Nag Less, Pray More

Category: Growing as a Person (Page 1 of 9)

Hijacked!

I have been kept prisoner the past three years but not in a building with bars and barbed wire. I allowed my thoughts, emotions, insecurities, and the urgency of every day life to hold me back from freely expressing myself and moving forward with my dreams.

I am declaring here and now that I am free. Jesus already paid my ransom. The handcuffs are off, the rope has been cut, and the chains are broken. I can calmly arise and escape the confinement that stopped me the past few years. I know it won’t be easy to realize that I am finally free, but it’s time to let my freedom propel me to new heights, past my fears and doubts.

Thanks for joining me on the journey!

Keeping in a Positive Mental Place

I have always considered myself to be a positive person, but lately I must confess that I have been struggling with negative thoughts. Before I even open my eyes in the morning, my mind begins meandering to worries and worst-case scenarios instead of the greatness of God and the impact of a life well-lived for Him. I dwell on what others think of me and criticize myself about my weaknesses. I feel defeated before I rise.

Instead of allowing the enemy of my soul to hijack my thoughts, I need to focus my mind on the One who is in control and loves me more than I can comprehend. God is longing to bless me and to make each day a meaningful day for Him. Even in my sleepy early-morning restlessness, I need to immediately fix my mind on “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, and whatever is commendable.” This takes discipline, but I know from experience that it can strengthen me to greet my day with confidence and joy.

What are some morning habits you have developed to keep yourself in a positive mental place? I’d love to hear from you!

Finding Joy on Hard Anniversaries

One of the last pictures of my Dad and I together

Today marks the fourth anniversary since my dad took his last breath on earth. As the day grew nearer, part of me dreaded that April 9 was approaching. I really hate being an orphan, even at my age, but I made the decision to be as positive as I could. I reflected on the 47 years that I did have him. I remembered how miserable he was in his final months of suffering and how now he is free of that.

After the alarm rang this morning, I plodded to the bathroom and stared at the date. Then I went back to bed and read the newspaper, an activity my dad was certain to do each day of his adult life. I studied one of his favorite books, the Bible, all morning. I exercised in his honor this afternoon. I called his only other child, my older sister.

Instead of only looking back on what would please my dad, I also looked forward to what I want my life to look like in the future. My dad had very strong opinions that I often let hinder me from being my authentic self around him. I took the annual online test for my favorite game show, Jeopardy, this evening. I’m seeking to blog more often, allowing the “real me” to be put out there for the world to see. I’m already in my pajamas, even though it’s only 6:15pm. I get to spend the evening with my hubby, who I had to tell my father on many occasions had “gracefully dethroned” my dad as the most important male figure in my life.

As we get older, it becomes inevitable that we will lose loved ones and have painful memories. We have a choice to dwell on the loss or be thankful for the time we had them and look forward to the future with hope.

I had a helper during my Jeopardy online test.

Use of Time


My life changed when I gave birth to two babies in just a little over a year. My time was no longer my own as I rushed to meet their needs. The high physical demand morphed into emotional investment as they grew and we began homeschooling and navigating our way through the turbulent teenage currents. I remember dreaming about what life would be like when they moved out and got married. I would finally have the luxury of time. I planned to be extremely productive with all the free time I was certain I’d experience.

Fast forward many years and both children are grown, flown, and happily married. They need me less. I do have many more free hours in my day, but I am finding that I struggle with productivity. When I only had a few minutes to accomplish tasks between basketball practice and drama rehearsals, the urgency spurred me to move quicker and procrastinate less. Without the distraction of the family and their full schedules around, I can get absorbed in a book or podcast and find that an hour has gone by, and I haven’t completed anything on my checklist. The luxury of time has become a responsibility.

I get an opportunity every day to develop self-discipline. Each morning when I awake, I spend time in God’s Word, seeking His wisdom for my life. After I have prayed, I make a list of eight blessings for which I feel gratitude and eight tasks I believe that He wants me to carry out that day. I try to vary my choices from household chores, relational connections (emails, phone calls, snail mail, and texts), new skill achievement (Spanish and crochet are my current areas for growth), and progression on much larger tasks. I try to be realistic about what I can get done so I set myself up for success and allow for the detours of life. Time is not a renewable resource, but we do have a choice how to use it.

Two Months

I was so thankful that my beloved felt up to taking a hike in Upper Bidwell Park with me this week.

Two months ago today, I was in the emergency room with my husband, uncertain of the extent of his brain damage. The number 27 will always stick out in my head as I remember the shock and fear of that day. It was so easy to take it for granted that my husband would always be by my side, but finding him unconscious in a pool of blood on the floor brought that delusion to a screeching halt.

