Finally Normal, er Well....

Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey. ~Marcel Proust

I am taking this back-to-good-health thing one slice at a time!

This morning is the first morning I have felt normal...as normal as I ever feel, that is. Although I was on the mend, I still had energy issues as the infected gland drained all week, but it seems that yesterday was the last of it. I finally can stand, walk, and sit up in a regular chair without any pain—well, you just do not really appreciate a simple thing as sitting until it is too painful to do for two weeks.

Today will be the first normal day I have had in nearly three weeks...as normal as any of my days are. The Princess and I will be doing our homeschool lessons in full swing, much to her displeasure. While I was laying around (literally), on most week days she did do the very basics: the three R's: reading, writing, and arithmetic—algebra actually. (The girl actually sometimes admits she likes algebra and she gets the concepts easily even straight from the textbook without me, as I knew she would.)

This week may be the first normal week I have had...again as normal as any of my weeks are. My husband, who has thankfully been working locally for the past couple of months is away this week until Friday, so he says, so I am doing all the chores he normally does plus trying to get back into doing my own.

I have much to catch up on, like my blog—so much to share—and homeschool records to which I look forward to doing with almost as much enthusiasm as my daughter has doing the lessons. I also need to restructure the language arts and history portions of my plan for the rest of the year. Then there is the upcoming consignment sales just two weeks away—the child has grown into the woman-child stage and not many jeans are fitting her now. So many normal things to do...and I am thankful that I can do them.

~ My Lord, thank you for Your timing. That my husband was home to take care of the things I could not and that my daughter was so helpful when I needed their help. You and I both knew I needed a break mentally, but I would not take one had I not had this painful condition developed and had taken away my ability to keep pushing. I praise You even in my illness; help me remember to praise more You when I am well. ~

Another Winter Storm with Ice and More

The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
 ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As we recovered from the last winter storm fiasco with our governor making future promises and appointing someone to manage storm threats, I came down with a flu. I rarely get sick with a cold/flu, but I definitely was feeling horrible on Tuesday, two weeks ago. I tend to have low days now and then, but an all out flu is something I rarely get. After I set aside denial, I called my husband asking him if he could take the Princess to her last piano lesson the following day as it was before the judging on that following Saturday.

As things turned out, I ended up taking her after all...mostly because of my stubbornness and my unforgiving mood about how it seemed to inconvenience others. As I said, I rarely get really sick, so when I am and my husband is working from home and our daughter has a deadline, I have this expectation that my family will take into consideration that I am SICK, so all the stuff that Mama usually does is going to have to be done by others. Actually, my husband had worked it out to take her, but by that time I was too angry to stay at home in bed as I should have done.

I did take the Princess to her school and piano lesson, but I did not have the energy to go grocery shopping and I thought that it would be fine since I would be coming into town for the piano judging on Saturday and could shop then. When I dropped the child off at her piano lesson, her teacher told us that the judging was rescheduled to a month later because the church she rented for it was having renovations done. Weeks ago, she had been concerned about how unprepared nearly all her students were for the judging, even the Princess who had just pulled it together the previous week, but that was the only available slot for the church. Now she had the extra four weeks she felt nearly everyone needed, except for the Princess and one other girl, and more students could participate because it would not be conflicting with school sports. The church had called to inform her of the problem and offered her another day that was not available previously just one hour before we arrived. I was happy that the Lord had worked it out for her, but all I could think of was I wished we all had known before I had left that morning for I would not have tried making the trip at all.

When we got home, I prepared for bed and stayed there for two days.

Since there was no judging, I did not go grocery shopping on Saturday. We are well stocked with a full pantry and two freezers, but my husband was able to get fresh organic greens, eggs, and fruits locally.

I recovered and made it to church on Sunday, where everyone was abuzz with the news that another winter storm was coming on Tuesday night (last week), but this one would likely be an ice storm starting with rain that freezes. This would mean downed trees and power outages. The schools did not take any chances this time; they were closed on Tuesday. For us, science class and piano was cancelled again. The governor declared a state of emergency before there was one. The schools here were closed the rest of the week, but power outages did not affect us, mostly because there little wind here with the storm, thankfully.

