Starting over: About Me

I'm restarting this BLOG. I have interest in doing so for several reasons: 1) I have a chornic illness: Fibromyalgia and I need a way to track the "tests" I do to see what causes flares and what makes me better 2) I have a story to tell-one of God's amazing mercy 3) Like any other BLOGGER I have thoughts I want to get out of my head and on to paper. What you will read about on my BLOG will likely pertain my Christianity, Fibromyalgia, TaiChi (or lack of practice of), homemaking, organizing (hopefully), and maybe some crafts or receipes, who knows!

Folding Fitted Sheets seems as "fitting" as ever as life ever deals circumstances that makes it difficult to keep the corners tucked in. Sometimes you just don't have the energy so you wad the sheet up and stick it into the closet, or leave it in a laundry basket until you are ready to change the sheets again. And you know what? That's ok. Folding Fitted Sheets takes practice, and it's trickey, just like life, and sometimes you drop a corner and you just have to start over. That's the perspective and the explanation of the name of this BLOG.

This is going to be a long post. I promise not to make them all this long.

I am restarting this after a season of losses. Some of the older posts start the story in 2009. It's 2012 and we're not out of the storm quite yet. While in the storm I couldn't write about it. The day to day was too hard. Writing about it while you are living it is just sometimes too much. I'm going to hit the high points here just so you can know where I'm coming from. The timeline goes something like this:
In late 2008 I began to get pain in my back. It was so bad, I could sleep, couldn't walk, it was debilitating. I went to my doctor who was not only no help at all, but treated me like a pill seeker. He had been my doctor for nearly 15 years! Also in late 2008, I was laid off from my job which was only part time, but I enjoyed it. And a month later, my father in law was dignosed with Lyphoma. This was a huge blow as he was the pillar of our family. (yes, "was", you already know this doesn't end happily).

In January 2009 a good friend needed a place to get back on her feet so she moved in with us, sometimes, that's a bad idea. In March my husband was laid off from his job. In April another dear friend lost her 2 year old son. He died in the middle of the night from a seizure. It broke our hearts. Also in April my best friend and her husband went through something very bad in their marriage. We sat with them, prayed with, cried with, and counseld them. It was a very hard month for our hearting hearts. (But guess what? That story DID have a happy ending!) In May my Dad was put in hospice care due to advanced COPD. It was at this point that we had decided to stop answering the phone. About this time, we had figured out through research and lab work that I had a disorder called Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR). It differs slightly from Fibro but that's another post. We didn't have insurance and could not afford a rheumotologist. I stayed in constant pain. In August my Dad suffered a stroke and was placed in a nursing home by my step-mother who no longer wanted to care for him. I was not able to care for him either. With 3 children of my own and my health deterorating, it wasn't possible. In addition, we had not room. I had to leave him there, and hour & 1/2 away. In September after months of radiation and chemotherapy, my Father-in-Law fell off a ladder and had to have his leg amputated from the knee down. This surgery caused the cancer to spread EVERYwhere. My husband found some odd jobs here and there and the bills were paid but barely. I don't remember much about the last part of 2009 other than in December my husband was offered a job for a finance company. We had pursused it hard and took it without question. It seemed to be the end of our financial plight. We had figured it out. (ha! That's were we first went wrong)

2010: The job was a nightmare. The owners were crooks and when my husband refused to do something illegal, he was fired in March for insubordation. We were exhausted. I said to God "I cant take any more!" In May I left my life of 9 years as a SAHM and went back to work full time. The job was a huge blessing! My husband went back to school full time. Life sifted on, never knowing what the next thing would be to come to us. In July we lost our beloved cat who got trapped underneath the garage door. (it couldn't have been one of the other cats that we never see, it was our baby!) My husband had just lost his grandfather and when the cat incident happened he lost what control he has mantained over the last year and 1/2 and punched our garage door. and broke his hand. 6 weeks in a cast and a LOT of pain. I worked, it was hard. I missed my kids, I missed my life, my husband was barely functioning. We were surving on 1 income and my husband's unemployment. In October, my father-in-law passed away after a long, slow, painful, illness. It was a loss so great, I don't have words. I just worked, and worked, and worked. In November my husband was diagnosed with "situational depression" (more commonly known as a nervous breakdown) He slept through life, I worked through life. Christmas was a thinly veiled cover of saddness. Thank God, kids are resilient. After that things leveled out in the "bad news" department.

