Mondays and Fears

I love Monday mornings now. I'm not sure I was so fond of them when I worked, but today I love them because they represent a new week, time to get organized and do the laundry. I really like doing laundry and wish I could hang my clothes outside like in the "good old days." Of course, when I used to have to hang them out in the winter in Amarillo, Plainview, Lubbock and El Paso, I wished for a dryer.
By the time I lived in Beaumont I had a dryer and have never had a clothesline since then.

This morning I filed all the junk that had piled up on the filing cabinet, copied photos for the ancestry albums, read emails and Facebook--all while my clothes are busily washing and drying on their own.

I'm taking an on line class called "Surviving Trauma." One of the lessons has been about cues. Cues come out of the blue after some kind of traumatic event. After 9/11 some people had these cues when they saw American Airlines planes in the air days or months later. Reading about cues gave me pause.

Years ago we went to church three times or more a week. Rather than enjoying the experience, much of the time it was out of legalism and a desire to please. For years since then I have dreaded Sundays, and sometimes still do. I've wondered why and now believe the feeling is a cue based on my past church experience. Knowing why and staring it in the face just may be the way I'll get past this "trauma."

I had another traumatic experience from 1990 until 1993. My mother's dementia made it impossible for her to live alone. She couldn't come live with us because we had our daughter and grandson living there, plus the fact that no one was at home during the day. Not having funds for anything else, I had to put her into a nursing home. She had always said she didn't want to go to one, as we all say, and moving here there was the hardest thing I ever had to do. She'd only been in that place for three months when she fell and broke her hip. She never really recovered and was in a wheel chair thereafter.

Teaching middle school is exhausting on a good day, and on many of those days I'd go see her after school. She hardly recognized me and only wanted to pull herself around in her chair. After standing all day, following her around was more than I could do. Week ends were busy but I managed to go see her then.

I need quiet and solitude to revitalize. However, with a young boy, my daughter and a husband who needed quiet himself, I found that I had no place in my house where I could go to be alone. Many week end days I got into my van and went away, found a place to park and just sat in the quiet of my vehicle.

As my mother grew worse, and my energy lessened, I had more and more guilt about not seeing her as often as I should. What could I do? I was at the end of myself.

When Mother died, I never went back into that nursing home or in any others. Thinking about entering one grabs me in the pit of my stomach and almost makes me sick.

I have known for a long time that fear has been one of my biggest enemies and has kept me from doing some things that I should have. I've prayed, of course, and just last Saturday I told God I wanted him to heal me of these fears that have held me back. Maybe what happened is an answer to that prayer.

My husband was asked to deliver an inspirational message on a Sunday this month at a nursing home. I know I could tell him I won't go because of never wanting to go into a nursing home again. He doesn't need me there and no one will be expecting me, but I imagine he'd like for me to go with him. However, could this be God's way of setting me free from my "nursing home phobia?"

I'm looking at it but haven't made a decision. I've never been a person who wouldn't face a hard place, except in this case. Or maybe in more cases than I know.

I think I'm almost afraid to ask God for his direction for "fear" that he will tell me. One scripture comes to mind, a word that he has given me over and over. "I will never leave you nor forsake you." If I go, I know he'll be with me because he's already there. He'll still be with me if I don't. But if that's my decision, I just might miss a very big blessing.

Blessing Breaking On My Head

Many years ago I painted. I painted with oils mostly. Then circumstances changed--physically circumstances which gave me no place to paint. I tried to pick up the paints again when physical circumstances allowed the room, but my artistic, creative muse had left me. So I wrote.

I've been writing for several years. Last year circumstances changed once more. Circumstances that have pushed my muse into a corner where she has fallen asleep. I hope her disappearance isn't permanent. I don't know how long muses live when they are ignored and aren't fed. But all that used to feed her has gone into keeping my physical and mental person functioning.

I make no resolutions, but I do have goals. One of my goals for 2009 is to awaken Muse. Thinking this as I awoke this morning, I remembered reading that Peace isn't a state of being. Peace is a Person. That Person lives in and with me. My 2009 goal is to allow this Person to carry those burdens and bring Muse back to life. With this in mind, I came to my computer and read what someone else had written.

God moves in a mysterious way,His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,He treasures up his bright designs,And works his sovereign will.
You fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
William Cowpernd

Thank you, God, for the clouds--and for the blessings breaking on my head.

Always Blessings

"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't,and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it."

I copied this from an email I received this morning. Coupled with something a woman said to John Edwards yesterday, I believe I heard from God.

If you don't know, John Edwards is a famous physic who has a televison program. I was flipping through channels yesterday and stopped when I came to his program. He was talking to a man who had lost a four-year-old son. The mother, Cathy, of the boy hadn't been able to take off work and go to the program, so they called her on the phone. After giving them some messages from their son, John asked Cathy how she had gotten through her child's death. Her response was, "Always blessings. Never losses." She said that's the way she lives her life. Her statement impacted John so much that he had to get control of his emotions before he could go on. When he asked her what she meant by it, she said, "I had him for four years and those years were blessings. I have no loss because of what I had for those four years."

This takes some thinking about. My biggest problem is fear, and that's not faith, is it? It's my fervent prayer that I live my life without fear. I want to be a person who believes life is all about blessings instead of seeing the losses. I want to live by the quote that began this blog. Just so you know--I'm working on it.