She is grace under pressure. She is beauty admist sorrow. She is grateful in affliction. She is soft spoken. She is kind. She is generous. She has a quiet and gentle spirit. She is a wife of noble character. She is a mother fervent in prayer. She is a lover of our Heavenly Father.

I watched her stand lovingly, with a servants heart full of compassion, by her husbands side as the C-plague was stealing his precious life away. For six long, heartbreaking months she was his wife, his love, his nurse, his prayer warrior. His wish was to pass away in the comfort and love of his own home with his own people and at great sacrifice to herself, my friend made this happen.

They lived in cramped quarters as they shared their adults children’s condo on their summer furlow from their home in Hawaii. Having no idea this small home would become a hospice with a hospital bed in the middle of the tiny living room, as summer melted into fall which finally froze into winter.

Just one more Thanksgiving she prayed. Just one more Christmas she prayed. Just one more birthday she prayed. Please not during the family wedding. But he did not make it to the one more anniversary and one more Valentine’s Day she prayed for. And now she is bravely facing a scary new world without her best friend, lover, husband, father to her children and friend to all whose lives he entered.

But she is most definitely not alone. Even if she didn’t have her precious children and grandchildren and loyal friends, she has a God that promised to never leave or forsake her. This is not a promise of no grief or sorrow or pain or suffering but it IS a promise of enduring comfort to get her through the darkest nights.

She has known great loss in this life as a car accident claimed her only mother and only sister over twelve years ago. She always asked me, it’s all about my response right? My children are watching for my response to all this. Will I let my sovereign Lord comfort me and grow my faith or will I crumble into a heaping mess? She chose the former. And I know she will this time too.

She may not appear to be strong tomorrow, or next week, or next month or even next year but underneath the sorrow and the loneliness will be a woman of great faith and strength, confidently forging a new path because she doesn’t have any other choice now. And I will endeavour to be there by her side, to hold her up and to learn from her example because she is my huckleberry friend.

Interesting trivia. It was exactly one year ago today that I embarked on this blogging journey. An entire year. I have posted over 200 times with 120 of those posts being actual written blog posts. It’s not easy coming up with topics sometimes. But I committed to writing at least once a week and I’ve managed over two. Upward and onward.

Unfortunately my WordPress blog isn’t exactly user friendly and many of my close friends and family aren’t even following or reading what I write. It’s sad, for me. I have exactly 21 email followers (meaning they will get an email every time I post something new). They may be regretting that now. I hope not.

I’ve been planning on getting to the bottom of why my blog isn’t user friendly. A couple of friends said they tried to sign up but they couldn’t come up with an acceptable password and so finally they gave up. My blog is linked to Facebook so if one happens to be on Facebook and is my friend then they might see my most recent post and be able to access the link there. Anyway, this is all, pretty boring, I know. My plan, all along, has been to fix this problem.

I still have a lot of work to do. To refine my blog. To energize it. To grow it. To make it look the way I want it to. I want it to be a place of inspiration. A place of creativity. A place of comfort and a sense of home (or that ‘me too’ connection.) I want to use it to pass along great ideas. Solutions. Humour. Fun. Encouragement. I want my blog to be edifying and useful. And sometimes just a little bit of silly. Or even an escape.

I know along with greater readership…say, 30 of you… lol, comes responsibility. The more folks that follow and read my blog, the more I’ll be open to criticism so maybe it’s been good that my growth has been limited to a select few this past year while I’ve gotten my feet wet. Comments have been few and far between. Often I have asked myself, am I wasting my time? But I know the answer to that question, a resounding no! This blog has got me writing and thinking and writing and doing, and writing and praying, writing and living. It’s been a place for me to get it out there and share life, even if only with 21 people.

Did you know that I can see how many people view my posts and from what countries they are viewing them from? That is always interesting as I wonder, who, in China, is reading my blog?

All this to say, please join me on another years journey. I’m going to make a lot of changes AND have an idea for a different focus. Stay tuned. Because I am definitely sharing this plan with you. AND I can’t wait to get started.

Those that fraternize with me regularly may have noticed my eating habits have gone rogue lately, resulting in increased girth. Not just my eating but the poor sleep habits I have adopted since last April and the all too sedentary lifestyle. I go in spurts. I actually truly enjoy working out but I’m a procrastinator. If it doesn’t happen by 11:00 am then it’s not happening. But I rarely get to exercising before 11:00 because I sleep in too late as a result of going to bed too late as a result of …well I really haven’t pinned down the reason for that yet. But the later I’m up, the more snacks I look for and injest. What came first? The chicken or the egg. Well it doesn’t really matter because I ate them both.

