Neat Week

I was just here reflecting from the past week and thought how amazing has it been! I am so blessed that I can hardly believe it at times. Even though my son is moving, the only time I get sad is when I think of poor little ole me, instead of him going to pursue a dream he's always had. We are after all our kids cheerleaders in this harsh world. We had coffee the other day, went to some yard sales, laughed over my blindness and other things. Planning on helping him with his yard sale because he's going to start over. I get to keep most of his stuff he wants to keep here. I'm always so happy when he turns to me. Other than my son, I have so many precious friends. Always willing to help me. Encouraging me and believe it or not, I do learn a thing or two from them. They are encouraging me to write my life story. Very smart women. We had a luncheon at my house this weekend and one of my friends had been to Israel and had the most beautiful photosensitive that she shared with us. How neat it is to see places Jesus walked! I have the best friends in the world, two of us are going to start working and I'm excited about that. I have an awesome sister who lives up in the cooler temps that I got to go see last week to help take care of her and her hubby because they were both ill. What a blessing to be needed and then to hear them both thank me was so sweet. Especially my brother in law... I got to go over to another friends house for lunch and loved it. My Boutique is so much fun. I found some more neat treasures for it. In three days I get to see my son's brother and that's only God that arranged this and even provided me the money and plane tickets. This morning Kate and I took coffee and stuff to the women's ministry and heard a good message and she was used by God to minister to a girl there. Yes, it's been a great week. Thank you Jesus for my life!! I love you!!

CPR Training

Yesterday, a friend and I went to CPR training. It is one of the requirements we will need prior to working with high schoolers. The Instructor was very knowledgeable and has literally quite possibly saved thousands of lives. His primary goal in this class, is to show us the most effective way to accomplish that. I left that class more confident than when I walked in, that if an opportunity presented itself to me, I might be able to save someone's life, or at least sustain them until the Paramedics arrive. We were taught that there are five basic steps to rendering aid to someone in need. The first one was to assess the situation...are they breathing? Then, call or have someone call 911 and ask one person to obtain an AED (automatic external defibrillator...most buildings have one). Start compressions...airway...breathing. I believe everyone with a loved one should be trained especially when it came to the babies. As I was going over the steps in my mind, I couldn't help but think that even if a person was given a second chance, eventually we will come to a time when it's our time to go. If we have never taken steps to ask Jesus to be our Savior, think of all a person would be missing out on... like everlasting life. So, in our daily walk, if I happen to be in a situation where I might possibly be able to save someone's life but I skip all those oppourtunities to care about their soul...what profit is that? The chances of me coming across a physical emergency are probably not going to be as often as me coming across a spiritual emergency. So when life just happens to put me in either position, I need to assess the situation, are they saved? Then I need to call 911, or the Lord in prayer and then try to obtain an AED (admittance to everlasting destiny), then start compressions, airway, breathing...or pressing them to seek the Lord, clearing out debris from their mind on wrong thoughts, breathing in the holy spirit. I want to be able to provide both types of CPR. Not just Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but also Christian Preparation Response. Let's try to seek training in both of these life alterating moments.

A New Adventure Walk

Hey Clay.....wanna go on an adventure walk with mommy? Seems like yesterday when my son and I first started these little adventure walks. He was probably six when we started walking around the new neighborhood we had just moved into and we loved walking and we loved adventures so every weekend I would ask him if he wanted to go on an adventure walk and we would find a block that we hadn't walked down before and look at the yards and cars and trees. Now he's 32 and he's going on a big adventure walk. An adventure walk to a new state, without me... I am so proud of my son achieving all of his goals he set out for himself. However, I had no idea when he first mentioned this move to me last week, that he would call today saying that his transfer went through and he's moving in four weeks. At first I was trying to maintain the upbeat, happy for you facad, but then the reality of not having lunch with him every week and shopping at farmers markets and the Buffalo Exchange sort of hit me and just when I was telling him how excited I am for him going on this adventure walk, my voice cracked and out came the wailing. The very thing I didn't want to do, I did. We've had some awesome things happening like the fact that his brother from another mother found him after 15 years and we're flying out to North Carolina in ten days to meet him at grandma's house. I mean it's been amazing for Clay and amazing for me getting to witness this with him. These are two huge adventures and they are good ones! I asked him to forgive me for being so selfish and self focused but when he said I was his only reason for not wanting to go, I had to woman up and help him figure out how to move there and how to get his cat there as well as selling his stuff. I mean he told me it's only a two and a half hour flight, so that's only one and a half hour more than it takes me to drive to his house, practically. So, I'm very proud and happy for my son. Afterall, life is full of adventure walks. Some are great, some are sad, but we grow through each of them. Then when the final adventure walk arrives, we will all be together and never be separated again. This is just a temporary walk here on earth, and as long as I'm walking with the Lord, I'm on a great path. So, a new adventure walk for me is starting in August when I begin a new career as a Para Professional as a teacher's aid in a high school. I've always wanted to do this so I understand how my son feels. All kinds of emotions, yet it's exciting. We will be ok. We will be more than ok. It'll just take some adjustments...a different pair of shoes....perhaps....