2011: My job remained the dream job until about May. In March I was officially diagnosed with Fibromyalgia which was a huge blow. PMR goes away after a few years. Fibro, doesn't. I will never be "better". Thats a hard reality to ace. My husband finished his degree (yay!) and was doing a lot better with his depression. Healing was slowly coming to us. We tried hard. Over the summer, the firm I worked for doubled in size. My husband still was having trouble finding a job. So I worked. A lot. This entire year has been a blur. I started realizing that I didn't know anything outside of work. It was my entire life. And then, one day out of the blue. I ran into my ex-boyfriend at the store. He was "the" ex-boyfriend. You know? THAT one? The only one my husband ever "worried" about. Seeing him made me remember who I was when I was 20. What I wanted. The view of life I had. And my life? Was NOT it. Giving the very best of myself to bosses who couldn't be pleased. Working extreme hours for a job that would never be done. And killing myself because my Firbro...well, lets just say my body was incredibly unhappy. I started realizng I was in a tail spin. My faith was splintered into almost nothing. Where was God? Where had he been throug all of this? There were no answered prayers. There were not open doors letting us out. It was one blow after another and another. I'll never compare myself to Job who lost his entire family, but I could definitely identify. A few weeks later, my Dad died. We had a weird relationship, he and I. And I was surprised at the hundred ways I broke apart when he was gone. I couldn't take any more emotional pain, so I didn't go sit with him in the nursing home. I left him there to die alone with the hospice nurse. Would I change that? My heart says yes, but my head says no. I was so broken already at that point that to sit there,for an indeterminate amount of time, and watch him die...I couldn't do it. I should mention that he wasn't conscious. He would not have know I was there. Judge that decision if you will, I probably deserve it. But we all have to face these things and do with them what we can. My heart still hurts. The loss swept my legs out from under me. My job & employers were merciless and demanded the same level of performance, and then some. I worked the day after my Dad died - a Sunday. I had 2 days to get all of my Dad's belonging moved to my house, make cremation arrangements (per his wishes) and take care of all the lose ends. Even then, my employers were quite put out with my absense. Oh, how much power and money can change someone in a short amount of time. By then, our firm had tripled in size. In re-reading I'm realizing that this overview of mere words isn't doing justice to what life was like. Without sounding overly dramatic, there just isn't a way to express the amount of despair my husband and I were in.

The bible tells us God will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we can withstand. My temptation? To walk away. From God, from my life, from everything. I was giving up.

I cried out.

From the depths of who I was I cried to God "is THIS what you want? Im about to fall! I can't fight it, I don't have the strength. I'm at my breaking point. Do you want me to fall??!!!"

Peace came. I let go. I gave up. I free fell into God's arms. Exhausted. I handed to him what was left of my tattered faith, and of my broken heart, knowing that what He planned to do with it, might not be to my liking.

I was right.

At the end of October I was fired.

We had nothing. Neither of us had jobs. Something inside of me broke entirely. I slept for almost 2 weeks from sheer exhaustion: mental, physical, spiritutal. The day after I was fired we received a sizable check in the mail from a lady at chruch. Her enclosed letter said "Praise God through whom all blessings flow!" She could not have known what just happened. She sent it, she said, because God told her to send it.

Our church family rallied around us like an army of angels.

I did not attempt to go back to work. I'll write about that later. Because after I came out of the fog-post job loss-I began to hear God. I had finally gotten quiet. Finally, I was still enough to hear Him. I read Psalms day and night. I no longer asked "Why aren't you answering our prayers? Why have you left us to ruin?" Because I could see that we were far from forsaken. Oh no, indeed, we had received a gift beyond measure! How many people do you know that can suffer the loss of income we had and not lose their home?

God has provided for us all along. We had everything we need. Even in the midst of neither of us having jobs, we wanted for nothing. We did make sacrifices of course: of comfort, of pride. But it's nothing we have even missed.

My faith is no longer in my savings account, (which, by the way, was $10k strong when this whole thing started). I no longer have fear of loss. I have learned that God is our only provider. We are a picture to others of His ability to care for His children. Matthew says "consider the lillies, they do not toil". God says to those to know us "Consider the Andersons.....I have provided for them and carried them through" And I hope He adds to that "....because they were faithful."

Where are we today? I am home with my children. My husband has taken a temporary assignement, the first that has ever been offered to him. More, his former company, the one that laid him off in 2009, is flying him to Dallas tomorrow for an inteview for a new position they have created here. We are wrapped in a big peaceful blanket like nothing I have ever experienced.
The walls are being rebuilt, we are being restored. I had a dream a couple of weeks ago (before the Dallas thing came up) that I was climbing through a ceiling, through an attic, breaking through insulation, wood, and into the most beautiful room I have ever seen. A room that was beautifully designed to my liking. My "dream" room. I woke up with the peaceful feeling of promised beauty. I know that place awaits me. Up through the dirty attic. Climbing through the dust that weighs heavy on our heads.

If you are struggling, if trials surround you, let this BLOG be an encouragement to you. God will not fail you. Not ever. He wants nothing less than your full trust and faith. You may think you've givien it, but if you are suffering trial after trial after trial and loss after loss, I'm going to bet you've not given it all. It's frustrating becuase you believe that you have! You believe you have given all you can. It's not until you really do that you see how much you are holding on to. Beth Moore said something like "You can tell how much of your life you are trying to control by the heaviness of your heart. Carrying God's load is a big job" (I'm sure I didn't get that all right, but the sentiment is there) Your heart and load will continue to be heavy, friends, until you let go and free fall into His arms. My advice would be to do it sooner rather than later.

Oh, how blessed I am. How amazed I am at the gift God has given us. The gift of heavenly perspective.