Lamb in Love

Depression Sucks!

And this morning I have made an executive decision.  I am going to do my best to keep my depression (and pain level) a secret.  I have a feeing that if I can do this life will be perfect.  I want to feel like I can go out and conquer the world, so I will act like I can conquer the world.

Back Online

After a MAJOR hard drive crash I am back online.  I lost almost everything, including all of the important lists dealing with the wedding, our income tax records for the last four years, scans of our divorce decrees, and scans of all the bills for 2008 and 2009.  What has amazed me the most is that everyone around me has had great confidence that I would pull it together recreate every lost bit.  No one has yelled or even fussed.  All of this trust has made me wonder what life would be like if I had the confidence in myself that others have in me.

Today's Quote:  It only takes one person to change your life -- you

--Ruth Casey

Today's Meditataion - Change ushers in glad, not bad, tidings

Spiritual Journaling

The topic of yesterday's Sunday School lesson was spiritual journaling.  Frankly, I was disappointed.  I strongly believe in journaling as a spiritual exercise.  I have written prayers for years.  But yesterday's speaker didn't leave the small audience with much to hold on to and less to take away.  Since the meeting I have been thinking of what I would have included if I had been given the opportunity to teach the class.

 

Journaling is simply a way of recording your journey with God. It helps you to pay more attention to God and is a way of way of learning to hear and respond to Him.By keeping a record you can see what God’s been doing, how far you’ve come and where you’re going.

Keeping a journal will help you to see how God is working in your life.

 

Your journal is more than a place to record daily events

 

It’s a place for inner growth and personal discovery. It acts as a mirror, is a safe place to explore things with God and is a place to generate and record ideas. As such, it becomes a good friend and sounding board.

 

Benefits of Journaling

 Keeping a journal will enlarge your vision and increase your expectancy.

 It helps you to keep you in good spiritual shape and stay true to your values.

 Your journal acts as a safe place to process what God is doing in your life and the lives of those around you.

 Journaling leads to personal growth and discovery through writing and reflection.

 It helps you to see where you’re going with God and to understand your spiritual journey.

 Your journal will provide a record that shows you how far you’ve journeyed, what God has been doing in your life and how much you’ve grown.

 Your journal can be anything you want it to be

 It could be a catalogue of your thoughts and prayers and God’s answers. A collection of wisdom and insight gleaned from God’s word and others. A record of encounters with other Christians God puts across your path … whatever serves you.

 A Guide To Journaling

  Start by praying. Ask the Holy Spirit, your Counsellor and Teacher, to lead you as you journal.

  Write what's on your heart. Talk to God; be honest with Him and with yourself. Share your joys, victories, desires, frustrations, uncertainties and heartaches with Him. Write down your goals, prayers, dreams, memories and special events. Record Biblical and spiritual insights and revelations. Write out your praises to God.

  Listen and document. Record what God puts on your heart and what He’s saying through your dreams and through others.

  Date every entry. This helps you to see your progress and makes it easier to find things.

  Highlight scriptures that God gives you and words that He speaks to your heart, so you can easily find them in your journal when you want to re-read them. Sometimes God speaks the same thing in different ways as He tries to get your attention and impress on you the importance of what He’s saying. A journal helps you to spot that.

  A journal helps us to make sense of our life. It helps us to stop and notice what’s happening and what’s being said, understand it and respond. A journal helps us to become aware of the many signs of God’s presence.

 There's no right or wrong way to journal. 

I recommend that you don’t immediately evaluate what comes. Don’t censor your thoughts, simply write, allowing your thoughts to flow uninterrupted.

 It’s a good idea to do a summary every few months. I’m always encouraged when I do this and amazed at what God has been saying and the many things that I've forgotten.

 

Today’s Quote:  Bad moments, like good ones, tend to be grouped together.  ~~Edna O’Brien

 Today’s Meditation:  I can turn my day around.  I can change the flavor of today’s experience.  I can lift my spirits and know all is well.

Today’s Saint:  Matteo Ricci  Jesuit Missionary to China (1552-1610)  “Those who adore heaven instead of the Lord of heaven are like a man who, desiring to pay the emperor homage, prostrates himself before the imperial palace at Peking and venerates its beauty.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matteo_Ricci

 

A few things I have noticed

I very much need routine and some quiet time for me to be sane.  During tis time I need to be journaling, reflecting, knitting, praying and writing.  No wonder I feel so crazy and out of control!  I know what to do and I even know ow to do it, so why do I allow my life to Spiral out of control?  

Here's to another new beginning

 Quote:  To wait for someone else or to expect someone else to make my life richer, or fuller, or more satisfying puts me into a constant state of suspension; and I miss all those moments that pass.  They never come back to be experienced again.

~~Kathleen Tierney Crilly

Meditation:  I will cherish every moment today.  Each one is special and will not visit me again.

Old Friends

There is something very comforting about old friends...  the kind of friend who remembers to look you up even though there hasn't been any communication for years (sometimes decades).  Friends who love you in spite of instead of because of.  I am learning that I have so many good friends.  I am truly blessed.  I thank God for the friends who have reminded me about my sister's beauty and child-like innocence, those who have cried with me and for me when the learned of my daughter's suicide and those who want to celebrate achievements with me.  