By Monday, I realized I was having my own state of emergency: an infected gland in tender place. I had this once before about thirty years ago when I had no health insurance, so I dealt with it then the old fashion home remedy way with hot sitz baths or compresses. I had to make a decision about seeing a doctor on Tuesday because it would be highly unlikely it would be possible after the ice storm hit. My husband was home and had made as many preparations for the storm as he could, so I chose to home treat, but this infection grew to be more stubborn and worse than the first one. I was feverish for most of the week and too sore to sit and praying not to have to have it lanced. Thursday night my fever broke and Friday morning it finally began draining.

Sitting upright on a chair is not comfortable yet, but my husband is leaving and I have errands to do tomorrow, as usual. During most of my illnesses the Princess had time off from lessons and is as reluctant to get back to our regular schedule as I am to sit in a chair, but at least the latter will pass.

~ My Lord, thank you for hearing my prayer for healing. May all go well tomorrow with errands, science and piano. And, thank you for reminding me how precious a thing good health is and let me not waste it. ~

When it Snows in Georgia

Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough. ~Earl Wilson

We did not go out for errands on Wednesday this week, but we had gotten in an extra piano lesson on Monday and Living Science cancelled classes for Tuesday and Wednesday due to the extreme cold and possibility of a winter storm. Good thing too, because of what happened....

First, I have to say that those of us who are originally from the northern states are always amazed at the level of unpreparedness that seems inevitable even when Georgians know a snow/ice storm is coming, but what began Tuesday morning this week went far beyond the worst case scenarios I could have imagined. It really could not have been much worse if there had been an unscheduled bomb drill in the middle of Atlanta that the general public mistook for the real thing. The magnitude of what three little inches of fluffy, white stuff and below freezing temperatures can do to this area is unimaginable unless you experience it for yourself.

It all started with the weather models showing that a storm would sweep across Georgia probably blanketing it with snow and possibly freezing rain somewhere...the best guess was south of Atlanta, because of the jet stream coming up from the south bringing moist air up to the higher atmosphere into the strong winter front moving in from the northwest is the toughest call for meteorologists in pinpointing the dump zone. Even the computer models went back and forth between nearly all of Georgia getting it to most of it hitting south of Atlanta, practically until it was upon us. Having lived in Georgia for well over a decade, I can say unpredictability really should be no surprise to anyone who has lived here even longer. It is just best to expect the worst and be thankful when you are wrong when it comes to winter storms here.

Folks, let me write this again so there is no misunderstanding: We all knew for a fact that a completely unpredictable major winter storm was approaching with temperatures in the twenties and lower from the northwest into Georgia. The only uncertainty about it was when, where, and how much snow and/or ice.

So, here is the Mayor of Atlanta and the Governor of Georgia knowing a major winter storm is coming in for sure, like everyone else, knowing it is unpredictable, like everyone else, but instead of erring on the side of caution in fear of being criticized for overreacting, they keep all the government offices open so employees are at work and all children are in school. The Governor honestly stated in a speech that he felt his biggest failure was in not staggering the time government employees could be released from work...yeah, like that would have made all the difference. Now the school boards are independent and can close schools as they see fit, but since all the rest of the government facilities were up and running....

The morning starts out sunny and bright, but well below freezing. Then snow comes in with the clouds, light at first, but within an hour it is obvious that it was accumulating and the roads began to get icy. Our county school board sent out an alert at 10:30 AM that they had decided to release the students early. The elementary students would be leaving the school at 12:30 PM, with the middle schools and high schools at other times (like staggering) but it was already too late at 10:30 AM when the notice was sent. Many buses could not even get to the schools. Many children here and all over the Metro Atlanta area stayed over night in their schools, and those were the luckier ones, for some were stuck on school buses that could not finish routes because of the ice. Most of Atlanta had about three inches of snow, I think we had more like four in our area, but it was hard to tell as it was dry and blowing off roofs and trees.

The governor stated that what caused most of the traffic problem was that businesses sent people home all at the same time, rather than staggering I suppose, so salt trucks could not treat the roads because of all the traffic, as if Atlanta never has much traffic except during rush hours...but again that was already too late as they should have began treating when the snow started falling.  When I thought about it, why wouldn't businesses send home their workers when their children were being sent home by the schools...?

