Journaling and God

 Who else keeps a journal?  

In my teenage years, I had diaries.  I wish I had saved those silly young girls' rants about boys, first kisses, and friends' loyalty and betrayal.  I do not remember ever getting rid of the diaries, but since I do not have them today, then I will assume that at some point in my life, I looked at them as secrets I wished no one else to know and sent the pages to die in the dumpster along with the sins of my past. 

Lately, God has been urging me to stop writing so much and start reviewing those journals I did hang on to from adulthood.  

Documenting everyday life and sharing thoughts, feelings, successes, and failures tends to release pressure from one's daily existence; hence, a volcano does not erupt from holding the mess of life inside.  And this:  in review, a journal can convict you - whether you acted rightly or wrongly - a journal review is like you become judge and jury of your past.  

I'm learning a lot about myself by going back into my journals.  I am also learning a lot about God's faithfulness.  I confess that life has not turned out as I had hoped. However, I have learned so much along the way.  And despite the perfect life I had charted for myself that did not pan out - God has been and is still there - directing my steps.  If I step out of line, I have no one to blame but myself.  And that's the beauty of following God and His will.  It is why God's chastisement for mistakes made can be gold if we learn something along the way.  

There is no better therapy than the truth God reveals if we open our hearts to Him.  

Upon leaving after watching Summer at a horseback riding
lesson last year, I came across this beautiful scene.  
God paints the best pictures.  

LIFE GOES ON AND WE MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT GOD HAS GIVEN US

 Bubbles had a vet appointment this morning.  Find out all about the results here. 

Today, I would like to talk to you about 'absence.'  You know... when someone has been there for such a long time, and now they are gone.  

My dad died at fifty-three years of age.  His absence left me sad.  At age sixty-nine, my mom died.  I missed her even more than my dad because she was with me longer.  A lot changed after she was gone.  

Nine years ago, I lost a sister and a brother, both in the same year.  I never realized losing a sibling would hurt so much.  But it did.  And their absence stings to this day.  

It will soon be three years since losing Gracie.  Oh, the emptiness that was left in our house with her absence.  

At night, when I take Bubbles outside, I pass Uncle Vic's window, and there is darkness in his apartment. I no longer hear his TV blaring or see him struggling to eat dinner at the kitchen table.  It does my heart good to know that I can still visit with him in the nursing home.  But his absence here at home hurts a little.  

Many people and pets, for one reason or another, become absent in our lives as time marches on.  Some people do fine with it.  Some medicate to help with sadness or sorrow or just life in general.  Some choose to drink or drug their way into feelings of comfort.  I prefer to feel the sadness. Something is cleansing and freeing in the spirit about feeling sad, crying, and moving on.  

When I examine my life now and compare it to ten years ago, I go to the final words of this incredible Bible verse:  

Psalm 30:5    ...  weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

And the joy that comes from God is better than any drug out there.  Its supernatural perfectness is what I want and seek more than anything else.  

Absence, I found, is okay.  When one door closes, another door opens.  When one person, dog, or pet is removed from your life, another enters, and your heart goes on.  And as long as God stays - you are never alone.   

