mindrides

It’s disgusting and mysterious when it comes from my dog. My husband says I’m sick. I find it fascinating to discover what our dog has ate. His palate enjoys wrappers, sticks, socks and whatever else is edible. Thankfully if he can’t stomach it. There is another way it comes out. He vomits it.

I had some girls over to my house one night. Once a sock came up missing from one of our youth group girls. The guilty party was licking his chops. The next morning there was a big blob of goo in the hall. He had tried to eat a whole sock with no luck.

Back to poo. My dog used to be a big recycling fan. It went out. It went in. Now that is gross! Why am I sharing all of this. I just took him out for a walk. The sugared up neighborhood kids are already sucking up their candy. They’re leaving the wrappers everywhere. My genius dog says, hey cool! So I’m looking forward to finding out what comes out tomorrow. You know that life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.

It’s an incredible sucker upper. Worry taps your soul. Energy expended from it could have been used somewhere else. God tells us not to do it. When I come to my senses I stop it by praying and giving it up to the one who can make it go away.

I’m human and full of flaws. My worrying is one of them. It does nothing to dwell on the if and whens of life. This is a lesson I learn over and over. One of my biggest worries was my cancer diagnosis. The moment you hear that word it seizes you up.

Death is scary even when you know where you’re going. I try not to worry about it and hope that I’ll just fall asleep one day. Then I’ll wake up to see the best sight ever, Jesus. I will have much to talk to him about. Nothing will be hidden. Everything will be exposed, egads!

I believe in a forgiving God. I will do my best to not let worry control me. I just need to get on my knees and get right with him. It always relieves me when I sincerely pray for comfort and release from the things that are hanging clouds over my head. So I let go and let God have control of the steering wheel.

No container can contain my tears, but God’s. He counts every tear and puts them in a bottle. That’s is one huge vessel! I must have cried the Gulf by now. I cry a lot. I do it at weddings, churches, funerals, movies, jobs, the list goes on. I do it because I hurt or feel empathy for someone else. I find it cleansing.

When I get angry I bottle up inside. Then my emotions are expressed in tears. There are times to cry and not. Serious work communication doesn’t happen effectively in the midst of crying. I was laying a foundation to justify why I needed help at my job one day. Instead of standing up for myself, I cried, a lot. Nothing was accomplished that day other than letting the volcano of emotions out to roam the earth.

The hardest I have ever cried was when I was turned down for a teacher’s aid position. I was honest on the medical forms and mentioned the bipolar and cancers. I knew there were going to be problems. I was red flagged by risk management. In a meeting with them all I heard was no, bipolar, not you, may need time off, bipolar, blah, blah, blah. I cried the whole time. At the end of this meeting they wanted me to sign a medical release form. Then they could get all the grisly details. The answer to getting this job was no it’s not happening, but let’s give you some false hope.

I went to my car and sobbed so hard that I thought an alien had overtaken my body. My emotions were uncontrollable. There was much I could have said at that meeting, but I held my tongue. I’m a doormat. I let other people run over me. This is no way to live. It needs to stop!

I’m in good company with crying. Jesus did it to. He knew the emotions involved in handling day to day encounters. He knew when to stop doing it and boldly stand up. I need to fall to my knees to get back on my feet again and cry out to you Lord. Save me from this mental illness and the roller coaster ride of emotions I’m on. You’re in control!

Rainy days go away. I know we need rain, but I don’t like going out in it. Almost all my car accidents have been rain related. I once took a turn on an on ramp too fast. I hit my old Toyota van on the curb, flipped frontwards and back up again into a ditch. Thankfully I had my seat belt on. I got lucky that I didn’t get hit with any loose objects in the car. We had kitty litter, an old Coleman camping stove and an assortment of potentially dangerous things to toy with in a tumbling car crash.

I lost consciousness off and on. Somehow I was able to tell emergency personnel my husband’s phone number. He was right around the corner. He got to the scene just as they were putting me into the ambulance. I was rushed to Shock Trauma in Baltimore for treatment. The doctors checked me out from head to toe. I just had a concussion and some bruises.

When I came to I was freaked out. I didn’t know what had happened. I was afraid that I had hurt someone else. Fortunately I was the only person affected by the accident. They kept me for observation for awhile. Then I was allowed to go home later that day. When I went to leave I had to get hospital garb because they cut all my clothes off of me. We stopped by hospital security to pick up my jewelry. The guy could not believe that I was walking out. Hardly anyone who comes into schock trauma leaves so quickly.

I looked at the van later on before they towed it away. The only damage to it were the windows. The front driver’s side and rear window were gone completely. The front windshield glass was buckled but not crushed on the passenger side. I had no cuts on me. God spared me that day. To him be the glory!

I’m a reformed pig. Growing up my mom ALWAYS called my room a pig sty. If I didn’t clean it up in the designated time period she would help me out by dumping my drawers into the middle of the room. So instead of my mess dwindling it got bigger till it could swallow me like a monster.