My husband was working only 45 minutes from home, on the average day, even though I did not want him to go out at all because I just knew this was going to be a bad one. The customer account he was at closed so he had to leave around 1:30 in the afternoon. He had already called around to hotels, but they were full. He made sure he had plenty of gas and headed home. He tried different ways because I-20 was closed, so he was looking for a road not yet closed to get north of I-20 and every time he was met with a road that was closed. The radio stations were no help at all: just people telling their own stories about being stuck in stopped traffic and cars being abandoned because of an accident, jack-knifed semis blocking the road, running out of gas, lack of traction, or the driver just gave up all along major highways and roads, even smack in the middle of lanes, because they could not move them off.

At least my husband and I could talk to each other because he had enough gas and his cell phone charger with him, some people had dead cell phone batteries and could no longer talk to anyone. At 10:30 PM, an hour and a half after we last talked, I asked how far he had traveled in that time: two tenths of a mile. There was not much I could do about it so I went to bed, knowing my husband can take care of himself and praying he would arrive soon. Twelve hours after he started, at 1:30 AM, my husband finally made it home. We were fortunate: in our church, a few husbands working in the city have not been home for two nights, either staying at work or hotels near work.

Would you believe that work asked my husband to fly to Boston that day, while he was stuck in his van all those hours? He simply told them that Delta had cancelled all flights, which was true, and all the highways and roads around the airport, we later found out, were the worst of the worst all the next day as well, for we did not have enough sunshine and the temperatures were still in the 20's.

As horrible as Tuesday was, Wednesday was not much better. It took until afternoon before people could get out at all. While we were all advised to stay home, vehicles were still obstructing driving lanes, so people wanted to get their cars, if they could, because the "magic hour" was ending around 5:00 PM, when the sun would start going down and everything that had somewhat thawed in the sunlight would refreeze. Actually, it never got above freezing as we were still in the 20's all that day, but there were some patches of the roads with good amounts of sunshine that melted some of the ice. Power outages were not the big problem as they were with the ice storm in 2011, because it was a dry snow rather than a heavy wet snow or freezing rain which causes pine trees to snap from the added weight and down power lines.

Today (Thursday), the schools were still closed and some businesses were opening with later hours.  This afternoon the temperature has reached above freezing for a few hours and the snow is melting fastest in the sunlight and most of the ice has melted on well traveled roads, but there is still ice in the road in front of our house and there could still be patches of black ice again tonight. Tomorrow and thereafter, the highs are to be in the fifties and rain is in the forecast, so in a day or two more, this debacle will wiped from the natural earth as if it did not even happen, but with over 900 reported accidents in the area and who knows how many yet to be reported, people will still have some cleaning up to do for many coming days.

My Lord, please help the people of Georgia who were affected so badly by this storm. Thank you to getting my husband home to his loving family, warm food, and bed.

At the Close of the 21-Day Fast

Unless you put prayer with your fasting, there is no need to fast. If it doesn't mean anything to you, it won't mean anything to God. ~Jentezen Franklin

Here am I...at the close of the 21-day fast and I am still wrestling with this "love myself" thing. I now well aware of the depths of this problem, I recognize it in my thoughts, but it seems to remain unresolved, not that God is done with me, but I had this hope....

Frankly, I had a very difficult time praying during this fast, more to the point I feel I failed in that respect. For the corporal part, we were to be praying about this year as a season of acceleration, multiplication, and increase based on prophetic words given to our pastor. The goals are local outreach, global missions, and Encounter 2014 (which is an intense spiritual retreat, I think). I wanted to pray about these things, but my mind wandered more than usual or I kept running head first into this "love myself" thing as if God wants me to work through this with Him the most...and it did not help that I seem to want to avoid God on top of it, which He often reminded me of what I was doing as I did it.

I have always thought of myself as conceited and selfish, and I still think that. On the other hand, I feel that I have no worth except in the things that I do or provide for others. I think certain things contributed to this besides my childhood, like many of the churches I was in. This might explain why I have hurt feelings left over from some churches and even anger towards some church philosophies: mainly the ones that seem to beat down their congregation and perhaps, in particular, women. It is not that I disagree with the scriptures used, but just how they were used to shame and beat congregations into submission. This in contrast to encouraging people to learn to listen to God themselves and act on His leading rather than relying completely on pastoral leadership as the sole mouthpiece of God. Even some of the church members that talk the right talk, with amens and hallelujahs in the service, seem to not hear God's words in their daily lives and frowned on those that did.

