Post Hysterectomy update

My hysterectomy was Feb 2. The first day was horrible waking up from surgery. Thank God they gave me strong pain meds. Fought nausea in the hospital and was discharged the next day.

The first two weeks I felt really good, keeping my pain meds on a regular schedule so that I did not have breakthrough pain. Wednesday I went for my 2 week checkup. That’s when I pushed it too far. I was feeling no pain, saw the PA and asked what heavy lifting meant. She said definitely nothing over 20 lbs, sooo, I went to the grocery store, pushing my own cart picking up 14 pound containers of cat litter and gallons of milk and then was all done before we made it back to the car. My friend put my stuff in her car and when I got home, I needed the pain pill. Two days later, I’m still regretting my choices and still in pain.

However, I do believe that I have finally learned my lesson to follow directions.

Going to lay down now and rest some more…

Gratitude of a family…

August 2007 began a journey that ended today.

I started working with JM almost 3 1/2 years ago. A boy who could not communicate his basic needs to his family. A boy who could not tolerate the world he lives in. A boy who cried and hit himself to escape the frustration of an imprisoned life.

I am an Intensive Behavior Interventionist. I work with the kids who have the worst behavior. My job was to help JM to make sense of what went on around him, to stop his self-injurious behaviors and to help him to learn to communicate.

His family didn’t know what to do with him. When he would throw himself on the ground and scream and cry and hit his head on the floor while slapping his face, they would try to go through a list of needs to see what he wanted. Sometimes this worked, mostly not.

Over the last few years, I’ve grown to love this child. To see him learn to use augmented communication to express his needs and wants. To see him make choices and expand his likes and food choices. To see him laugh and swim and swing.

Today was my last day with JM. Today I got to see the gratitude of his family. Today I had to say goodbye as someone else will be helping him now. Today I had to walk away. This will be hard. Although he now has basic understanding in communicating needs, it is still difficult to tell how much he understands when I tell him goodbye. He is basically non-verbal and does not yet express himself like most of us do.

I got to hear from a family the gratitude they have that they have their son. A boy who plays catch, who loves pizza and salad and ice cream, who loves to swing in the breeze even when its freezing outside, who loves to put puzzles together and look at pictures, who will sit and watch a movie with them. A son who they can enjoy and understand, who loves them and understands them.

One week til surgery…

And I’ve been fighting fear. It started gnawing at me a few days ago. What will happen when…? Fill in the blank, the result has run through my mind. I’ve been putting off work that needs to get done, procrastinating on the tasks I put on my list to accomplish and sleeping, sometimes in my bed, somtimes with my eyes open–just mentally asleep.

It seems easier than to confront the fear that’s trying to creep into my days. It’s a lie to think that if I ignore it it will just go away.

how will i handle this much recovery time letting someone else take care of me?

how will the affect my relationship with my husband?

how am i going to pay my bills?

what am i going to do all day?

what if there’s something really wrong?

what if it’s cancer?

what if…?

This could be an almost endless list if I let it go on. But I’m not in charge of my life, God is. I gave it to Him and all the worries with it belong to Him now…what an amazing realization that is. I’ve been fighting with worry for years and just now figured out that the reason it’s sin to worry is because I’m taking back my life that I gave to Him already. My life and everything with it and in it belongs to Him!!!!! Yea!!

So, really, what do I have to worry about??

To Intercede…

Hebrews 7:25-26 (NLT)

²⁵ Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

In 2008, my husband and I went through prophetic assembly.

The morning after, my mind could not remember the words of God that I had held on to for life…the words that sustained me…the words I needed. A battle had begun within me…a battle for God’s will or mine to be done.

For most of my life the battle had surfaced and faded and surfaced and faded. I wanted God, but I wanted life the way I wanted it. I did not understand that the conflict within was the battle of the flesh and the spirit, nor did I understand how to fight against that which rages against the LORD.

After the prophetic, my focus turned from the LORD to what my husband was supposed to do. I became selfish and self focused seeking after what I thought was right. I forgot the way to life…

Proverbs 3:5-6 (New Living Translation)

 ⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
      do not depend on your own understanding.
 ⁶ Seek his will in all you do,
      and he will show you which path to take.

I took my own path, forsaking wisdom, fighting authority, refusing to repent.

The summer of 2009 I almost drowned.