I wish I could say that everything has returned to exactly the way it was before his injury, but I can’t. Double vision plagues him every waking hour. He wears out much more easily. He hasn’t returned to a regular exercise routine. I hesitate to ask him to do much physical labor, concerned that I will fatigue him. We schedule our lives around appointments with specialists. We’re driving three hours away to see a neuro ophthalmologist next week.

Yet, life is richer than ever. I will never take him for granted again. We rejoice in the tiniest bits of progress. We spend rich time together. We appreciate and cherish one another more. We depend on God and one another more than ever to get through each day. We’ve learned the value of rest and patience.

I don’t know how much longer the aftermath of Darren’s accident will endure, but I trust in a faithful God who will carry us through it every step of the way.

Perseverance

It’s now been over six weeks since my husband’s brain injury, and the word that keeps coming to my mind is perseverance. I wanted bring this word into great focus so I looked up the definition. Perseverance is defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: steadfastness. My husband and I thought we had learned to persevere in the past, but we find that we still have so many lessons to learn in this area. We thought he would have been healed by now, but that hasn’t been the case.

I’ve really struggled to persevere day after day. I’m sad for my husband and want to make him feel better and “fix” the situation, but that’s beyond my control. I’m tempted to hide from my frustration behind electronics, extra sleep, and even getting angry, but none of those actions will help the situation. All I can do is keep praying, keep understanding, and keep loving my husband. I can’t let our circumstances paralyze me.

My husband’s vision is still double, and he still wears out easily, but I’m so impressed by his determination to get up every day and go to work even when he is tired and disheartened by the lack of improvement in his condition. He still looks for ways to bless me, even when he is going through physical turmoil. He is an example to me of great perseverance.

My husband and I are both runners, and one of my favorite Bible verses to reflect on while I run is Hebrews 12:1-3, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” When my eyes are on my circumstances, I am weary, but when my eyes are on Jesus, I want to continue the race of this life and this marriage, running straight towards Jesus, my perfect example.


Adjusting to a New Normal

It’s been nearly three weeks since my husband’s injury. He and I both expected all to be back to “normal” by now, but that hasn’t proved the case. This week, his fatigue and nausea have increased, and he’s still experiencing double vision all day long. It’s 4 p.m. as I type this, and he is asleep, exhausting after working four hours this morning.

He is constantly apologizing for the changes in our lives due to his accident, but I’m learning more each day to be thankful for everything that happens. We are enjoying extended time together that we never would have in our “normal” lives because he is too tired to go many places and I don’t want to leave him alone. We are learning patience as we navigate through the medical community to get him into the specialists he needs to see as soon as possible. We evaluate every activity to see if we have the energy for it instead of doing everything regardless of the cost to our bodies and sanity.

Our pace of life creeps along comfortably instead of dragging us at breakneck speed. We hug more, sleep more, and appreciate more. What could be better than that?

It’s a Game of Give and Take

I remember being a freshman in high school, wanting a boyfriend, and it just wasn’t happening. A song became popular that consoled me, Phil Collins’s “You Can’t Hurry Love.” It helped me wait for the right man to come along, which wasn’t for another five years, and the final line of the chorus continues to apply to my life, “It’s a game of give and take.”

It’s been nearly two weeks since I found my husband collapsed in the kitchen with his head cracked open. He still has double vision and fatigue. We’ve gone to doctor appointments, had extended periods of rest, and I’ve needed to care for his needs like never before in our marriage.

In the past, I have been the patient, and he has been the caregiver, but now these roles have reversed. It’s an adjustment for both of us, but it has taught us to appreciate one another so much. I will never take for granted all that he has sacrificed in caring for me while I have been sick. He’s learned the helplessness of being the sick one, wanting so much to recover according to his timetable instead of God’s. We are able to understand what the other is going through because of our own past experiences.

After nearly 29 years of marriage, I would have thought that we’d know everything there is to know about the subject. In these uncertain times, we are both learning a boatload of lessons of how to relate to one another and help one another as we go through a time that neither one of us expected to be enduring at this point in our lives. We don’t know what the obstacles are that we have ahead of us, but we are learning that they are best faced together.

A year after my hubby and I began dating, Phil Collins came out with another song that became one of our favorites. and part of its chorus applied way back then and still applies now, “Wouldn’t you agree, baby, you and me, have a groovy kind of love?”

The answer is a resounding yes, through all the highs and lows, bests and worsts, and give and take.

When God’s Plans Differ From Yours

I was supposed to be eating seafood on the beach in Santa Cruz tonight, having just arrived on a five-day getaway with my husband. Instead, I sit home in the dark, listening to the rhythmic snores of my husband on the couch near me, observing him for signs of distress. This is not how I planned to spend the end of 2018.

