This has been one of those weeks that I wished I could do over. It seemed that no matter what I did I was being drained of my spirit. I had a week filled with helping friends and family and this is something that I normally do best. In fact there were a couple of times this week I wrote on my Facebook wall that I was "Off to do what I do best" hoping to leave some of the people in my Facebook land with thoughts of "Where is she off too?" and What is Mary up to now?". I spent Monday and Wednesday with a very special woman, whose has been in my life since I was nine and has taught me many things and now she is one of my best friends. She was always there for me when I needed her and now I am so very Blessed to be able to be there for her when she needs me. On Thursday I had to take my oldest daughter to the doctors because she was very ill with bronchitis and a sinus infection. Taking her to the doctors and then to pick up her prescriptions and then back home to bed reminded me of when the kids were little and they needed me to take care of them. I think it was Gods way of saying, "Sometimes I will still need you to fill in on the little stuff, you will always be on call". On Friday I spent the day with my youngest daughter, who is now and will always be my baby. She is on her own and even though she has days when she may struggle she is making me so proud because she is starting to make positive choices and that is all that God expects from us. So I know she will be Blessed. I have been searching for a job for months and nothing has come so money seems to get tighter with every passing day. Everytime I think I have a lead on a good job something seems to get in the way. I stopped praying for patience in the job hunting department and started being thankful for everything I had, thinking that would change the way I felt, but for some reason this week, it was getting worse. Remember it was also on this day that I found out that I would no longer be an active participent on the bone marrow registry. With everything good I did, my spirit was being sucked out of me. I opened my online bank account on Saturday to find that the small amount of money that I had left...and I mean small had been changed to minus $43 and change. Now I lost it!!!!!!
I couldn't believe after everything I had done this week...After everything thing good I had done...After every prayer I had prayed for people both here and there...This is what God had to hand me...And then it hit me...IT WAS NOT GOD....Satan was not impressed with my week. He was in fact pissed off with all the good that I had been doing. After all the years of being a Christian and doing "good" things, this was the first time in my life that satan was actually attacking me personally. Well it was the first time that I actually felt it. It was the first time in my life that his attack caused me to say "why is God doing this to me". But as soon as the words fell out of my mouth I knew that it was not God doing this and I knew that Satan was behind this and I declared God the Ruler of my life. I know I am covered in Jesus' blood and that I will share in his everlasting life. It made me feel pretty good to know that I must have been doing pretty good work for the Lord this week if Satan felt threatened. All I have to say to that is...Watch out Another week is coming and I am covered in the blood of Jesus and nothing is going to stop me!!!! May God Bless you and protect you!!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Giving Life
Some of you may know that I donated stem cells two years ago to a woman who had leukemia. Recieving stem cells is usually the last resort for a patient and I was a perfect match. I don't know who this person is and I will not have the opportunity to meet her for another three years. This is one of the rules of the registry in which I signed up to donate. The registry has many rules to protect both donor and recipient. They have to be strict because there is so much at stake...we are talking about human life. Not only are they trying to save a life but they don't want to lose a life in the process. Every year on the anniversery of my donation I get a call from my advocate and she asks me questions about my health and this year I informed her that I had been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, a condition that messes with the nerves in your body. I have probably had this condition for many years but wasn't diagnosed until after my donation. Now that I have been diagnosed I have been put on the inactive list with the registry and unable at this time to donate my stem cells.
Being a part of the registry has been a huge part of my life and to know I am not going to get that phone call is very sad to deal with. I have had a few people say that I should be grateful and trust me, I am. I am very thankful that I have been able to save a life. There are many, many people on the registry that will never get to say that. There are many people in my life that can't even sign up for the registry and I know how much it would have meant to them to be able to have done that. I also know that I have people in my life that want to sign up and I know that I can be there for them and help them with their journey if they are ever chosen to be donors.
I have recieved a few correspondence from my recipient over the last couple of years thanking me and telling me how she is doing and I have not sent her anything, probably because I have no idea what to say to her. I have decided that I am going to start to write to her here in my blogs. In here I will be able to say whatever I want and when I do meet her she can read these blogs and catch up with my life. I want to make sure that I capture every emotion that I have had with this experience. It has meant almost as much to me than having my own children. I share with this woman a bond that I can now no longer share with anyone. She has my DNA, she has my heart and I can't wait to meet her and tell her how she changed my life.
Being a part of the registry has been a huge part of my life and to know I am not going to get that phone call is very sad to deal with. I have had a few people say that I should be grateful and trust me, I am. I am very thankful that I have been able to save a life. There are many, many people on the registry that will never get to say that. There are many people in my life that can't even sign up for the registry and I know how much it would have meant to them to be able to have done that. I also know that I have people in my life that want to sign up and I know that I can be there for them and help them with their journey if they are ever chosen to be donors.