I humored my mom and cleaned up, but then I would fall back into my old ways. Year after year flew by and this problem stuck with me. Than something changed. I started caring about the appearance of my things. I’m now a clean & destroy lady. I let things go for a duration until I can’t stand it any longer and I have to clean.

I keep my messes scattered in little alcoves. Somethings are visible, others are not. My life is the same way. The mess inside me cannot be seen. I know it’s there though. I’m glad that God forgives the messes I make. I sure can make some good ones.

Security is a warm blanket. I share this with my dog. He has more blankets than my husband and I combined. He still has his first one that had little graham cracker animals on it. It’s shredded into two pieces with millions of holes. He loved it to its almost death. He would prance around like a pony with it in his mouth, play peek a boo and than snuggle in it. He found his blanket to be his comfort.

I used to have a security blanket when I was younger. It was a yellow and white. I used to suck my thumb and grasp it in my free hand just like Linsus. Mom had to hide it from me until I finally found I could handle life without it. I grew up and left it behind.

Comfort comes in many forms…blankets, words, cards, gifts and more. God is there for us. He has been in our shoes. He knows what it’s like to need someone. He asked his disciples for comfort, but they didn’t always come through for him. Jesus found it from his father. We can do likewise.

Walk this way is what he says. I find it is hard to please God because of the weight of my sin. Thankfully he took everything he knew I would do and hung it on the cross with him. By his grace I am who I am today, a child of the king.

You’ve probably know footprints by heart. I love the mystery of where they go to. God invites us all to walk his way. If we get tired he will carry us. I have been through such times. I started 2004 with a bang! I was having a pain in my right breast. I went to see what was going on. Before I knew it I was in surgery getting a biopsy done. My husband’s reaction to the news was say what? My doctor told him I had cancer, the good kind. Is there such a thing?

I had a very rare tumor that isn’t seen often. My case went before the medical board for consultation. I would never undergo chemo or radiation. I just had to sacrifice I piece of my body by having a mastectomy. Subsequently, I went through many surgeries and had reconstruction done. It was a long arduous process. I’m alive today because God made it so. He carried me in his arms during this time. I was too weak to walk on my own.

Burr, it’s a cold 75 degrees here. My husband and I are such stinkers to our family when it comes to weather. We used to live in Cincinnati, Ohio. It got sacked this past winter with snow and ice. We made home videos on the beach in February broadcasting the breaking weather reports.

We don’t miss winter as much as the northern Fall. This is the peak season for leaves changing. It’s so beautiful. We used to try to find the perfect changing tree. I enjoy the ones that looked like they were on fire. We loved driving and looking at leaves. It was a blast!

We used to go to a local farmers market and have hot cider and pretzels in front of their fireplace. We would get fresh frozen blueberries there and make fluffy pancakes when we got home. Memories were made to last a lifetime.

Our Fall is different now. We see tropical palm trees everywhere. We sat on the beach Saturday and thought about how many of our friends and family will never get to experience what we do all the time. Sitting on the beach watching the sun go down any season is exciting. I love it more than leaves. Fall has evolved in our hearts. We love it here!!!

How can you trust paper? A friend once asked this. Well you can’t. I put my heart on paper because I have to get it out of my body. I do it to reflect on life and the universe. Anything can be an inspiration to me.

I go forth and put my pen to paper. I journal old and new school. I write in my nice suede journal and I have this blog. I’m an off and on journaler. I’m consistently inconsistent. I have lots of art, church, school and other types of journals.

I’ve even had a happy and mad journal going simultaneously. At one point I was writing more in the mad journal than the other one. I believe the expression that depression is anger turned inward. It manifested in my writing. I really feel that journal needs to be burned now. I don’t want to remember its contents. I wasn’t in a good place when I was writing in it. Does anyone have a fireplace I can use?

Now I’ve adopted my happy journal. I’m getting a lot out of it. I write to God and he responds to me through his still small voice. It is wild to go back to look at the inspired word I’ve been given. It encourages and lifts me up. If you don’t journal I would give it a shot. We all have something to say. Let your voice be heard!

Sitting on my table is my headless nutcracker standing post over my computer. Why keep something that is broken? It reminds me of how I was broken with the bipolar. I keep it to glimpse back to the past to see how much my future has changed.

My head popped off the summer of 2004. I was on my way to a christmas in July party when my plans got tossed upside down. My husband picked me up from the doctors office to go to the ER to get help. All the christmas decorations were passed onto the girls to use. When I came out of the hospital I got everything back with a now headless nutcracker.

I eventually found his head and kept the pieces together. Then I lost it. As far as I’m concerned he will remain without it. I kinda of prefer him that way.

LIfe is different now than the past. I’m glad that God got me through this tough time. I will not forget what happened. I’ll embrace the present and look forward to the future.