Real life began its deviation from my idealistic plan six days ago. My husband and I were at church, enjoying the Christmas service on the evening of December 22. As I leaned against my husband, my stomach tossed angrily and I realized my fatigue was worse than the typical “three-days-before-Christmas-tired.” At the end of service, as I began to do my weekly job of supervising sign outs for the children, I pulled the trash can toward me just in time to catch the contents of my heaving stomach. The thermometer confirmed that I had caught a virus. I continued vomiting for the next 24 hours, despite the fact that I had a full to-do list. Our two children and their new spouses were coming over on December 24 for what I had planned to be a picture-perfect Christmas.

Instead, I sat in the opposite corner from the rest of the family to avoid infecting them, getting up often to run to the bathroom. I didn’t get to participate in the board games or chow down on the yummy brunch but merely nibbled at my food and laid down on the couch. It wasn’t what I had pictured, but I consoled myself with the thought that surely this illness would pass before our trip to Santa Cruz…

I did manage to recover enough to go to celebrations at my husband’s brother’s home and my daughter’s in-laws’ home and had an enjoyable yet sedate time. A few hours after arriving home from Christmas dinner, I awoke to the sound of my husband retching. He had caught the virus. I maintained hope that he could recover in time for the trip. I even bought my little shampoo and conditioner bottles in my post-Christmas shopping and mentally began a packing list. I fell asleep that night thinking, “Only two more sleeps until vacation time.”

Just two hours later, I heard heavy breathing coming from the front part of the house. I stumbled down the hallway toward the sound and turned on the kitchen light to find my husband sprawled on the kitchen floor with a puddle of blood forming next to his head. He mumbled, “Dizzy,” and I knew we had to get to the ER. We arrived shortly after 1am and stayed until 4:30. They cleaned his wound, performed a CT scan, and administered IV fluids. They released him to my care and told him to rest and keep hydrated. We drove home and feel into bed, exhausted.

At 7am, he still struggled to maintain his balance, falling twice more, and he began experiencing double vision. Upon the advice of my nurse friend, we returned to the ER. Five hours and another CT scan later, we returned home with no more answers than the first time we went. I did have strict orders to keep him away from screens and supervise him closely, as he had a concussion. We called and cancelled the hotel reservation and were relieved to get a full refund, but my heart was sad.

This morning, instead of packing the car for our beach trip, we drove to the ophthalmologist’s office for an early appointment. I filled out the paperwork while my hubby held his head in his hands. The doctor seemed hopeful that the double vision will resolve with complete rest for days on end. Optimal recovery includes keeping the rooms dark, spending very little time looking at an electronic screen, and sleeping most of the time. I don’t feel comfortable leaving him alone, because I know how hard it is for him to stick to these guidelines.

Life rarely goes like we think it will, and yet we’re always surprised when it doesn’t. I caught myself going down the terrible road of self-pity and am mustering all my willpower to depend on God and look for the lessons and the blessings, and I am finding many. Here are just some of the ones that God has revealed to me.

  • Pinning your hopes on an upcoming event often sets you up for disappointment
  • It will be great to start the new year with getting so much rest in the final days of this year.
  • My children have grown up to be really supportive and loving adults, and I have very kind friends. My son and his wife came over yesterday and cleaned and took down all the Christmas decorations for us. My daughter and many others have been constantly checking on us.
  • Drawing near to God is the best thing I can be doing right now. He is always dependable, and I can’t say that about anything else!There’s no place like home.

I think our family will always remember the last days of 2018 as the days that God had different plans.

Happy New Year!

Conclusion to Advice I’d Give My Younger Self

I can’t believe I was able to finish the 31 day challenge.  Life threatened to get in the way with birthdays, a surgery for my husband, out of town company, and multiple daily commitments, but I remained determined to see it through to the end.

The most important nugget I learned through the process is that I still have so much left to learn and do.  Every single piece of advice I gave to myself, I still need to follow today.  I still stumble daily as I try to incorporate each of these into my life.  That made me feel a bit defeated.

I also learned that the best years of my life are not all behind me.  I still have an amazing God to follow, a lot of people to encourage, a lot of milestones to achieve, a lot of places to go, and apparently a lot of lessons to learn.   I learned that there is so much joy and growth in the journey of life.  That left me feeling hopeful

Thank you for sticking with me through the 31 day challenge.  Let’s learn and grow together in the days to come.

This post is part of a  31 Day Blogging Challenge entitled Advice to my Younger Self.  Please click here  to find all the posts in this series.  You’ll be glad you did!

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