I have recieved a few correspondence from my recipient over the last couple of years thanking me and telling me how she is doing and I have not sent her anything, probably because I have no idea what to say to her. I have decided that I am going to start to write to her here in my blogs. In here I will be able to say whatever I want and when I do meet her she can read these blogs and catch up with my life. I want to make sure that I capture every emotion that I have had with this experience. It has meant almost as much to me than having my own children. I share with this woman a bond that I can now no longer share with anyone. She has my DNA, she has my heart and I can't wait to meet her and tell her how she changed my life.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
When I Grow Up...
As a child you are always asked "What do you want to be when you grow up?". I really don't remember what it was that I wanted to be when I was a child. I know when I was in high school I thought I wanted to be a physical therapist and then I had that one teacher that told me I wasn't smart enough to be a physical therapist so after that comment I kind of lost interest in most academic achievements. After high school I did go to college but as my mom will tell you I majored in cheereleading and once that was over I really lost interest in the academic part of the institution. It wasn't too long after I left the college life that I met someone and got pregnant with my first child. So it was set it motion, being a wife and mother was what I was going to be when I grew up.
One day while driving in the minivan with my now three children, I said to God, "Is this it?" Is this all I'm suppose to be?" I thought this was the end, this was one of those, Oh my God moments when my life is over, I will never be anything more than I am right at this moment. Then God spoke to me, and he said "Yes, this is what I want you to be, a mom to these three children. Can you do this for me?" I was very happy to answer his call and say of course I can, I would be more than happy to do that for you. I will be the best mother I can be for you. I thanked him for this gift. Our children are gifts from God. They are not ours to keep forever. We are to bring them up, teach them what the Lord wants them to know. We are to give them the gifts and tools that the Lord gave us to give to them and then we have to let them go to continue life. Do we stop loving them? Never. Do we stop helping them? No, but we have limits. As a person who accepted the calling of being a mom first, letting go of the "children" was the most difficult part of being a mom. As I have stated before in a previous blog without my children I sometimes feel like I don't have a life.
Now that I am in the second half of my life and my children are grown and on their own I am once again asking myself, "What do I want to be when I grow up?". I had been patiently waiting for God to tell me if he had something else for me to do but I don't do patience very well. I have been applying for jobs but nothing really coming back at me. So I have decided to stop being patient and start being thankful to God for everything he has given me so far in my life. He has truly Blessed me. I almost feel as if I should wait because he has given me so much that maybe I need to wait my turn a little more. Thank you Lord for everything you have given me!!!
One day while driving in the minivan with my now three children, I said to God, "Is this it?" Is this all I'm suppose to be?" I thought this was the end, this was one of those, Oh my God moments when my life is over, I will never be anything more than I am right at this moment. Then God spoke to me, and he said "Yes, this is what I want you to be, a mom to these three children. Can you do this for me?" I was very happy to answer his call and say of course I can, I would be more than happy to do that for you. I will be the best mother I can be for you. I thanked him for this gift. Our children are gifts from God. They are not ours to keep forever. We are to bring them up, teach them what the Lord wants them to know. We are to give them the gifts and tools that the Lord gave us to give to them and then we have to let them go to continue life. Do we stop loving them? Never. Do we stop helping them? No, but we have limits. As a person who accepted the calling of being a mom first, letting go of the "children" was the most difficult part of being a mom. As I have stated before in a previous blog without my children I sometimes feel like I don't have a life.
Now that I am in the second half of my life and my children are grown and on their own I am once again asking myself, "What do I want to be when I grow up?". I had been patiently waiting for God to tell me if he had something else for me to do but I don't do patience very well. I have been applying for jobs but nothing really coming back at me. So I have decided to stop being patient and start being thankful to God for everything he has given me so far in my life. He has truly Blessed me. I almost feel as if I should wait because he has given me so much that maybe I need to wait my turn a little more. Thank you Lord for everything you have given me!!!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Changing Your Picture
I have had this phrase in my head for many years now, "Change Your Picture". Apparently we are in charge of what our mind sees so when we continue to see things or feel things we don't like, we have the power to change it by "Changing Our Picture". Now I have to admit that I wish I had more training in this change, because changing the picture in your mind is like using those new remotes with all the buttons. I still have problems with that and need help when all of the electronics don't turn on like they are suppose to when I hit the power button. But when you are finally able to change a negative thought in your mind to a positive one it is truly an amazing feeling. It feels as if a miracle has occurred and I believe that in many ways it has.
