IC My New Life

I had been preparing all day for our vacation trip. I washed clothes,cleaned out my car, etc. Then I went to work. After work I came home and I was exhausted.

I sat down that evening for a few minutes to check my email in the living room. I read a blog post about the faith and forgiveness that was displayed by those in Charleston after the nine people were killed at the Emanuel AME Church.

My husband came in and turned on the TV. He was watching a concert (not just any concert, it was ACDC) and the music was very loud and distracting. It was a band that I enjoyed listening to when I was younger. I was still trying to read and I wanted to share the blog post that I had read about on Facebook.

I was trying to write a comment to go with the post, but I couldn’t think because the music was so loud. At one point, I was sitting there with my ears covered, trying to think…how sad was that??!!

So I quickly went into my bedroom to finish my thoughts. I sat down to type, but there was a cricket outside the window. Again, I covered my ears to try to begin to think. It seemed to be getting louder and louder like it was in my head!! All I could think about was getting that terrible sound out of my head. I wanted to be able to think!! Just think! I wanted to cry! There was a cricket in my head and I couldn’t think!

My emotions were intense and I was about to start crying and have a full blown meltdown!! My anxiety level was way beyond normal. I had to concentrate very hard on what I was typing. I had to only think about what I was typing. It made me feel better. That is why I love writing so much. You can lose yourself in the words. The words you type are the thoughts in your head…the crickets in your head…and writing lets you release the crickets and bring peace.

I was able to control my emotions, the cricket stopped and I felt much better after the whole situation was over. I felt serenity. Then I heard that cricket again. He was so loud! Was he in the house? Was he in my head?

Now that I have so many medical issues including Interstitial Cystitis, Fibromyalgia, chronic sciatica, IBS and so on, I have become super sensitive to noise. It is very distracting and I can’t concentrate. I become irritated very easily. I realize that I have this problem, but I’m not quit sure what to do about it. I need to pray that God will help me overcome this issue. I need to pray that God will help me control the crickets in my head.

My day started with an IBS attack.

I felt nauseated, weak and my bed kept saying “Come back, come back!”

I gathered a few items and headed that way

My earplugs, my eye mask, and my cat; who wanted to play.

My husband was awake, so I had to drown out his roar.

It took a mere sleep app turned up all the way, a pillow over my head and a door!

At first I was freezing and then a hot flash,

Immediately, I threw all the covers back.

Then my toes turned to ice.

Oh, those cozy, fuzzy, warm socks made them feel nice.

Then back to freezing, so I couldn’t sleep,

I cranked up the heating pad on my bladder and fell in deep.

The sleep was awesome and it was for two hours straight!!

Not that I enjoy being sick, but straight sleep felt great!

It’s not everyday that I get good rest

But today I did and I thank God, for I am blessed!

It was Good Friday. I slept form about 1:30 to 6:00 am. I enjoyed getting up early, reading my Bible, and being awake for the sunrise. I thought of the events that Jesus went through on Good Friday and I felt thankful for all that He did on the cross. I prayed a lot and I felt very close to God.

Our Pastor called us every day during the week, leading up to Easter. He gave us an overview of everything that happened on each day and reminded us of scripture to read, so that we could be preparing our hearts for the celebration of Easter. I enjoyed the reminder and it encouraged me to be in the word studying the days before the Resurrection.

Since I had the day off, I helped the Easter bunny prepare a basket for my daughter, I spent some time outside weeding some potted plants, and I even did some Spring cleaning…I dusted, yes dusted! I did a few other things around the house and completely over did it.  About 1:30, I took a nap. It was a good, long nap, lasting about an hour and a half.

I know “they say” to only nap for about twenty minutes, but “they” do not have my Interstitial Cystitis, Fibromyalgia, IBS, Insomnia, Restless Leg, Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Vulvodynia, Sciatica, chronic pain, stricken body. So I sleep when I can, for as long as I can. For me, a nap is not a luxury, but an necessity! Whew, thank you for letting me vent! I feel better now!!

Later that evening, I prepared to meet some friends at church for The Lord’s Supper. On Good Friday we have a special service. Each family is asked to come in together and first prepare their hearts with prayer in one room, before heading to the sanctuary to partake of The Lord’s Supper. In my case, none of my family members go to church with me, so I met some of my church family there and we went in together.

At the exit there is a box, surrounded by pieces of paper and pens. We are encouraged to write down a sin or a struggle that we want to turn over to The Lord. It is symbolic of giving up the sin or burden and trusting that God will help you overcome it. I think it is my most favorite part of this unique service.