So, I hid away in those "safe" churches and kept quiet most of the time. I tried to fit what they expected of me as a member, as a woman, and as a wife. Part of me used to scream inside that I was as much of a human being as any man, that I had worth, that I hear God speak to me who is the greatest authority, but after awhile even my internal screaming became silent and I became even more complacent just to get along with everyone else. It still did not win me any friends, so why did I bother to try? There was only one church that really showed my husband and me how much we were appreciated and loved, and would be missed when we moved from Florida. The good news is we are now in a church that is very like it: only nearly 17 years later did we get back what we were missing, but the church is only three years old so...I guess we had to wait. These people get into your life and invite you into theirs. There is a greater sense of community than we had before.

Anyway, this is not meant to be a another gripe about churches, but rather I am just analyzing the influences in my life trying to identify what is my issue with "loving myself" and what that really means from God's perspective. I have always been taught that loving yourself is wrong; loving others more is right; loving God the most is ideal. That self-sacrifice is the greatest good. That hating your life means you love God more. If you are last then you will be first...all those humbling things that Jesus Himself said. However, when the visiting pastor was praying over me months ago and was given the message to give to me that I think I am being humble but I am not, that if I did not love myself I could not really love others, I was so very confused and highly disturbed. I thought I was doing that part right but here this man was telling me that I should take off my sunglasses to see that it really was daytime not night time like I thought. It just flipped my world, but I was not ready to flip with it...and I am not sure I still am. And I do not know the source of this, but there seems to be a measure of fear involved with this thing also. 

So, here am I at the end of this fast...I feel I did not pray as I should have, as long as I should have, or about what I should have, nor did I get a final resolution about healing my heart, but I also know that sometimes what I need comes after the fast has ended, so here am I, my Lord, hoping this healing of my heart is yet coming.

~ My Lord, reveal to me what I need to understand so that it will heal my heart and I will learn to love as You wish of me. ~

Gearing Up for the Spring Expedition

We don’t think there’s something wrong with one-year-old children because they can’t walk perfectly. They fall down frequently, but we pick them up, love them, bandage them if necessary, and keep working with them. Surely our heavenly Father can do even more for us than we do for our children. ~Joyce Meyer

Tuesday this week my husband and I had to attend the mandatory parent meeting for Living Science. We dropped off the Princess at her piano teacher's home on the way. We were hoping she would squeeze her in some time that evening as she needs an extra lesson with her judging coming up in just a couple weeks. Usually she is farther along than she is and I am getting concern. The Princess, however, was complaining about her head aching, so it seemed unlikely that she would be in any shape for a lesson.

The main subject of the evening meeting was the 5-day expedition in April. It is the biggest event for middle schoolers. High school servant leaders also go to help out as well as chaperones. My husband insisted that we both sign up to chaperone, but I most likely will not be able to go. For one it is $250 per chaperone plus the cost of gas, although we will be given $100 for that this year. They need more men than women, because everyone travels by gender. The men drive boys and the women drive girls. As with most homeschooling families, the men are the bread winners and the women are the stay at home parent with more flexibility in schedules. I am still wondering if my husband will be able to get the time off also.

The other reason one of us probably needs to stay home is that we cannot kennel our dog, because we do not believe in giving her shots and up-to-date shot records are required by law for kennels. If it were just two days, our dog does well with the lady across the street caring for her while she is alone at home. Even though she has four rescued dogs of her own to handle and she works at night as a 911 operator, she is very good about coming over several times during the day to let our dog out and feed her during the day. I just do not feel our dog will do well for five days like that, she is too family needy and has gotten destructive with a dog bed when she was kenneled for a week once before. (I would like my couch to be in the same condition as it is now.)

At the meeting, they went over the rules for packing gear and the clothes allowed. They suggested that we all make some homemade treats to send along and they would be handed out by the leaders. Everything has to be marked due to many of the children having allergies. There was a great deal more, but they seem to have this trip organized well. There are three stops where the students are to switch cars so that they all get to know different students on the way. There also will be devotion and prayer times together. It will be very memorable for the Princess.

That night we were also given the report card for the first semester and the Princess received 97, an A. Also, I had a chance to talk to the people I needed to about our concerns. I had written an email and they had cleared some misunderstandings up, so I ended up apologizing for some of my concerns because they were based on the perceptions of my daughter, like the time she said she had a math teacher for a substitute. Actually, it was a science teacher and the math they were given was DNA related, which was the topic they were to cover that week, but she hates maths so much all she focused on was having math homework to do. I also picked up her T-shirts that night. So, I left feeling much better about the whole school thing.

