It's Thanksgiving!!! I absolutely love this holiday set aside to be Thankful. I love the emphasis on family, the farming harvest, I love baking and cooking and blessing those I love through what I make, I love being reminded to be thankful to the God who gives us so so much. I love pretty much everything about this holiday. So take a journey with me to my Thanksgivings Past, and maybe we will all be reminded of what we are thankful for: (enter wistful music and twirling feeling like on Dicken's Christmas Carol)
1. I'm just 18 or 19 - lying there in a cold hospital room in Canada of all places! This was the first Thanksgiving I remember where things were very different for me. I became quite sick (gallbladder but they didn't know it then) and was put in the tiny local hospital for 5 days I think. They put me on a liquid diet. I remember clearly talking to my sweet Daddy on the phone and he told me maybe they would let me eat cranberry jello since it was Thanksgiving day. The whole experience was a blur - but looking back I am so thankful for my big sister who spent so much time watching over me and loving on me, and for friends who were by my side during that time. On to the next Thanksgiving a few years later ...
2. Lying on the couch and my parents home. I had to stay home from the family Thanksgiving because I was sick recovering from strep throat. My parents and whole family was over 2 hours away and the doctor told me to rush to the ER because I was having trouble breathing. My mom told me to call the neighbors (who just so happened to be the family of my sweet Farmer Boy!) and Joshua himself came and drove me to the local ER (we were not dating at the time but best friends) I told him to just drop me off and go back to his family Thanksgiving dinner. But he refused and stayed in the ER with me for hours making me laugh and talking with me. His parents waited on having dinner til after 8pm when they let me go home. I was overwhelmed by his and their generosity. I started seriously falling in love with him. :)
3. My very first home alone - and this year I was sick again and couldn't make the trip to the family dinner. Joshua (who by now was my intended) was away with his family in another state. I was really alone. My amazing parents came to my house and dropped off a lovely slice of pumpkin pie before heading to the family dinner. I wore my Farmer Boy's big cozy sweater all day. Perhaps this Thanksgiving was one in which I learned the most because I was really alone and I could have let it ruin it, but I decided to make the most of it and enjoy my day just me and my God. It was so blessed and full of reminders of what I am Thankful for. Now on to the last Thanksgiving memory ...
4. I really disliked this hospital - maybe because I was hospitalized for a couple weeks - very sick with pericarditis. I was downtown and my sweet Farmer Boy spent every possible moment by my side. On Thanksgiving I was very depressed, my family stopped by and Joshua went home to have dinner with his family (which I definitely didn't want to make him miss!) but at around 10pm he called and said he was coming back to spend the night at the hospital with me. I was so surprised that he would drive 2 hours after a busy day to spend time with me because he knew how lonely I was. (twirling feeling and music and suddenly we're back to the present)
The point of this journey to Thanksgivings Past is to remind you all (and myself) that no matter where you are today, or who is with you, or how you are feeling - there are always blessings and reasons to be Thankful.
Thanksgiving Present: At the moment I am fighting a cold among other things. I got the news from my doctor today that I have to really be careful of what I eat and may even have to be on a liquid diet (because of the likelyhood that my pancreas is upset again)...which is disappointing since I just LOVE all the butter and yumminess of Thanksgiving dinner. BUT I am choosing now to find joy in the God who is always with me. I may or may not spend the day around a table with the family I love ... but whatever the case I am grateful. It's not easy - I feel very disappointed about possibly missing the day with family and my Husband .. but it is a choice I need to make. (update: my cold held back enough for me to go to the family dinner and even though I wasn't able to eat everything I had a lovely time!)
I would love to hear your Thanksgiving stories!
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Walking through the valley
There are times when for whatever reason: relational problems, physical pain or illness, depression, loss of work, loneliness, isolation, financial troubles, new diagnosis, death of a loved one ... it seems our bodies try to protect us by "turning off" our emotions. We find ourselves going through the motions of day to day life not something is missing. I've had this happen a few times in my life: after my Grandpa died when I was 15, when surgery ended up not relieving the pain ... So what do we do in times when we feel this way?
Keep going.
I've found that there are times when you just have to force yourself to do the things you don't "feel" like doing. Go to work. Clean the house. Even sometimes getting up in the morning. And even though this may not change the way you feel, it helps you get through the time in the valley.
It's frustrating wanting your emotions to catch up with what you know and believe to be true. But eventually they will. Don't give up but keep on going and do things that you know you used to like doing or things that you know are important: read the Bible, pray - even if you don't know the words to say God cares how you are feeling, spend time with others who are encourage you, cook, garden, sing ... these things can give you little glimmers of what you used to love and help pull you out of the self-defeating feelings or lack of feelings.
Do these times that everyone goes through steal away all joy and hope? They don't have to! Joy is based not on changing emotions but on truth - the truth that God is with us no matter what, the truth of heaven, the truth of those around us who love us for who we are, the truth of the beauty in creation! That is one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog - to remind myself and others that there IS a joy or "a different kind of happy" that is not based on circumstances.
Do any of you have ideas for what you do when you are going through a valley in life? I would love to hear!
Keep going.
I've found that there are times when you just have to force yourself to do the things you don't "feel" like doing. Go to work. Clean the house. Even sometimes getting up in the morning. And even though this may not change the way you feel, it helps you get through the time in the valley.
It's frustrating wanting your emotions to catch up with what you know and believe to be true. But eventually they will. Don't give up but keep on going and do things that you know you used to like doing or things that you know are important: read the Bible, pray - even if you don't know the words to say God cares how you are feeling, spend time with others who are encourage you, cook, garden, sing ... these things can give you little glimmers of what you used to love and help pull you out of the self-defeating feelings or lack of feelings.
Do these times that everyone goes through steal away all joy and hope? They don't have to! Joy is based not on changing emotions but on truth - the truth that God is with us no matter what, the truth of heaven, the truth of those around us who love us for who we are, the truth of the beauty in creation! That is one of the main reasons I wanted to start this blog - to remind myself and others that there IS a joy or "a different kind of happy" that is not based on circumstances.
Do any of you have ideas for what you do when you are going through a valley in life? I would love to hear!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Not just a body
“Life depends on the physical body, but the physical body is not what life is all about” (Unknown)
I've been reminded so much lately that life is so much more than this body of ours. When friends find out they have cancer, dear friends and family get closer to the end of a long life, diagnosis change, young people are snatched from life during a car accident ... there is just so much to remind me that these bodies we all have are not what makes us who we are. The beauty of the human soul shines forth even on the death bed. We all have the choice every day if we will let whatever is happening to our physical body determine our attitude, or not. What is happening to our body is often not in our control. But we can choose what our true LIFE is going to be. We can choose to have joy in our lives even in sadness, we can choose to trust God with all that we are, we can choose to love those around us. Life is SO much more ... so live today a full life no matter what.
I've been reminded so much lately that life is so much more than this body of ours. When friends find out they have cancer, dear friends and family get closer to the end of a long life, diagnosis change, young people are snatched from life during a car accident ... there is just so much to remind me that these bodies we all have are not what makes us who we are. The beauty of the human soul shines forth even on the death bed. We all have the choice every day if we will let whatever is happening to our physical body determine our attitude, or not. What is happening to our body is often not in our control. But we can choose what our true LIFE is going to be. We can choose to have joy in our lives even in sadness, we can choose to trust God with all that we are, we can choose to love those around us. Life is SO much more ... so live today a full life no matter what.
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