My Grandma 

Welcoming Victor

 An excerpt from my journal entry: April 28, 2015 

Vic arrived yesterday at around three o'clock.  He made a memorable entrance as he laid on the horn to announce his arrival.  I was not impressed.  And so, another chapter of my life begins.  

~~~~~~

We had opened our home based hearing aid business, All About Hearing, four years before Gary's Uncle Vic's arrival.  GP (my husband) and I did not work well together, so (to save our marriage) he voluntarily retired three years after opening, leaving me to solely run the business, and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE!  

Shortly before Vic's arrival, construction began.  I would need a bathroom for clients who were primarily elderly and often required to visit the restroom.  So, a hole was cut into the wall of the reception area to the garage since the apartment bathroom would belong to Vic, and a small half-bath was put on the far end of my garage to accommodate my customer's needs.  

The week of Vic's arrival was chaotic, with thick dust covering my office and reception area. Dust was visible everywhere and inhaled dangerously, halting business for a time.  

I was against this.  Let me count the reasons why.

1. So much storage space was gone now, and I had nowhere to go with everything.  

2. This lifelong commitment would end with this 82-year-old man needing much more than a place to stay.  

3. The business.  What would running a reputable business look like with life being lived on the other side of the door? I needed quiet to give hearing tests.  

4. The dust from the construction made me very sick for several months. 

5. Privacy would now be limited.  

6. Responsibility would be huge for GP now and more so 'down the road,' and since GP lived with so many anger issues and so much negativity already, I was not sure he could handle the gigantic commitment he was making. 

Lord, give me strength.

Ten years later, let's look at my list of concerns and how life unfolded:

1. There was so much clutter with nowhere to go with it that every day became a day of organizing for me.

2. The 82-year-old man is now a 92-year-old man with failing health.

3. Vic enjoyed his TV loud!  Really, really, really LOUD.  So when I would be in the middle of a test, and my customers could not hear the 'beeps' for Vic's choice movie's cursing and screaming beyond the door of my testing office,  I would tap on Vic's door - and ask him to please turn the volume down.  He would turn it down a notch or two, but not where it needed to be.  I lost sales.  I started scheduling fewer appointments and at times when I thought he would still be in bed sleeping.  GP tried frantically to help the situation by putting up thick curtains to cut down on the loud sounds coming into my office, but it did nothing.  I could not speak of my concerns to GP because an angry rant would ensue.

4. Eventually, I could breathe again, my good health returned, and everything was fine.  I worked around my less-than-good working surroundings.

5. There was never total privacy again.

6. RESPONSIBILITY for GP was almost more than he could bear.  Graphic and insulting details are withheld here...   but let's just say it's been rough.  Vic's last fall, a little over a week ago, was a wake-up call for all.  Vic needed more care than GP was able to give him.   

I waited outside Vic's room with GP, and I could hear Vic inside asking the nursing home worker if they were finished with him now.  They were.  When the door opened, we were greeted with a big smile.  I noted his frail image lying in the bed, and a feeling of peace swept over me.  "They're pretty good to me in here," Vic said.  "Yeah, it's not bad..."   We talked and laughed and shared some conversations with his roommate and family.  

When I go outside to take my dog to potty at night, I feel empty as I walk past his window.  There used to be life living inside that window.  A man I did not want to share my home with, but now it felt foreign to me to have him gone.  From the first day of his irritating entrance into my life, as he lay on that horn up until now, I grew to love the man who would change my world.  

God reminds me, no matter what --- be kind.  And God will do the rest.  And God has never let me down.

 

*Life Goes On *

If there is one thing I have learned about Google it's that...  once you put something online in the name of Google - it is almost impossible (for this ancient mind, anyway) to take it down.  I have been trying to clean up my various YouTube channels.  Yes, I have too many and here I am not remembering my email or passwords from 10+ years ago.  So well..  anyway.  

I come to blogger (thank you, Google for preserving all things Gracie) and everything is still as it was.  I started a new blog for Bubbles (our new baby) but I have not been consistent in growing it or updating it.  I like Blogger because I feel comfortable here, writing my thoughts, sharing my photos, and interacting with long-lost friends who do not care if my punctuation is off or if I am foolishly writing about silly, everyday stuff.  That's what life is all about.

*sigh*

I was so hurt to lose Gracie, I wanted to put it all behind me.  But Bubbles has helped me to conclude that my Gracie days are not over at all. She lives on in my heart, just as many of my family and friends do - who have passed on from this life. 

Memories are a beautiful thing and today I am reviewing old journals, both prayer journals and daily journals. I intend to do this for a while because I believe that is what God is leading me to do. Going back five, ten, or even twenty-some years - I can see so much about who I was and how God worked to bring me clarity and vision on how to go forward each day despite my weaknesses and sins and be better. 

Still, every morning I need to examine my ways, thoughts, and life in general and ask God to reveal to me the stuff of life that will draw me closer to Him and away from myself. Keeping a journal is a good way to document God's faithfulness and it is great at showing me that I'm not all I felt I was cracked up to be. Haha!

I miss my girl Gracie. I'm looking for Bubbles 'voice' to share. But so far there are only two loving eyes watching my every move and frantically following me from room to room to make sure I do not get out of her sight.

I hope this year finds happiness and contentment for all.

BUBBLES

GRACIE.  MINUTES BEFORE LEAVING THIS LIFE.

A Little Christmas Blog Post

Christmas time I think of Gracie.  After all, she spent seventeen Christmases with us.  That's a lot.  We put her under the tree with the rest of the gifts when she was a baby.  After all, she was my Christmas present that year.  She was the best one I have ever received, to be honest.  

That first Christmas was filled with such happiness.  We had just purchased our bargain home for $39,000 so we could *ahem* get a dog.  It didn't need much work because it belonged to a meticulous older lady who left the place spotless and beautiful.  We did finish the basement though, and oh, what a wonderful place of recreation that turned out to be for us and our new dog.  

I remember ordering the off-white plush carpet to be installed before we moved in, and then, the white dog weeks later.  White carpet and white dog went together like...  WAIT...  

Now if Gracie were here, she would have a different story.  But I am here to share that potty training that little stinker took over a year.  It seemed I was constantly on my hands and knees scrubbing that white carpet. 

The pages of time seem to turn more quickly as we get older.  Before I knew it, our bargain home had been sold to buy a home that we could turn into a business along a busy highway.  Gracie didn't mind the move.  She was adventurous like that. 

Fast forward to the end of that chapter.  The part where Gracie would be leaving us and my heart would break so tragically that I did not know how there could be another chapter going forward.  I could not remember life without her, so how could I think of tomorrow with no white dog hanging around.  

Gracie's last Christmas