3 August 2023 Prayer Team

Hello to you – how are you? I’m just back from meeting with our church’s prayer team. I asked the members to pray for me. I am having problems with my new medication which causes anxiety. I tried to get in touch with my doctors nurse yesterday but was unsuccessful! I was able to get an appointment scheduled earlier which is good.

I’m grateful for our prayer team. Going each Thursday gives me a purpose. I walk there and walk home. Going gives me a reason to pray and connect with Jesus with other followers. There is such a beautiful fellowship. We are up to four members now! Today we had a lot to pray for to include several people that have been missing due to health related issues. Our group leader has a call list and checks on many of the people. Today was our youngest members Briana’s 29th birthday!

1 John 1:7New International Version

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all[a]sin.

https://youtu.be/jqlQIJWIT5o – Chris Tomlin Yes and Amen

27 July 2023 Someone Cares

Hi there! How is your week going this far? I’m just back from the Thursday prayer meeting – so glad I went. I got to meet a new person and as a group we talked about something we all had in common – a family member committing suicide and mental health. The pain of the loss be it fresh or a few years down the road never really goes away. Time numbs the wounds, faith restores hope. Some day we will see each other again! Mental Health is so hard to understand. It’s not like a broken bone or a one time problem you can just snap your fingers and fix. Suicide attempts are not just attention seeking but a legitimate cry for help.

Along these lines it comes to me to put it out in the cosmos that no matter what life may seem to be someone cares. For example, in a little gathering of four people just today, strangers to you, lifted you up in prayer. Someone cares about you no matter how it may seem. You are not alone! God has shown me this through my family both blood and not.

Exodus 33:14

14 The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Psalm 139:7

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

Matthew 26:41New International Version

41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

*RIP Sinead O’Connor – they haven’t said how she died but I have my suspicions from her history. I hope she has found peace.

13 July 2023 Bedtime

What time do you go to bed and wake up currently?

Hello to you. I’m just back from Grace House where we have a prayer meeting each Thursday at 9:30 am. Today it was Lois, Brie and me. We are hoping that may be this fall our group will grow some. I walked over and back. My lower back wasn’t happy but the prayers helped. I have been having some vertigo/swaying spells the past couple of days. I hope this isn’t a side effect of the new medication I’m on! We prayed for my Aunt and Dad too. Just found out my Aunt is having shoulder surgery later this month.

So bedtime and getting up are something I’ve been having to work on. I try to start going to bed at 9 pm and I usually wake up around 8-9 am. It takes me a long time to fall asleep and I don’t like getting out of bed right away. I think the reason I have trouble falling asleep has to do with being on screens before bed time. Last night I didn’t have anything on after lights out and I don’t remember falling asleep! Just takes good practice and consistency I think.

Today was good because I needed to be up early to go to the prayer meeting. It’s good to have a reason to get up and have something to look forward to.

Psalm 4:8New International Version

8 In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, Lord,
make me dwell in safety.

7 July 2023 Afternoon Light

Hello to you. How are you? The past couple days I’ve been having a lot of fullness in my ears and with that has come anxiety. I don’t know if it’s the new medication or what.

Have you ever noticed how things look during different phases of sunlight? I can remember reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau and his talking about taking objects from inside his house outside when he cleaned and how different they looked in the sunlight. I can remember when I was really into photography with my first husband Ken how important light was to taking pictures. Early morning and dusk were the ideal times for pictures – the most color saturation:

We used to collect dragons
This is an example of a picture taken at dusk – really saturated color

The cameras we used, like a Nikon, had light meters and everything wasn’t automatic like it is today . Who could of imagined cell phone cameras! They can take still photos and videos like devices we used to use that were much more complicated.

John 9:5New International Version

5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

6 July 2023 Romantic

What’s your definition of romantic?

Hello to you. I’m just back from meeting with our little prayer group at Grace House. We had a nice turn out! There were four of us. The walk over was nice yet tiring. I push myself even though I feel like a Weeble Wobble! Do you remember those toys?

Now to the prompt – what do I feel is the definition of romantic. I know this will seem weird but when I think of romance a couple movies come to mind and they both have to do with never ending love – Somewhere In Time and Brahms Stokers Dracula. There is something so romantic to me about love that transcends time and space. I can’t watch Somewhere in Time without being a mess afterwards! Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour did such a great job. The dinner date with absinthe and turning tears into diamonds in Dracula is just so romantic! Love the music for both films.

I can remember having an experience like this during one of my hospital stays. There was a young woman named Yamila I met and she seemed so familiar. I asked her if we had ever met before and she said “perhaps in another life.” Such an odd thing to say and it really stuck me. She reminded me of a girl I supervised in the military. Yamila walked, talked and did other gestures just as if I was with Eveline again! Eveline was Dutch and just such a sweet girl – my first troop!

1 Corinthians 13:8-13New International Version

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

2 July 2023 Surgery (ever had one)

Have you ever had surgery? What for?