After the meeting we went to pick up the Princess who had been sleeping the entire time on Trudy's couch; quite unlike her. She had told Trudy not to put on the TV or to get her anything, she just wanted to lie down and be left alone--so unlike my Princess. Trudy, who was supposed to be downstairs in her piano studio giving lessons, ended up having all of that evening's students cancel due to illness...that started with a migraine and then their throats swelled. She had plenty of time to work with the Princess on her pieces but the Princess seemed to have a migraine herself. She did not want to move to just put on her shoes so we could take her home and she said she was very nauseated.

I was hoping the news about her grade would cheer her up some, but she was just too ill at the time to be cheered up. We finally got the Princess in the van and began the drive home. About half way, she finally did throw up, which was not much as there was not much in her stomach and thankfully we had a thick blanket doubled over that we had used to take our dog to the vet a few days ago still in the van so that is were it went. Immediately, she felt so much better. She said, "I had forgotten what that tasted like." We tried not to laugh, as I told her we all try to forget what that tastes like as I offered her some water. 

It was 10:30 PM by the time we got home with our errand and classes day following, while we are still fasting. The Princess was feeling so much better that she did not need any help preparing for bed and the next morning she was dancing around like normal. I was not quite as energetic, but then I am fasting all food and she is only fasting her evening meal, although she has been drinking one to two glasses of milk at night! Well, she is a going about-to-be-teenager in just three months--Yikes!

~ My Lord, thank you this upcoming amazing opportunity for my daughter and for her illness to be so short. Please make it possible for my husband to have the time off to chaperone so he can be there with our daughter. ~

Changes in the Rabbitry

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. ~Ecclesiastes 3:3

I am reminded of a folk song that I learn to sing in elementary school, Mr. Rabbit. Because it was a folk and not written down until long after it had been passed around and every folk artist had his own rendition. I remember loving the song except for one morbid verse in the version of our song books (in some other versions the eyes are red):

Mister Rabbit, Mister Rabbit, your foot's mighty red.
Yes, kind Sir, I'm almost dead.

I could only imagine the foot being red from bleeding after being caught in a trap. Not something I liked to sing, but it made such an impression that I still remember the song today. I never imagined myself raising rabbits for meat, in fact I doubt if I even knew that people ate rabbits in elementary school, oddly, because I lived in a small town surrounded by farms most of my childhood. The truth is that we humans outlive most animals and livestock animals have a purpose in our food chain, at least for those of us who eat meat.

It has been three years ago since we purchased our rabbits from a larger breeding facility certified for laboratory animals, so their rabbits were kept in highly sanitary conditions and healthy. They had so many with such good records that inbreeding was not a concern. However, we did not go to the facility as the owner was coming our way, so she picked the rabbits for us according to our specifications and met with us while she was visiting family for the holidays.

We knew the age of Sugar when we got her because she was about half grown and we had to wait a few months before breeding her. Mr. Buck was young, but nearly fully grown and a capable breeder. Miss Doe was full grown and had kindled at least once, so we were told, so she was a proven breeder as we wanted. It stands to reason we did not get a proven doe they wanted to keep, but she was healthy...and fat. Having raised rabbits all this time and seeing how they develop, Doe probably was more like a two to three year old rabbit at that time. Generally speaking, it is recommended that rabbit does retire from breeding around the age of six, which is the age we judged her to be. Typically she had kindles of seven to thirteen but she only had two super-sized kits the last time.

In addition, she was getting more and more aggressive with me. (Yeah, rabbits are not really as docile as people tend to think.) I would mess with the kits more because of her larger kindles and the smaller ones needing milk supplements; I expected her to be a little disturbed by this. I always wear a jacket of some sort and gloves as a precaution, even in summer, when I have to do anything inside their cages because they have sharp long nails. However, the only one I really had trouble with aggression was Doe. She often would grunt at me and turn her head as if she would like to bite me...she never did, but it seems I am very good with animals, even troubled, unpredictable, and aggressive ones, as I noticed when I worked at the 4-H horse barn—I am very calm, gentle but firm, and I rarely get injuries from animals because I seem to know how they are feeling and how I handle them. (One of the benefits of being empathic, I suppose.)