Most of us have something in our lives that is weighing on us heavily. We may even pray about it and ask others to pray for us. But there is something so powerful to me about writing it down, putting it in a box and walking away from it in a prayerful, thankful state of mind that really gives me peace!

You can make a prayer box to keep at home. Any box will do. The idea is to think through what you are troubled about and write those things down and then...Put them in the box…And Let Them Go!

It is showing God you Trust Him and you know He will take care of the situation. The results may not be exactly how we think He should handle it, but it will be the best for us, because He knows what we need and He always cares for us.

I have had insomnia for over twenty years. Ambien worked great for me for a few years. Lately nothing seems to work and I am a desperate woman. Sleep brings healing and healing is a precious commodity in my book.

My mind races when I try to fall asleep. No matter what is going on in my life, even if nothing major is going on, my mind has…well, a mind of it’s own.

I have tried a lot of different things over the years to lull my mind into a peaceful night of sleep. I have given up caffeine completely, I have used an app on my tablet to provide white noise, I always use a sleep mask, I have tried gentle stretches, melatonin and prayer.

About three weeks ago, I decided to quit taking Ambien because it didn’t seem to be working for me anymore. I am also trying to quit taking so many medications. I figure my body needs a break!

One night recently, I decided to try a new Melatonin (1^st mistake) and not take any others medications to help me sleep, including Ropinirole that I take for restless leg syndrome (second mistake), then I drank two cups of Chamomile tea (third mistake). I thought if I drank two cups that I would be more likely to get drowsy.  Well it worked, I was drowsy and I fell asleep easily.

My night started off with a nightmare. I had to make myself wake up to quit dreaming this bad dream. At this time I had only had a couple hours of sleep. I was able to get back to sleep only to have a weird dream and wake up needing to go to the bathroom (go figure). After a couple more hours of sleep, I got up again and felt pretty good.

After doing some things around the house for a couple of hours, it hit me like a ton of bricks…extreme nausea!!! The kind that makes you think crazy thoughts and have feelings of hopelessness. Determined not to take any kind of medication, I asked my cat to make me a cup of peppermint tea. Good idea, but she did not move a muscle in her body, and did nothing in an effort to help, lol.

I finally felt brave enough to try to make it to the kitchen to make it myself. I did, but found that I was too nauseated to drink it. I took a Zofran and prayed a sincere prayer that God would have mercy on me and He did!! I was able to fall back asleep for a long nap.

When I woke up I felt dramatically better, and felt ever so grateful to God for answering my prayer. I also felt frustrated that the new Melatonin did not work for me.

Since then I have resolved to the fact, that if I wake up early in the morning, I will stay awake as long as I can and try to accomplish a few things such as reading or checking my email, before I go back to bed for a much needed nap. Prior to this I would wake up around 5:00, take something to try to get back to sleep, toss and turn for a couple of hours and finally get a few more hours of sleep.

I have felt better about my sleep schedule. Maybe I feel better because I’m not taking as many medications or maybe it is the fact that I have tried to just give in to what my body wants. No matter how much or how little sleep I get, I believe that Sleep Is A Beautiful Thing!!

http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-tools-tips/healthy-sleep-tips

My new year started off in a very uneventful way. On New Year’s Eve, I had to go into work early at the Computer Store. My boss bought us a nice lunch and I didn’t work hard at all. It was a great way to end 2014.

The night of New Year’s Eve I came home pretty tired. I watched some of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, then I went to sleep.  You know a little Nick Jonas and One Direction.  Who knew that I would enjoy either one of them performing, but I did.  I didn’t see the ball drop though. Pretty exciting, huh? 

I was worn out.  I was off work from Tuesday, December 23rd through Sunday December 28th.  When I did finally go back to work I felt good.  So good, in fact, that I went and bought groceries after work.  Then I was completely drained of energy and strength.  It took me a few days to get over that.

About 1:30 on New Year’s day,  I was awakened to the sound of what I thought was screaming and a gun shot. I thought someone had been shot!  It took me a few minutes to gather my bearings and realize that it was “just” fireworks. However, these fireworks lasted until 3:00…not cool. I don’t blame my neighbor for me waking up, because I usually wake up for a couple of hours during the night, but it didn’t thrill me either.