I’m not getting on the scale as I don’t want you to read in the morning news…women stabs fork in her eye after scale read out says “one at at time please”. A friend once told me that she, personally, never gets on the scale and has no idea what that accusing or praising number is, therefore , her self worth is not tied to any particular weight read out. (She even makes the doctor keep her weight a secret as she fills out my friends medical history). I like that. I’m going to adopt that philosophy. It’s not like I can’t feel my clothes getting tighter or see my double chin or realize when I’m just not feeling great and my complexion and hair look dull. These are visible signs that positive action is required. The read out on the scale would just be too much to bear. If I don’t have knowledge of that condemning number then I’m more apt to feel empowered to do something about this situation. I know this is the opposite philosophy of WW, but I failed that too. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results and I’m NOT insane.

One of my favorite authors, who loves to eat as I do, lives by a routine of feasting and fasting. She uses the word fasting the way some would use the word diet. She loves to eat and she loves to cook and she loves to gather people around the table for nourishment, community and healing. I’m am her kindred spirit. So she feasts from American Thanksgiving through to New Years and she fasts from January to June then she feasts from June to end of August and then she fasts until thanksgiving. This way she doesn’t miss out any of the great traditions around the table or her favorite foods but she keeps things in balance. Her fasting times are seasons of sparseness.

This is another philosophy that I am adopting. I think we need a break from indulgence and to push back and set boundaries around our gluttony, in all areas. I seem to go through seasons of apathy and seasons of proactivity. I take my body to the edge of the cliff and when pushing it over is the only thing left to do…I return to all the good and healthy practices that I know heal and empower. And its that time now.

I’m like an Israelite, wondering the desert for 40 years, vascilating back and forth between knowing what freedom really feels like and yearning to be back in slavery. I seem to forget the chains of slavery, although they are starting to dig into my ankles again. I start inching my way back to slavery just because there were some aspects that were comforting. Harmful but comforting. “The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Exodus 16:3. How soon we forget the benefits of freedom.

I have the type of metabolism and body structure that doesn’t allow me to ‘not care’ or not be attentive to my habits. I cannot let up. I have to persistently stay on top of things or I end up back in slavery. An unhappy slave that is really not comfortable at all. Not that comfort is the goal. I don’t need to be a supermodel, I just need to fit into my clothes. Lucky for me I have clothes that fit, even now, because I have been here before, but its time for my descent once again. I do not like this place (or these clothes for that matter).

All this to say, I’m taking a gentler, more reasonable approach to find my way back to health and freedom. Health is freedom and I AM finding my way back. I keep hoping this will be the time that I’ll actually make a lifelong habit change. I’m getting closer to the my life expectancy as every year goes by so the lifelong habits won’t have to last that long anymore.

Let the hunger games begin! May the scale be ever in my favour. Actually I’m not using the scale but I just wanted to say that.

It’s been a life long struggle….I know skinny won’t solve all my problems…. but rich will. Lol

Rich and skinny? Look at Melania Trump, does she look happy? I rest my case.

 

I’m heartbroken today! Heartbroken for my dear friend as she said goodbye to her devoted husband and the amazing father of her adult children. Goodbye and I’ll see you again soon. He slipped the surly bonds of earth and went home to be with his heavenly Father, Our heavenly father. By faith and the truth of God’s word, we know Randy is rejoicing with the Lord and reuniting with his parents who went on before him.

We knew his passing was imminent as the reality of the situation was staring us in the face but we continued to keep believing for a miracle, the kind of miracle that would make us feel good and experience joy. The kind of miracle that would find us still going to movies with our friend and visiting him in Hawaii and going for wings on Wednesdays and so much more. But the Lord had other plans for this saint.

Our faith is still intact and we surrender to what the Lord, in his infinite wisdom and love, sees as best. We have walked this journey with our dear friends since Randy’s diagnosis in the fall of 2008 when the doctor told him to get his house in order, he only had six months. In faith, our friends defied this diagnosis and we have spent the last 9 years making memories with them, having fun with them, sharing burdens with them, helping each other through crisis and forging a deep, comfortable, abiding familial friendship.

As we say goodbye to an incredible man of God and irreplaceable friend, we can’t stop remembering our escapades in Las Vegas, and our adventures and experiences in Hawaii at their vacation rental home, our ingrained weekly rituals (movies and wings). Randy spent the summer of 2015 in the South Calgary Campus hospital in a room we referred to as the Ritz Carlton. Once again he was given a 6 month diagnosis and once again the Lord had other plans. We kidnapped him from his hospital room during these months, to go to Starbucks and Boston pizza, as Mike stuffed Randys sugar drip into the back of the car and Randy showed up to these places in his pyjamas. We even watched the Globefest fireworks from his hospital room window. We  celebrated Thanksgiving at the South Campus Ritz. Randy was desperate to get out of his Ritz Carlton prison and finally, according to his wife, Shannon, they were kicked out for bad behaviour. The bad behaviour being that Randy kept telling everyone, including the doctors, that he was healed. He finally escaped in late November only to return to Hawaii for another two glorious stints in the sun, glorifying Jesus to all his guests from all over the world. I think it would be accurate to say that Randy’s impact reaches across the globe.