My husband told me that Doe did not treat him the same way—well, not until the last few months, at least. The last few weeks she became very aggressive with him as well. Doe has always been a big eater. She always seems to be starving, but actually she was fat and she was that way when we first got her. She was so fat that we could not tell if her first breeding had taken! We cut down her feed and got her to a healthier weight, but she definitely did not like it.

Considering the amount of food she was eating, her large size, her probable age being time to retire her from breeding, her aggression, and the space we have, it was obvious that she was not a good candidate to be a pet for anyone, so she was processed this weekend. My daughter just asked that that meat would not be served to her, but she would not know it even if we did, but since it would be a tougher meat, it will most likely be ground to mix with ground beef for hamburgers (because rabbit has no fat, the fat of the beef makes the meat hold together) or dog food.

Now we need at least another breeding doe, but we would like to get two. Actually, we would like to get another New Zealand White (NZW) doe and get an unrelated breeding pair of Californians, but we have found that pure bred Californians are difficult to find. We plan on cross breeding the NZWs with the Californians for our meat rabbits, but since Californians are hard to find and are in demand, we would like to have pure Californians to sell now and then as breeders. All breeders for Californians we are finding are a two-hour drive for us in differing directions. My husband is also seriously considering a couple of heritage breeds that are the same size, like American and Silver Fox; they both have pretty coats, are hardier, calmer in nature, better mothers, and there are nearby breeders. The nearest breeder for a Californian will have a weaned one ready in about three months and then we have to wait a few more months before she is mature enough to breed, because we are careful and responsible with our breeding program.

Last summer my husband built a breeding hutch for our expecting does and plans to build another. We had one kindling in it so far and we still lost a few, but none of them got out of the cage. My husband since has added a larger heating pad in the enclosed nesting area so that if a kit gets out of the nest it will be able to stay warm and possibly improve its chances to survive until we find it. We still had one dragged out into the open cage area and being winter it did not survive. However, the hutch is larger so when as the kits grow there is less crowding also. We usually keep them with the mother until they should naturally be weaned, about eight weeks. At which time they are separated by gender and placed in cages with no more than four to a cage and the doe is returned to her own cage for about a month to rest and restore before we breed her again. In the wild, does can be impregnated the day after they give birth, but we breed then about every three months in rotation.

Once the second breeding hutch is ready, we can rotate the breeding of three does easily, because we give each a resting period, but we have to expand our fencing and gate to be sure that they are not disturbed nor can get out of the fenced area, which happened once. We plan to do most of this work after we have the house resided.

So, it may be that we will not have another breeding doe for a few months, which is disappointing because I have gotten the hang of cooking rabbit meat, which is the highest in protein and we give rabbit meat to friends now and then. Rabbit can be substituted in chicken recipes, but difference in the meaty parts was something I had to get used to, just because I did not have rabbit before we began raising them. For chickens, it is the breast, but for rabbits, the hind quarters. Deboned and cut up, no one knows the difference, but the meat is higher nutrition, like protein and vitamin B-12, than chicken. At the New Year's Eve stew jam, our rabbit stew was the favorite and a couple of members talking to us were interested in raising rabbits also.

~ My Lord, thank you for Your provisions, for our food and healthy rabbits. Guide us to find good ones for breeding. ~

Midnight Van Jacking

There are no ordinary cats. ~Colette

You never think a van jacking will ever happen to you...until it does...and it not only happened once, but it happened again last Saturday night!

The first time when she did not come for dinner we were concerned, but when she did not come for breakfast, we were really worried until my husband went to feed the rabbits and noticed a bit of white pawing on his van's window. What bothers me the most is that we have housed this young one, fed, taken care of her, and given her a warm bed on cold nights in the garage, but she just cannot resist a van even if it is outside in the freezing cold, as my husband's work van is. All it takes is just a few seconds for the door to be open and she is in. We do not know it until it is time for dinner. When she does not come to our calls for dinner, which even has priority over van jacking for her, we now look in the vans.

Yeah, Little Miss Midnight has a serious problem.

~ My Lord, thank you for our pets and their amusing quirks, and that Midnight was safe after all. ~

Day 14 of the 21-Day Fast

God loves you just the way you are, but He refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.
~Max Lucado

I do not think I have ever disliked a fast as much as I have this one. This healing of my love-heart issue...well, I know in the end I will be better for it, but the process...I have been in a deep soul wrenching cry quite a few times the past two weeks.