This happened to me recently and I was absolutely elated. I thought that I suffered from depression for many years of my life and I probably did because I told myself I did. I had been to the doctors many times and had been on medications and at one point even went to see a therapist. By the way, he was the one the started to teach me that I could change the picture in my head, but to no avail none of these medicines really seemed to work and I constantly seemed to be looking for the answer to why was I still depressed. While having a conversation with a very close friend and admitting to her that I suffered from depression, she was shocked, and said she would have never guessed that I was depressed. She found me to be very motivational and very inspirational and in that instant she helped me flip my picture.
We all have reasons to be sad and have depressed moments. Some of us that are mothers may have a laundry list and yes you can count the laundry. There are many things that happen in our lives that can truly bring us down the road to be sad. I have been through many transitions in the last year of my life that have left me spinning and there was no wonder I had moments of feeling as if my life was spinning out of control. You can't take a life and throw all the pieces up in the air and expect everything to fall down in all the right places. This is life...
Having kids is the same, they rule most of the time. Parents are always teaching their children and forget that they are also living and by the time the kids are grown and gone, they find that their lives are behind them and they are questioning everything they did as parents. As a mother this is my biggest mountain to climb. I'm not sure I will ever actually fully rest in all the decisions I made as a mother but I am trying to change this picture. I am working on " I gave my kids the tools they need and it's their choice to use them, I did my job".
Illness is another interruption in life and it definitely can lead to depressive moments. I watched my mom survive cancer, to me one of the worst diseases, with amazing strength. But there were depressive moments. There has to be. You are initially handed a death sentence. But then you have to choose what you will do with it. My mom chose to LIVE with it. And by live I mean she took her cancer and said, " Ok Lord...What is it you want me to do with this?" Did she cry? Yes. Was she tired? All the time. Did she get angry? Definitely. But she also fought. She changed the picture in her mind to show how she would live with cancer instead of die with cancer. She reached out to others with cancer and shared her story. She reached out to others who didn't have cancer and taught them about compassion. She still to this day, five years later, is raising money to beat cancer. She made a choice to make the picture in her mind a positive picture of life and not death.
So I am happy to say that I am not a depressed person. I do not suffer from depression. There are times when I have a good cry and that's ok, it's a great cleaning of my soul. I have also started using a technique of being thankful for everything in my life. I have found that the more things that I can be thankful for the more things I find to be thankful for. It is truly a Blessing from God when you start looking at things through different eyes how much things change. I am thankful to God for the people in my life and for my health. I am thankful to God for you who are reading my blog that you will find many Blessings today.
This happened to me recently and I was absolutely elated. I thought that I suffered from depression for many years of my life and I probably did because I told myself I did. I had been to the doctors many times and had been on medications and at one point even went to see a therapist. By the way, he was the one the started to teach me that I could change the picture in my head, but to no avail none of these medicines really seemed to work and I constantly seemed to be looking for the answer to why was I still depressed. While having a conversation with a very close friend and admitting to her that I suffered from depression, she was shocked, and said she would have never guessed that I was depressed. She found me to be very motivational and very inspirational and in that instant she helped me flip my picture.
We all have reasons to be sad and have depressed moments. Some of us that are mothers may have a laundry list and yes you can count the laundry. There are many things that happen in our lives that can truly bring us down the road to be sad. I have been through many transitions in the last year of my life that have left me spinning and there was no wonder I had moments of feeling as if my life was spinning out of control. You can't take a life and throw all the pieces up in the air and expect everything to fall down in all the right places. This is life...
Having kids is the same, they rule most of the time. Parents are always teaching their children and forget that they are also living and by the time the kids are grown and gone, they find that their lives are behind them and they are questioning everything they did as parents. As a mother this is my biggest mountain to climb. I'm not sure I will ever actually fully rest in all the decisions I made as a mother but I am trying to change this picture. I am working on " I gave my kids the tools they need and it's their choice to use them, I did my job".
Illness is another interruption in life and it definitely can lead to depressive moments. I watched my mom survive cancer, to me one of the worst diseases, with amazing strength. But there were depressive moments. There has to be. You are initially handed a death sentence. But then you have to choose what you will do with it. My mom chose to LIVE with it. And by live I mean she took her cancer and said, " Ok Lord...What is it you want me to do with this?" Did she cry? Yes. Was she tired? All the time. Did she get angry? Definitely. But she also fought. She changed the picture in her mind to show how she would live with cancer instead of die with cancer. She reached out to others with cancer and shared her story. She reached out to others who didn't have cancer and taught them about compassion. She still to this day, five years later, is raising money to beat cancer. She made a choice to make the picture in her mind a positive picture of life and not death.