Their stunning property on the ocean in Kona was the backdrop to many of our most treasured memories. Randy’s absence leaves a huge hole in the hearts of family and friends. His compassion and humour will be greatly missed. He was generous to a fault. His love of life, his childlike faith and his readiness to take risks were  both an example and a blessing to observe. We feel so blessed to have been the benefactors of his love and friendship.

His example and presence caused us to believe in healing and miracles. Our faith grew in leaps and bounds for having shared this journey with he and his wife.  There is no doubt in my mind that God was in the centre of all of this. The joy and the pain. I love what C. S. Lewis said about is.

C.S. Lewis: Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers any more. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I’ve been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.

 

 

 

I began to sweat as I tried to balance myself in tree pose with prayer hands. Prayer is definitely going to be needed to get through this, I mused. I used to be able to do this. Do it well. Of course that was over 5000 days ago if you do the math. My personal trainer sister gave me this fat blasting yoga video the summer of 2004 while I was visiting her in Toronto and dying from the humidity and heat as I whined about my long sleeve baggy sweatshirt uniform. I remember her pleading with me to ditch the sweatshirt but it was my security blanket. I was pretty convinced I was hiding my unwanted girth beneath it. My sister assured me I was not. (Only sisters can talk to you like that and even that’s treacherous). I thought maybe I could sweat off a few pounds. Problem was I couldn’t move because all that heat zaps my energy. I remember her dragging me around her jogging path at 4 a.m. to get out there before the heat hit. Of course, I was useless for the rest of the day.

My sister saw into the future and decided I needed this video. I took it home with me, gratefully, and began to go through the yogi’s contortions in the privacy of my basement. I was doing it again this morning… almost 15 years later.  I completed the 61.27 minutes this past Monday morning as well. My gut was so stiff yesterday I couldn’t cross my arms. I know…what’s that got to do with my stomach? Well you see, my stomach currently takes up all the real estate between my thighs and upper rib cage. My favorite clothes (in this size) are starting to feel stressed at the seams. Thankfully I’m not working these days and I can live in my baggy flannel shirts and leggings. Of course, if I was working, I wouldn’t have had the time to sit on the couch for 10 months reading, writing, listening to music, eating hot tomales and Starbucks sweet BBQ chips, drinking cranberry ginger ale and peach green tea lemonade. What’s done is done. Do not dwell on the past.

One of the moves for strengthening the stomach muscles is to place your stomach against the workout ball and roll your self forward into a plank position and then lift one leg at a time off the ball and hold it up in the air while balancing your other leg on the ball. I know it probably sounds easy but I ended up rolling off the ball and blasting that fat all over the cement floor in a fit of personal embarrassment and laughter. If I’d been in an actual class with other people I’d have been kicked out for being inebriated.

There is another move which I have never mastered and I’m quite certain I never will. You sit on the floor, with legs crossed in Native American style, and you lift both your butt and your tangled legs off the floor using only the strength of your (and by ‘your’ I mean ‘my’) weak and shaky arms,  which are planted firmly on the floor behind you.   Yes, the yogi can do it but hello?  I’m lifting quite a lot more weight than she is.  And that’s why I do this in the privacy of my basement. The standing big toe stretch can be pretty comical as well. I look like a spaz compared to the gals on the video. Thankfully they can’t see me. If this were an app on my phone, I wouldn’t be so confident of that.

I asked Lexie if she would paint my toenails for me and she queried “and why is it you can’t do this yourself?” I had to come clean and admit that the huge growth on my abdomen was impairing my ability to reach down that far  without passing out, cramping up or falling over spilling red nail polish all over the rug. I’m hoping the downward dogs, planks and chaturangas will  alleviate this  problem.

I guess it’s fairly plain that much, much more practice is needed. I do know this…. after I do this particular yoga video several times a week for more than a month, I start to feel great and look more vibrant. I don’t even care if I lose weight because I look and feel better. And I just ignore the A-OK hand symbol that represents the past and the future…blah, blah, blah. With yoga you are supposed to empty out a busy mind. I’d better be careful not to empty out everything, I’m going to need some of that for interviews and subsequently, work.

However, it does feel good to stretch and move again. I feel like I’m doing something good for myself. I’m doing something, period. So even if visible results take a few months I know I’m moving forward. I frequently think of a movie I watched with Bette Midler and the short guy…..oh, yes, Danny Devito. I think it was called Ruthless People. Bette Midler’s character was kidnapped and locked in a basement where there happened to be fitness equipment and she got into such good shape during her incarceration that her husband wanted her back after refusing to pay the required ransom.

So back to the dungeon for me. Once I have the fat blasting yoga routine mastered again I will switch up my DVDs and let Jillian Michael’s get away with attempted homicide.