My fibromyalgia has been been bothering me a lot lately. My muscles are very sore. You know how your skin feels when it is sun burnt very badly? Well, that is how my muscles feel. Sensitive to the touch, burning, and deep down pain.  I try to spend a few minutes every day releasing my muscle trigger points, but it is very hard to do on yourself and it is very painful.  As my physical therapist used to say tell me, your muscles are crunchy. Muscles are not supposed to be crunchy!  She would do skin rolling to relieve the pain, but the treatment itself is painful.  It is so painful, that I almost passed out one time while she was doing it. See my blog post called “Attitude” http://www.bb65ichope.blogspot.com/2013/05/attitude.html

I keep thinking that if I could just get rid of “fill in the blank,” then I would feel a whole lot better. This week it is the fibro pain and exhaustion. A couple of weeks ago it was IBS and severe nausea and weakness.

I am happy to report that a couple of months ago, the main thing I wanted was relief from the sciatica. Since I started going to a chiropractor, my lower back pain and sciatica have gone down of the pain scale part of the time!! Victory!!! 

But the truth of the matter is, I want relief from whatever is screaming loudest on any given day.  It always includes some Interstitial Cystitis pain and may also include a combination of other things.The sciatica had become a constant pain, so I praise the Lord for the relief that I have received!!

Despite my aching body I have decided to make some new year’s  resolutions. First and foremost I want to study my Bible more deeply and prepare myself for relational conversations that lead to Christ.   I also want to commit to writing more.  I think all of these goals are doable. I can study the Bible daily and more intensely on the weekends. Starting each day with a prayer that I will use the situations that God puts me in to tell the story of Jesus and show His love.  I plan to set aside a few minutes each morning to work on some on my writing.  I believe if I set small, realistic daily targets, then I can achieve them and celebrate small triumphs each day…It seems like a win, win plan…Victory!!!

Twenty-eight years is a long time. Then add five years of dating. I have been with this man for most of my life. And if you add in the fact that we were in the third grade together, then we have been together since we were about nine years old.

We wanted to do something for our wedding anniversary, but the budget is tight right now. We both came up with the same idea. A day trip to the beach. That is absolutely one of my most favorite things to do in the world. Alan enjoys it too. We have been going to the beach together since I was seventeen years old.

I had checked the forecast and knew there was a chance of rain on the day we planned to go. I thought it would be fine just as long as we are together. I enjoyed spending time with and talking to Alan on our way there, but I was disappointed that the sun had decided not to even make an appearance…okay, I was actually silently pouting about it. This was our celebration time together and I didn’t want it to be cloudy or for us not to have maximum enjoyment from this trip.

Since it was bothering me, I began to pray that if it was God’s will that the sun would come out for a while. Sure enough as we were traveling down the road God’s beautiful sunshine was all around us.

As we made our way down the trail to the beach I could see more of God’s beauty all around me. The trees, many, many birds and…the ocean! God had poured His blessings out on me. We immediately took a walk down the beach. Then we both settled down in our chairs to read our books under our beach umbrella.

Sunrise at the Isle of Palms….Beautiful!

After we settled in our chairs again after the second walk, I said “Was that a rain drop?” We both ignored it and went back to reading. A few minutes later there were more drops and then we saw groups of people scamper from the beach shores. While some of us decided to try to wait it out under our umbrellas.

But the wind was blowing making me cold in the rain. And there was that tiny little thing called thunder that really encouraged us to pack it up and head to the car. Even though I would have loved to stay out on the beach, getting soaked in the rain made me happy. It took me back to my childhood, because I never want to go outside when it is raining now. It makes my hair frizzy even with an umbrella!(I am such a girly girl!)

We hurried to the car where there was dry towels, water to rinse off with and shelter from the rain. There was so much traffic that we decided to wait out the rain. Then when the rain stopped Alan said “Do you want to take another walk out on the beach?” Do I??!! Of course I do!! This man really knows my heart. I never want to leave the beach when it is time to go and I am always ready for one more walk on the beach!

After we left, we stopped at a restaurant to eat. And of course I had to go to the little girls room. While I was in there I looked in the mirror and immediately thought…beach bum. I looked like a beach bum. My hair was flat from the towel I put over my head in the rain. But it looked okay for the beach. That is another dream job of mine…Beach Bum. I think it would be great to live at the beach. Of course I would want to live in a house and just be a Beach Bum during the day! Lol

This whole trip reminded me of water….the beach, the rain and God pouring out His blessings on us. Jesus wants us to come to Him to satisfy our inner thirst or our desire for a deeper understanding of Him and His word. As this verse points out a person who believes in Jesus not only receives blessings, but they become a blessing to others. To receive these blessings we need to live out the Word of God in our daily lives. We need to read God’s Holy Word, study His Word and share His Word with others.

I definitely felt God pouring his blessings out on me that day. I just hope and pray that I am a blessing to others!