We took an inflatable kayak down the river. It sucked us under. We did not have the skill to do what we were trying to do. My husband made it to the side, he caught the eddy and got out. I’m not as strong as I used to be and didn’t get over fast enough. Just as I was reaching the edge of the river, the eddy ended and huge rocks began to beat me and the river intensified and I was swept away. Fear gripped my heart. I went down the river through the next set of rapids gasping for air, praying with my strength and clinging to the paddle for life. I was terrified of the river for the first time in my life. All my efforts could not get me anywhere near safety and it looked like I would die. Then I remembered all that God had promised me in the prophetic that we would do and knew that this was not how it would end. I prayed that, and I surrendered. Then God had mercy on me and I was led to the side of the river. I got to the shore and climbed out shaking, shivering and terrified. I wanted out, I was all done. Other rafters came by and said they’d seen my husband and he was coming for me. When he came to me, I quit. Let’s go home.

I think this is how the last couple years have been for me spiritually. I gave up. I didn’t get what I want, couldn’t fight God for it and quit. Oh, I forgot to mention the time I was fighting spiritually for the holiness of the body of Christ and the intimidating taunt from my enemy came to me “who are you to command anyone to do anything?”

Yes, who am I? I now see that I had rejected what God had called me to partly because of the taunting of the enemy. I had also partly rejected the call of God because I was seeking prestige, acceptance, to be seen and confirmed, to be validated.

Last night I repented of rejecting Him and the call He placed on my life.

I am the King’s daughter, His beloved, His child, His favored one. The one that He made covenants with…

“God has not forgotten his covenants with you daughter because those prayers and those tears, and those intercessory prayers that you prayed have registered. “

” You are going to immediately recognize as a couple those that have been fractured, those that have been bumped, those that have been bruised, those that have been in car wrecks along the way and God is calling you to come along side and how to lift them to the heart of the father.  And as you do God will be loading the cannons of your prayer life with the stones of faith that will launch toward the strongholds that have held the people captive”

 

What is this that I’ve been called to??

A life like my LORD. A life like Jesus. A life of love and intercession. A life of helping others to be more like Him. A life that is more precious than anything else I could even dream of.

Dependence

John 15:4-6 (New Living Translation)

⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

 ⁵ “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.

 I am completely and utterly dependent. My God has taken me through this lesson for a long time because I have been slow to understand my limitations.

I thought that so much of what I was able to do was of my own strength, my own ability, but He has shown me otherwise this last year or so.

In December of 1999 I cried out to Him to take me from the life I was living. He did. And through this journey we’ve been on since then, I’ve learned that the ONLY way that I overcome struggles in my life is THROUGH HIM. Not me. No way. I know now that I cannot do much of anything in my own strength.

He had given me the ability to overcome drug addiction and alcoholism.

He has given me the strength to overcome smoking.

He gives me reprieve from the insanity that consumed me with that addiction.

He gives me reprieve from depression.

He helps me to get up every morning and strength to get through each day.

He does my job through me, it’s all Him, I’ve really got nothing I can say that I am able to do without Him.

He helps me to love those around me, given to my own self, I would isolate and hate people.

He helps me to know just how much I am completely dependent on Him for each breath and heartbeat.

He holds my heart and helps me to let go of the hurts of the past and look to the future.

He loves me so deeply that sometimes I feel like I can’t take anymore and even when I want to push Him away, He still loves me.

He’s helping me to learn to allow myself to be loved by Him.

He forgives me.

I am dependent.

For all that He is and all that I need in Him I am eternally thankful.

Adenomyosis…

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/Adenomyosis/DS00636

See the above link for detailed description…

Two and a half weeks ago I received an answer to what has been a serious problem in my life for the last 6-8 years. This has affected almost every part of my life. I also found out I have anemia. Symptoms of anemia include: lethargy, difficulty concentrating, irritability and trouble sleeping. DUH! I’ve started iron suppliments and hope to regain what has been stolen from me for the last few years.

I have surgery scheduled for February 2, 2011. I will be having a full hysterectomy. My doctor is planning on leaving my ovaries, if possible, so as to NOT put me into menopause at 39.

I’m looking forward to being able to think again, not be so tired, sleep better, not be irritable, and not have the pain and other problems with this issue.

Hello world…

Hi there. This is a test. Are you ready for what’s to come???

Revisiting my Love….

Found this from a blog I deleted a long while back. This is from July 2008.