Every time I think, "Okay. I think I got it now," my Lord uncovers more of what I had hidden and that revealing requires that I must deal with it...more crying. I hear this phrase practically every where I turn: You have to love yourself before you can love others. You know, I really dislike that "love yourself" idea; it always sounds like conceit to me, but that is not what my Lord has been revealing to me. I discount myself, I do not allow myself to love myself, and therefore I do not fully accept that others love me either, so how could I really love them fully. And the real ouchie is if I have not really been loving others then I probably have not really been fully loving my Lord either, holding back from the Creator of all things, of me...how sad is that?

My Lord reminded me of something as I was preparing for church today. I used to have an alternative health-related home business in which I trained and consulted people. I also saw it as a ministry and I used to tell people that they did not have to work to be good enough for God, but only be willing to accept the grace and gifts God is willing and even trying to give to them. The irony of how that relates to my current state does not escape me. He is suggesting I take my own advice to stop resisting His love and just accept it, but I keep putting up roadblocks and He keeps making me tear them back down.

Another fragment off this issue, and I did not really want to admit it as I never like to confess to my vulnerabilities, is this past year has taken its toll on my the relationship between my husband and me. We went through real financial stress for over three years and that was less damaging to our relationship than the past year I think. I have felt that I cannot count on him because he is rarely home and I have extra chores to do, but when he is home I have been so burned out from his absence and homeschooling a reluctant (although she is improving) near-teen that I end wanting to be alone and letting him take charge. He would come home burned out from work, but happy with the change of pace, so he could enjoy cooking and do his chores. We would go to church together and do other things together, but we were really not being together most of the time.

After the fast, we hope to make arrangements to have the Princess stay with a friend for a night and the next day so that we can have some time to be romantic and make a good memory: a nice meal out and maybe a movie or a special place to go with holding hands, loving looks, and my husband again telling me that the reason he married me is because he could kiss me any time he wants to. I am so looking forward to it!

~ My Lord, thank you for the work You are doing within me and forgive me when I feel ungrateful. I know You are doing this for my good. Please bring my husband and I to a closer and more loving relationship than we have ever had. ~

A Work of Faith

Faith expects from God what is beyond all expectation. ~Andrew Murray

We worked very hard to make it to the Praise and Worship Service on Wednesday night this week and we made it there on time mostly because no one is eating dinner during the 21-Day Fast. (The Princess does drink a glass of milk at night, but that is it.) It was a very uplifting service, but after about half of it, my Lord was speaking to me so I stopped singing, sat down, and listened. He is still working on me about accepting that He really loves me. He is just plain wearing me down on this and I am relenting...a...little...at...a...time.

After the service, one of the strongest singers in the church came up to give me a hug. She was losing her voice last Sunday and was even worse that night. There were so many people moving around and talking to each other that just a few minutes later, another lady came up to talk to her and a man approached me talking about having the Princess begin with the Praise and Worship team playing keyboard, which is what he does. However, I could barely talk to him; I had lost my voice. After we parted, I went looking for the singer.

She also is a healer, but she is not empathic. I told her that I needed to pray for her. She really was amazed that I could hardly talk, since we had spoken a few minutes earlier and my voice was fine. She said she would not hug me again when she is ill and I said that my gift allows me to know exactly for what I should pray so that would be counterproductive if she needed healing. So, I prayed for her with my hands on her chest for she had bronchitis. While I prayed I felt heat in the same area in my body and mentioned that she should be feeling heat, which she confirmed. When I finished praying for her, my voice was again fine, without once clearing my throat. She also began talking better too.

I love watching, actually feeling, my Lord's workings without boundaries! I wish I had faith as boundless.

~ My Lord, thank you that we are in a church that is not only receptive to Your works, but eager to receive all that You are willing to give. Help me to have more faith, a faith without boundaries. ~

2013 in a Rear View Mirror

Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.
~C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer

If I was to point to the five major influential changes in my life during 2013, they would be: changing churches, the Princess attending the Home Study Center, my husband's job, my Kindle, and my daughter's attitude. The list is disappointing to me overall. Not all of these changes felt as if they are working toward our good.

