knowing they will return again tomorrow, but to pull them anyway, or not.

 I need you to understand that this is a choice I make. 

 Every day. 

 It is never easy. 

 Sometimes it is not as hard, but it is never easy. 

 But here is the thing... I think that, unlike what the blog I read earlier and my own selfish moments want to insinuate, so are you. We all struggle. Everyone. Every day. 

 Pain. Fear. Anger. Exhaustion. 

 Different amounts. Different levels. Different reasons.

 We can all be overwhelmed.

 It is a choice, every day, how we respond. 

 I am not the only one. Perhaps Coronavirus is making things a little stranger or the pain a little stronger for some of you, but this isn’t a brand new thing. 

 It is the same choices as always. 

 So, please my friends, choose JOY! 

Can you see the difference between those two nearly identical pictures? 

Where was the focus? What was the focus? 

It only took a split second to change, to make the choice where to focus my attention. 

We can focus on the thorns on we can focus on the flowers. 

That is the choice, over and over. 

I am positive that we will fail at times and only see the thorns. 

Then we get to blink, and refocus again. 

Make a different choice the next time. 

In the middle of writing this, in the middle of discussing with Andy the beauty of focusing on the rose instead of the thorn I realized that my life is a rose bush. My thorns -the diabetes, Graves’ disease and epilepsy- are here to stay. But they serve a purpose too. Thorns on a bush offer protection. They are sharp and dangerous and sometimes painful, but they do serve a purpose. My thorns do too, if I pay attention. If I remember to notice. The places I have been and the people I have met because of my thorns. The places I have not been and the people I have not met because of my thorns.

 These thorns at times exhaust me. 

 Truthfully though, they make me who I am and I will choose to celebrate them. I will choose to celebrate the sometimes overwhelming but always beautiful rose bush of my life. 

See the roses, and the thorns. 

Enjoy the beauty and the strength.

 Be blessed my friends, in the choices. 

 Be aware of them, time after time. 

 Make the right ones, exhausting time after exhausting time.

Beautiful scars

 Those wounds that need binding come in so many different shapes and from so many different sources. Some are deep and need stitches to stop the bleeding. Some are more shallow, but so very wide that they seem to stretch out forever. Others will scab over, then get opened again and again and again. I have seen emotional and spiritual wounds that require “surgery”, the complete removal of a limb, for healing to happen. 

 But healing is always happening, if we allow it. 

 The thing is, there are often scars left behind. Healing stops the bleeding. Healing closes the wound.

 But the scars are still there. 

 What do you see when you look at a scar? Do you see something ugly or the mark of a battle won? Are you inspired with pride because you survived?  

 I think they are beautiful. 

 As time passes the scars smooth out. They show how we have grown and changed and matured- but they remain, as gentle and beautiful reminders of the battles we have won and the wounds that our Savior has already healed. 

 There will be new battles and new wounds. We will need new healing, over and over, and there will be new scars along the way. 

 And they will be beautiful too. 

“He heals the wounds of every shattered heart.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭147:3‬ ‭TPT‬‬

https://www.bible.com/1849/psa.147.3.tpt

What we carry in our body

When I made this verse image I was planning to talk about the news of Jesus still being bigger than the news of Coronavirus. That the bad news all around that threatens to overwhelm does not have to be the only thing we see. That the negative news that the “news” tends to project does not have to be the only angle we hear. 

 Joy is still stronger, and bigger, and a choice. 

 That is still true, and perhaps God will still have me write that post, eventually. 

But I got distracted by my own self centric story... and somehow I feel that God is allowing that. 

Here’s the thing- I was waiting to hear what comes next for my brain. 

Waiting and waiting and waiting! 

March was a rough month. I had at least nine seizures- and those were only the ones I was awake for and aware of. Most likely there were others at night, or small enough that my meds contained them. Nine that broke through and made themselves known. 

Nine that left me exhausted, and confused, and at one point very, very unsure of things that should be obvious. (Like the names of people I am related to.)

The appointment to find out more, to discuss the surgery from January and the WADA from February, was set for March 30th. Then, in mid March the world fell apart. Coronavirus became the center of the news, the center of events, the center of the world. UAB hospital closed down everything that wasn’t necessary for life.

Thankfully, the neurology department can do quite a lot over the phone! The team still got together to make the plans and discuss the current cases and I was placed before the board. 

 Dr. Pati said I was actually one of the easiest. My case was obvious and didn’t require much discussion. That is always nice to hear. 

Laser is what is recommended for me. 

I technically qualify for the brain surgery, cutting out a portion; or inserting the “pacemaker” type thing as well. If for some reason laser doesn’t work we can discuss those, but they are all very hopeful that the simple laser zapping of the part of my brain that misfires will make my life a lot better. 

Obviously, this summary is very non-medical. The doc used big words and fancy terms. But I prefer the news in simplified English. 

“Zap it. Fix it” 

 That works me for. 

The problem for now is that the medical world is focused, correctly and without complaint from me, on one major event. 

Brain surgery is, strangely enough, optional. 

So, we wait. 

Again. 

That is the lesson God chooses to teach me over and over. 

Wait. 

That is the “news” I share today. 

But I think I will return to what the original thought was anyway. 

“The new of Jesus went out to the surrounding territories.”

That was “good news”...but it was striking, and big, and hard to hear. 

It was different and confusing and nothing that anyone expected. 

Sound familiar? 

Big news. Frustrating news. Overwhelming news. 

Those are never ending. 

How we respond is still our choice. 

How we respond, always, is our choice! 

Let the life of Jesus be revealed in you my friends. 

Shine joy. 

Share hope.

Live with faith. 

Wait with patience. 

Be blessed, and recognize those blessings!