So, I keep searching for You. ikeep looking in places where I’ve been, places where we’ve met. I can’t find you there, so I keep searching. You draw me to you with your love, with your eyes. seeing you face to face makes my heart beat in ways Inever knew it could, seeing you makes me watn to give you all i have and more, seeing you makes me forget everything else and run to you…I need you every day, every moment. you consume me with your presence, you consume me with your love, you consume me with a desire for just you. I want to live in your presence and never leave, I want to spend every waking moment thinking about you, talking to you, in your arms wrapped in your comfort. i want to be with you forever and never leave. can you make me remember how this feels for always, can you make me to live with you forever in every day. can you make me to remember how it feels in your presence when i am away from this moment? i feel your love as its everlasting presence is revealed in your touch. i can see no end to what you can do when i am with you. i see what you can do with my life when I am with you. i see who i am when i am with you, i see who you are when i am in your presence. you make me.

I need this hunger again!!!

Dreams and Passions

And living life…

There’s a place deep inside me that longs for more than what is here, more than what I can see and touch and taste and feel. A longing that is only satisfied by the Presence of my Creator. And there’s something inside me that wants desperately to sing…to sing at the top of my lungs with all that I have within me and sing to Him, sing for Him, sing about Him.

And I saw a dream of being on stage, leading many to worship Him as well.

And then when He asked me to sing for Him, I became afraid. For I know I am not enough, and my faith is small and I doubted His strength to help me. I became afraid for I was afraid of people, afraid of what they think of me, how I look to them.

I’ve been laughed at, mocked, beat up and left out for most of my life. The thought of standing in front of all kinds of people terrified me.

Then, He began to deal with me.

I almost drowned in the summer of 2009. Faced fear of dying.

Taking me to the fears I’ve held on to, He is taking me to the place of trusting Him completely, or at least a little more perfectly.

Fear of losing my kids? Let it go.
Fear of losing my mind? Battled that one too.
Fear of letting others see who I really am? Facing that one.
Fear of not having enough? Enough of what??? That place is only satisfied by Him.

Fear of succeeding? I think this one is next…

Stewardship and being ready

Matthew 25
Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids
“Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids[a] who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, 4 but the other five were wise enough to take along extra oil. 5 When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
6 “At midnight they were roused by the shout, ‘Look, the bridegroom is coming! Come out and meet him!’

7 “All the bridesmaids got up and prepared their lamps. 8 Then the five foolish ones asked the others, ‘Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.’

AHHH, they took extra care of what had been given to them and they took extra oil to cover their need, because they prepared themselves. When the shout was given, they spent their time getting ready.

Matt 25:19 “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money. 20 The servant to whom he had entrusted the five bags of silver came forward with five more and said, ‘Master, you gave me five bags of silver to invest, and I have earned five more.’

21 “The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together![c]’

22 “The servant who had received the two bags of silver came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of silver to invest, and I have earned two more.’

23 “The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’

24 “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. 25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’

Fear holds me back. I’m afraid of failing. And in being afraid of failing, I fail. I fail because I’m afraid that my attempts will be mocked, futile, or even that I will succeed and that success will ruin me. So, when this fear grips my thoughts, my response is to do nothing. In doing nothing, I am the unfaithful bridesmaid, the servant with one talent who buried it in the ground. I have failed to take care of even the simplest of tasks that have been given to me.

So, what I’ve been neglecting has been brought to my attention by the Lord. It’s time to take care of business. Taking care of this body He gave me needs to be a much higher priority. My A1c is way up and I do not want to take more meds. My sinuses keep getting infected, and I feel tired much of the time. I have not been to the gym in since September and not regularly since July. I was dependent on another for my motivation to go and when I began to see that waning, my resolve went out the door. I have placed too much in the encouragement of people and their approval of me for the things I must do.
Taking care of my home is also lacking. This place was a dump when we bought it and I haven’t wanted to put much effort in to it. That’s not what Jesus wants. I’m supposed to take care of what is given to me, regardless if it looks nice or not.
Taking care of my family and nurturing them, not just feeding and clothing them must be priority. My selfishness has caused me to withdraw from those closest to me and to shut my life off from them. Not fair or right.

So, in letting you all in on this, I’m choosing not to hide my talent any more and to move forward into taking care of my business instead of looking around me at everyone else’s.

http://www.coharvest.org/default.aspx?p=28362&maid=533&feed=podcast