Church
The change in churches was the most positive thing we have done this year. We have settled on a church but not really involved as we would like just yet, which is mostly due to my husband's job and the crunch we have due to changing our errand day to Wednesday because of the Home Study Center. We love the church. It was not an easy choice when comparing the ones we had been visiting, but this one had been at the top of our list. We told our friends from our former church about it, who wanted to leave also, and they fell in love with it at their very first visit. So, we started going there with them, in our minds, to settle them in, and of course, we got settled in also. The only thing I see as a downside for me personally is I am not on Facebook, which is how most the active members communicate with each other and events are organized.

The Home Study Center
The Princess' piano lesson has been on Thursday since we started over eight years ago, until we enrolled her at the Home Study Center. Then it had to be changed to Wednesday and that was not much of a problem until we had chosen our church, which has services on that night and we have only made it to a couple of them.

The science program has turned out to be a point of some discomfort for me. I am not sure if I am just looking for things that are disappointing or if these are justified issues, but my scales have seem to weigh the inconveniences more heavily than the benefits since October. There are many factors, most that I have mentioned in early posts, that make me wonder if we would consider it all for next year. Perhaps one of the nags I feel is that in the beginning before we enrolled we were told that spring expedition was included in the tuition fees, yet since she was accepted we hear more often how the tuition does not cover all the costs of the expedition so they have various fund raisers that are impractical for us with the distance and that they are also trying to raise money to build another building, mostly to expand their current high school STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) program.

Husband's Job
I discussed this in a recent post, but I am not sure I could ever fully explain how his work schedule, particularly this year has affected us as a family. I am thankful he has a job and that he enjoys what he does, but...the other guy in our city just got himself kicked out of another customer's place last Friday, who never wants to see him again, because he did not fix the problem and made it even worse as he has done with them in the past also. So, I guess he will be again be rewarded with staying home when they call for service and my husband will get the wonderful opportunity to work more hours away from home to actually fix the problem, make the customer happy, and be stuck in the field and overlooked for promotions because he does his job so well where he is. You would think the company would rather guys like him do the field training with guys like that.

If I screamed "enough of this madness" would anyone hear it? 

My husband has this saying that he can handle one bad of three areas in his life as long as the other two are good. The three are family, church/spiritual, and work. The trouble is that when the one gone bad dominates, as he allowed it, then it can taint the other two as well. I am hoping my Lord is making way for some positive changes with my husband's job this year. 

My Kindle
I received my Kindle Fire HD for Christmas a year ago ever since I have taken the thing with me everywhere. I wish I could say I read books on it and I might yet, but mostly I use it as my Bible, notebook planner, and calculator as well as for email and for games. It is just so versatile and handy. Too handy, perhaps. I mean I can even watch Netflix on it if I want to, but I like the larger screens for movies.

What I like about our church is that we have free Wi-Fi and use the one Bible app "live," that is the church can upload the Bible verses that will be covered in the sermon when I am in that app. Pretty convenient!

The Princess' Attitude
Because of how much my husband was away for work, I was in this quandary of being a practically single mother impractically because when my husband was home, as infrequent and unpredictable as that had been, I suddenly had to shift to be wife and one of two parents even though he was too tired and burned out to be husband and father much of the time. During this time our little Princess developed into what we call the γινώσκω (pronounced ghin-OS-ko) stage, which is Greek for "I know." She knows so very much and she can do such amazing things (that we have yet to see her do) and whatever it is she has it worse or can do it better than anyone else...except for listening. It seems to me that her wirings from ear to brain and brain to mouth are in need of major overhauls!

There have been some very big changes in the Princess in the last year. Even though she begged me to paint her room pink four years ago (I cannot believe it was that long ago) and she still loved pink clothes the best then, the child has expanded choice of colors and now shuns pink, except for mauve and darker pinks. Her favorite color is in the teal to turquoise range, but she also likes greens, browns, and purples, all of which look lovely on her with her long, straight brown hair. Yes, she is by far pickier about her clothes than she was and tends to like to dress modestly on the sceen/punk side at times, but not into black and she still is into modesty. I think she is getting her ideas from the Claudia character on Warehouse 13, which is not too far out for me.

Expectations
I wish the most influential changes I had experienced in 2013 had been something more along the lines of spiritual enlightenment,  miracles, healings, and such things as that and I have those expectations still. Maybe 2014...?

~ My Lord, thank you for this time to look back and be appreciative for change. I am praying that You will guiding the changes for us in this next year.  ~