So I am happy to say that I am not a depressed person. I do not suffer from depression. There are times when I have a good cry and that's ok, it's a great cleaning of my soul. I have also started using a technique of being thankful for everything in my life. I have found that the more things that I can be thankful for the more things I find to be thankful for. It is truly a Blessing from God when you start looking at things through different eyes how much things change. I am thankful to God for the people in my life and for my health. I am thankful to God for you who are reading my blog that you will find many Blessings today.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Christ's Love
When you think of Jesus' love what is the first thing that comes to your mind? If you were to meet Jesus on the street today, what would he say to you? Would he ask you to join him in a quiet place under a tree in a park and talk with you about how he understands how hard it's been for you struggling with everything thus far in your life? Would he ask you to join him in a cup of coffee at the coffee shop and tell you how much he loves you and how much he has been admiring everything you have been trying to do with your life? OR would he ask you to gather all your friends and meet him at the funeral of a soldier so that you could throw racial and anti-semitic slurs at the procession as it drove by?
It really makes me sad to see that there are Christians, and I use that word with a struggle, that think that they really believe that this is what God wants them to do. I know that, as a Christian, I am suppose to spread God's Love. I am suppose to tell people what God did for us so that we may have everlasting life. I am not sure, and I am sorry to all my Sunday school teachers, that I do not remember where exactly in the Bible it says that I am suppose to, as a Christian, go out and condemn people for who they are and what they do. I am, as a Christian, suppose to tell people how much God loves them. And contrary to what the WBC believes God does love everyone. He may not love everything we do but he does love all of his children. I am not perfect and I will be ready to let God himself judge me on my last day. I want him to know, and I know he knows whats in my heart, that if I continue to spread love and not hate then that is one of the many choices he gave me that I made right.
If Jesus comes and asks you to sit and have a conversation with him, what would you like him to know? What would you like to tell him? Take your favorite cup of beverage and go find a quiet place and have that conversation....He will hear you.
It really makes me sad to see that there are Christians, and I use that word with a struggle, that think that they really believe that this is what God wants them to do. I know that, as a Christian, I am suppose to spread God's Love. I am suppose to tell people what God did for us so that we may have everlasting life. I am not sure, and I am sorry to all my Sunday school teachers, that I do not remember where exactly in the Bible it says that I am suppose to, as a Christian, go out and condemn people for who they are and what they do. I am, as a Christian, suppose to tell people how much God loves them. And contrary to what the WBC believes God does love everyone. He may not love everything we do but he does love all of his children. I am not perfect and I will be ready to let God himself judge me on my last day. I want him to know, and I know he knows whats in my heart, that if I continue to spread love and not hate then that is one of the many choices he gave me that I made right.
If Jesus comes and asks you to sit and have a conversation with him, what would you like him to know? What would you like to tell him? Take your favorite cup of beverage and go find a quiet place and have that conversation....He will hear you.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Being in Love
Being in love doesn't always mean the love between a man and a woman. Sometimes the love is between a mother and a baby. Sometimes the love is between a man and his dog and sometimes the love is between a woman and her chocolate cake.
Wherever that love comes from, you know what I am talking about. You know exactly what that feeling is. It comes from deep inside your soul. It gives you a feeling of overwhelming giddyness. You want to call all your friends and scream from the roof tops and tell them how excited you are. You think this feeling will be with you forever..You know it will. And then it happens....
There is a disagreement between couples, the baby wakes you in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, other than wanting to wake you up. The dog has chewed your favorite pair of slippers and that piece of chocolate cake has put 2lbs on yours hips and a pimple on your nose.
What does this tell us? Does it mean the end of love? This is where we have to make a choice. We have to choose to love. We have to choose to accept that we are not perfect. We have to choose that as part of a couple we have to listen and discuss things and make things right. As a parent we have to comfort our children until they can comfort themselves. We have to pet the dog and buy a new pair of slippers AND a dog bone and keep the slippers hidden and most important we have to learn to eat the chocolate cake because chocolate safes lives, and isn't that what life is all about!!!
Wherever that love comes from, you know what I am talking about. You know exactly what that feeling is. It comes from deep inside your soul. It gives you a feeling of overwhelming giddyness. You want to call all your friends and scream from the roof tops and tell them how excited you are. You think this feeling will be with you forever..You know it will. And then it happens....
There is a disagreement between couples, the baby wakes you in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, other than wanting to wake you up. The dog has chewed your favorite pair of slippers and that piece of chocolate cake has put 2lbs on yours hips and a pimple on your nose.
What does this tell us? Does it mean the end of love? This is where we have to make a choice. We have to choose to love. We have to choose to accept that we are not perfect. We have to choose that as part of a couple we have to listen and discuss things and make things right. As a parent we have to comfort our children until they can comfort themselves. We have to pet the dog and buy a new pair of slippers AND a dog bone and keep the slippers hidden and most important we have to learn to eat the chocolate cake because chocolate safes lives, and isn't that what life is all about!!!
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