Quote:  She knows omnipotence has heard her prayer and cries "it shall be done--sometime, somewhere"~~ Ophelia Guyon Browning

Meditation:  I am participating in a much bigger picture than the one in my individual prayers.  And the big picture is being carefully orchestrated.  I will trust the part I have been chosen to play.  And I can be patient.

St.Apollonius the Apologist - (Martyr d.185)  "Yes I am a Christian.  "I worship and I fear God who made heaven, earth, the sea and all that is in them."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Apollonius

Daddy

Yesterday was my father's 69th birthday!

His big birthday gift had been the trip to Las Vegas a few weeks ago.  Last night he got new shirts, new sleep pants and some aquarium pics that S has taken.  We had his favorite dinner and birthday cake.  He seemed pleased.

My Dad was always the youngest father - which made him (and our house)very popular when I was growing up.  He was always ready to help with homework or just play.  Yes, I had a Dad who played! And many of my friends had crushes on my father.  I may not have been the most popular, but I was the girl with h cool parents.  I don't remember any bad childhood memories about him.  It was only as an adult that I had any questions, but I never questioned his love for me, his first born.

So, last night as I looked across the dining room table I found myself wishing that the world could see him as I do -- instead of sick, weak and frail.

I love you Daddy...

QUOTE:  When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.  ~~  Eleanor Roosevelt

MEDITATION:  What a wonderful collection of invitations awaits me today!

SAINT:  Kathe Kollwitz (Artist, 1867-1945)  "One day, a new idea will arise and there will be an end to all wars.  I die convinced of this.  It will need much hard work, but it will be achieved."  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathe_Kollwitz

What Now

My day began in therapy, which is turning out to be very productive.  Dr.L. talked to me about goal setting.  I guess my main goal is to figure out - WHAT NOW?...  where do I fit in the world and how can my experiences lead to something good?  I knew it was possible that I would be labeled permanently disabled, but it was a shock to see it on an official form and unsolicited.

I am tired of feeling like I am a victim or helpless, but at the same time I am craving an opportunity to feel, just for a bit, like I don't have to control everything in my world.  However, at the same time I have the feeling that bad things happen when I'm not in control.  This puts me into a weird circle of turning my world versus letting my world turn me.  

I have also been doing a lot of thinking (and research) about grief.  We use three terms to talk about the loss of a close relationship:

• Bereavement is the reaction to the loss of a close relationship.

• Grief is the emotional response caused by a loss including pain, distress, and physical and emotional suffering.

• Mourning refers to the psychological process through which the bereaved person undoes his or her bonds to the deceased. 

  It's the mourning part I keep avoiding.  Why would I want to "undo" my bonds to my baby girl?  And no wonder I have had problems mourning my sister.  Those bonds had been "undone" years before.

Quote:  One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it.  ~~ Helen Hayes

Meditation:  I am growing up again amidst the good habits of others and myself.

Saint:  St. Hildegund (Monk and Virgin d.1188) "If I were to dress as a woman they would think of me as a woman, and then what would become of me?" ~~ Joan of Ark   http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3778

The Bell Jar

I had book group tonight and we reviewed The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.  I listened to the book while multi-tasking since I had read it before.  I can't say that I enjoyed the book (either time) but I was able to find meaning.

From Chapter Seven:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig,  wonderful future beckoned and winked.  One fid was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just beause I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose.  I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

I would give almost anything to be able to write like that.  I know the feeling she is describing so well. I can have it all, but too often I chose nothing.

Today's Quote:  In the process of defining myself, i have a tendency to set up rules and boundaries and then forget that rules are made to be broken, as are boundaries to be expanded and crossed.  ~~ Kathleen Casey Theisen

Today's Meditation:  My value system awaits finer definition, and every experience today presents me with an opportunity for that definition.

Saint Alphege - Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (953-1012) - "Then was he captive . who had been the head Of the English race . and of Christensom.  There was misery to be seen . where bliss had been before In that unhappy city . whence came to us first Christendom and happinss . in sight of God and Man."  ~~ Angle-Saxon Chronicle  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Alphege)

A glorious Saturday!

It was a wonderful day.  We actually got the garage cleaned out and spent some good family time.  E even got a nap *smile*.  So, I have to wonder -- what made today different?  Why do I feel calm and productive today instead of the usual harassed and hurried?  Was it the weather?  Was it having E home?  Was it that I got all my meds on time.  Whatever the secret is, I need it to happen over and over and over again.

Tomorrow we are going to church and then to a discussion group and then I am going to book group.  We will be discussing The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I am looking forward to all three events.

Today's Quote:  To oppose something is to maintain it.  ~~ Ursula K. LeGuin

Today's Meditation:  I maintain my struggles with righteous behavior.  They lose their sting when they lose my opposition.  I will step aside and let God.

Saint of the Day:  Cornelia Connelly - Foundress of the Society of the Hold Child Jesus (1809-1879) "It is not our faith a sword of strength?  I feel it so, my Lord."  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Connelly)

ran out of time

nothing creative today -

Happy Birthday #1 Daughter

Quote:  In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to overcome, stubbornness is stupid ~~ Simone de Beavoir

Meditation:  The obstacles confronting me invite me to grow, to move beyond my present self.  They offer me chances to be the woman I alway dreamed of being.  I wll be courageous.  I am not alone.

Today's Saint:  St. Benedict Joseph Labre - Poor Man of God (1748-1783)  "I am only a poor, ignorant beggar"   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Joseph_Labre