I'm not despairing, just sorting. I am actively working on learning and growing through this process, and sometimes that means that I just have moments where I am really hanging out there emotionally. Thus, Friday's note (in blue in yesterday's post).
And I know that this journey has been for a reason, and frankly isn't over yet. God has me headed somewhere...I'm just impatient to get to the destination. :-)
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That said, how about another edition of Ten Things for Tuesday? Let's play a little Life Catch-Up, shall we?
1. Just discovered http://www.pandora.com/ . If you haven't heard of this, it's a great website. Just plug in the name of an artist or song you love, and the program will create a (ad-free!) 'radio' station for you based on that style. And you can mix several stations so you don't get bored. Right now, I'm listening to my Sarah Vaughan station, though I started the day on a Baroque station. I'm going to switch to a Big Band/Swing station shortly. I'm lovin' this! :-)
2. Finally getting my office organized. I should throw an open house once I do, as I don't think it's been fully in order since I moved in. Most recently, it became a storage/dumping area for everything I didn't know what to do with. Saturday, I com.plete.ly emptied it, except for some books on a wall shelf--it took 2-1/2 hours just to empty it!--cleaned it, and added an area rug. Then I put all the furniture back in, in a whole new arrangement. Love it! Can't wait to get it up and running! It's not a 'cute' room, but it will be functional...and I love functional.
3. Ooooh! Diana Krall just came on. I love Diana Krall. Wishin' I had those kinda skills. ;-) They're also playing Carmen McRae, and Lena Horne, Billy Holiday, Ella, Nat...all my favs! Yea for Pandora!
4. Today I learned how to clear a series of hyperlinks from an Excel spreadsheet without deleting the data. I know, I know. You, too, wish you could lead this charmed life.
5. I am totally addicted to caffeine again. I know I should go off of it, but the last three months have been too challenging to manage without a little help. The Diet Dr. Pepper craze I'm on is probably financing the company through these challenging financial times.
6. I don't think I've had the strength to share about some of the family concerns we've been facing this summer. #1: One of my sisters is severely handicapped, mentally and physically, from a brain tumor she had as a 6-month-old. (But seein' how she was supposed to be dead by her first birthday, and how she will turn 29 in December, we're all pretty happy.) Anyway, this sister started a series of not-breathing episodes about a month ago. She's had a dozen or so times where she just stopped breathing and slumped over or had serious trouble breathing, and no one has been able to figure out why...Until about 10 days ago, when they finally confirmed that the battery in her vagal nerve stimulator (does for the brain what a pacemaker does for the heart) was going wacko. They replaced the battery yesterday, and all appears fine so far. But we've spent 5+ weeks wondering if the next time she stopped breathing they would be able to bring her back to us.
7. Family concern #2: My mom. Things are settling down a bit now, but we're not out of the woods, nor may we ever be. Here's the post I started on July 1, but just couldn't bring myself to finish:
I usually really love to blog, to share where I am in life and what God is teaching me. But I have to admit, that SO much is going on in my life and in my head, that right now, it just makes me tired to think about sharing all of it. I just keep waiting for all the dust storms to settle so I'll know where I stand, but the pressure continues and the portents of change keep flowing into my life... I'll be able to share more in the coming weeks, but not today.
However, there is one area that I feel I should update you all on, and that is my mother. Ten or eleven days ago, I asked you to please pray for her. Well, the ground under our feet keeps shifting, but here is where we stand now:
My mother has Interstitial Lung Disease. It is a serious, permanent condition which involves scarring and nodules in the lungs. She has been having trouble breathing for some time now, and trouble sleeping too...which is a problem considering she keeps needing more and more sleep to make it through the day. If you've ever met my mother, you'll understand how serious her condition is when I share that this woman who cannot stop moving is requiring 1-2 naps per day in addition to many hours of sleep at night.
The initial biopsies revealed no cancer, but honestly, what they did reveal may be worse than cancer. Mom has Interstitial Pneumonia, regular and chronic. Don't look this up. What you will read is ugly and disheartening, defined by terms such as "deadly" and "life-expectancy." I cannot believe that I am typing those words in connection with my mother.
I think you can see why I couldn't finish. My mom's doctors haven't come up with the stuff my accidental google did (Don't ask how I could accidentally come up with that; just trust that I didn't mean to.), so we don't know exactly what her prognosis is. And right now, I'm okay with that. She is responding to treatment, but it is not a cure. It just suppresses the symptoms for now. And I'll just take that for now too, if you please.
8. I think numbers 6 & 7 may put the emotions and struggles I've shared about this summer into a little more perspective. My mom, my sister, the job-thing...and there is more, but I'm just not free to share all of it. It's been a tough summer. :-} But it hasn't been a bad summer. Hard and bad aren't the same thing. In fact, I don't recall ever pressing into find the heart and face of God more than I have this summer. And that, I know with certainty, is good.
9. I'm such a woman out of time. I'm listening to all this 40s, 50s, & early 60s music and thinking how I was so born in the wrong era. (With the obvious caveat of God knew what He was doing and all...) I love the music, the clothes, the dances, the manners...I'm a really old woman in a young-ish body!
10. Well I'm actually in pretty good spirits now. I should probably wrap up my lunch break shortly. Thanks for hanging with me, first through my silence, then through my emo, and now through far too many words.
May your day be filled with quiet whispers of His love.
Firmly in His grip,
-J
P.S. As I'm closing, Fred Astaire just came on singing The Way You Look Tonight. Sing it to me, Fred... MmmmmHmmmm.... ;-)
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness....Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
--Colossians 2:6-7; 3:1-2
(c) 2008
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4 comments:
not sure why, but I needed to take a deep breath after that post, I was so engrossed.....
I like what you said about a hard summer but not a bad summer!! good stuff!
yeah for caffeine!
I am glad that you are enjoying your music. I learned something today about your music tastes. You weird-o.
Ok, A just came up with a jingle. I asked what she had. She had a water bottle in her pants. (Clear indicator that she knew what she was doing was breaking a rule). I told her that she could not have it in her room. So she picks up the one that I have and says, but you get to have one. Yep!! Isn't this great!! This is going on while I type.
Yeah for getting your office done.
Caffeine is my best friend!!
You and your family have been in my prayers for a while now. Please keep me updated with all that is going on. Call me soon.
It only makes sense that you're a child of the forties (displaced into the seventies) -- your Dad and his siblings grew up during the Great Depression while everyone else was boppin' to the Beach Boys.
Welcome back... you've been missed & prayed for!
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