Hello to you. I’m just back from church and groceries. The message today came from Thessalonians in regards to the return of Christ. Pastor Daniel from the Nampa campus gave the message. It was good to see familiar faces and get caught up on things. Dear Penny lost her Dad recently and she shared her peace about that. The grocery trip was kind of disappointing. I wanted to get some Tillamook ice cream to take over to Ruth’s on the 4th but they didn’t have vanilla and the freezer was failing – a lot of the ice cream was melted. I picked up some Dreyers that wasn’t too melted! Hope it will be ok!

Todays prompt takes me back to the two surgeries I had to remove fibroid cysts. The first surgery removed a cyst the size of a 5 month embryo and second surgery, in August of 2005, when I had my hysterectomy to remove fibroid cysts and all my baby making parts. It was a life changing decision we made to have the hysterectomy. I remember just before being put under anesthesia for the second surgery the technician asking me if this is what I wanted to do. It rained that day as Kyle waited for me to get in and out of surgery. I remember it was hard to wake up from the anesthesia for both surgeries.

I never had children and having the 2nd surgery shut the door on that. It was for my best. From time to time I wonder what my life would have been if we had tried for a child either in my first or second marriage but it passes. Looking back at the wreckage of my being Bipolar, it really would have been rough trying to raise a healthy child. A large part of my dog Links early life was me in the hospital. It would have been worse if he had been a human child.

1 July 2023 Keeping Life Fresh

Hello to you. It’s 89 degrees here as I write to you. I was going to sit outside and write but it’s too hot!

My thoughts today turn to thinking about keeping life fresh. Lately my life has been feeling like Ground Hog Day. Very little deviation from routine. Sometimes I will be ready to do my daily sit ups and wonder if I already did them! Inside of me I am wanting more but my body is resisting. What keeps happening is I get this fullness in my ears and I will feel anxious and hypersensitive to my body. The Mal de Barque stuff. My lower back has not been my friend either. I try to walk and I feel like a weeble wobble huffing and puffing almost the whole walk in pain. The only thing that seems to help the hypersensitivity is taking the olanzapine right now. I will be starting to do the taper off of it starting tomorrow. My doctor wants to taper me off of it because it’s notorious, along with the Depakote, for causing weight gain. We are going to try Abilify (aripiprazole) instead of Olanzapine – I hope it works as well for anxiety, weight gain and hypersensitivity.

I try to stay in the understanding that I am blessed to have the life I have even with it’s short comings! As I keep saying it’s not what I can’t do but what I can. Hopefully with the medicine change I will feel stronger and like I can do more to keep my life fresh.

Psalm 147:3-5New International Version

3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

29 June 2023 Different Walk

Hello to you. How are you? Yesterday I took a different walk in the evening and was rewarded with new flowers to see!

Isaiah 41:10 ~ Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

9 June 2023 Name

If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?

Hello to you. How are you? I’m doing ok. Link and I are moving kind of slow today and it’s raining. We need the water so grateful for the rain!

Todays prompt is about changing your name. I honestly don’t think I would change it! I already changed my maiden name to my married name. I kind of flirted with a name a couple of years ago for a Facebook profile Julia James. Julia was my confirmation name when I was a little girl still practicing Catholicism.

I was looking at my pictures love this two tone rose.

Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

1 June 2023 Job

What jobs have you had?

Hello to you. How is your week going? Can you believe it’s June already? This year is flying by.

So todays question is what jobs have you had. The only job I had was for 16 years active duty in the United States Air Force. I was a Personnelist or a secretary. I worked in the MPF (Military Personnel Flight) at the bases I was stationed at. Personnelist were responsible for taking care of other military members on base – their careers, evaluation reports, retention contracts, training, retraining, assignments and more.

When I worked in Customer Service I would have to do Identification Cards for widows and widowers. It was such a sensitive thing I would cry after they left. I was a very sensitive person! My favorite job was Personnel Systems Management- working with computers and really fun guys was way better than Personnel. It was short-lived bliss though as they outsourced our jobs to civilians shortly after I retrained into the job! Being the highly sensitive person that I was, I just wasn’t cut out for military life; I didn’t make it to a full retirement. I got so attached to people, places and things that when it was time to say good-bye it was just so hard each time. The people you work with you grow to love like family! I hate good-byes!

My first duty assignment was a Travis AFB California and that’s were I met and married my first husband. Our second assignment was in Germany at Bitburg ABS I really loved being in Europe – didn’t want to leave! Our third assignment was in Colorado. I was stationed at Falcon AFB and my husband Peterson AFB in Colorado Springs. I was at Falcon then HQ Air Force Space Command and then the MPF at Peterson. I loved Colorado because I got to see my Grandma and my Uncle Bill more often, she lived in Ft. Collins and he was living in Golden and was a CEO at Coors. The natural beauty of Colorado was amazing. My first husband loved to fish and I would go with him. I loved falling asleep on the shore of a lake on Pikes Peak – the quaking Aspens would lull me to sleep. My last assignment was at Patrick AFB. I had my breakdown there and was medically retired. I was doing some really unhealthy things trying to cope with my failing marriage and too much work. I liked Florida but missed Colorado! Living in a beach type world is definitely a different lifestyle.

Colossians 3:23-24 says: “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.