This Too Shall Pass

"But we don't want to go back there Aunt Cathy! Please don't make us go back!". She seemed resolved not to let us go back to that crazy 300 pound ex con who happened to be our step dad. Aunt Cathy loaded her rifle and waited as if she was guarding her chickens....which, we were at that time. Mom and Ron had a huge drunken fight the night before and blood was smeared on our walls in this rental place we got real cheap because the backyard had a train run through it every hour. Mom slammed a lamp on Ron's head and Ron proceeded to put my moms head in the fireplace, with it burning. Living in the back woods of North Carolina, there weren't any neighbors that could call...even when we lived in the trailer parks they wouldn't call. Everyone was so afraid of him. Well, I can't stand there and watch my mom get grilled...no pun intended...so I call the police. Now us four girls need to get out of there. Our cousin Eddie was with us, and he actually started the fight by being upset over his girlfriend and kicking over our coffee table ... So Ron hit him in the eye and mom slapped Ron for hitting her nephew...oh the madness. The eldest of us, grabs the car keys and all of us take off, including our cousin Eddie, in a four speed truck which my sister didn't drive too well. Up and down the country roads at midnight we went...feeling safer and safer, until the flashing lights got behind us and pulled us over. We all are screaming at what's happening to our mother. So the cop lets us go and is now heading towards our house. Finally, us four girls and Eddie end up at Eddie's moms house. Aunt Cathy, my mom's younger sister. Hours passed and just as some peace starts settling us down, mom's truck pulls up and Ron's with her and he's coming to the door!!! Please Aunt Cathy, don't let him take us!! But mom is now walking up with Ron and opens the door and yells at us to get in the car. My poor sisters are crying and I yell "WE DON'T WANT TO GO WITH YOU RON!!! Mom says "come on girls". So, here we are one big happy family crammed into this truck. I still don't know how a 300 pound man, my mom, us four girls squeezed in that truck, and guess who had to sit by the creep? Me! Home sweet home...NOT. Of course, once we get into the house, he wants to know who called the cops. I said I did and across the room I flew. That was the last time he hit me. Mom left him and she never married again. I look back at that time thinking it was someone else. I almost laugh now at certain parts, but I know it was us that survived that time. That time when mom had both breast removed and this man was so sweet in the beginning. Doctors had mom all doped up back in those days thinking it would help her having no implants. When my sisters were going to get beat, I would say "Don't worry. Before you know it, this will be over and we won't be here anymore and we'll be grown up one day and won't have to live like this.". They reminded me of that recently. And now life is good, mom turned out to be an awesome mom and grandma and saved me from an abusive man and then she went to be with the Lord.

Put Your Armor On!!

He was around 27 when he picked up the phone to call his Christian mom. She answered always in a cheerful voice "Pizon!!". It's an inside joke of ours. I have to tell you something mom, but before I do I need you to put your armor on. I had walked away from the church years ago but my mom never did. I mean she wasn't perfect, but she still believed. I asked her if she was ready and she said, "give me a moment". There's no doubt in my mind what she was doing. I'm sure she was praying hard because she knew I would never ask her to do that unless it was pretty serious. Finally, she said "I'm ready son". Mom, I hate having to tell you this, but I've been hooked on methadone for over two years. Silence. Then she says in her ever loving tone "Son, we'll get help and you'll be off of this and I am going to be with you every step of the way!". She had such resolve and she sounded peaceful, sort of excited yet also scared. She had already lost three relatives to this drug so she read up on it and knew what we were in for. I found this rehab place...she found her charge card and while I'm waiting to be admitted, she's rubbing my knees and legs because the withdrawals felt like nails clawing at my muscles. The doctor comes over and says "the first thing we do is hook you up to an IV full of Amino Acids, nutrients and vitamins.". Mom asks if she can be hooked up to and for a small price, she was. We sat in recliners side by side, them putting the needle in my arm and me watching them put the needle in her arm. Hard to believe this was six years ago. But, it worked. And I don't know what "it" I mean. A part of me wants to say the treatment worked; another part wants me to say my moms love worked; but there is this part where I did see God, and maybe...yet, I still don't want to say it was Him. My mom believes enough for both of us. The End. My son is a published writer and I've read his rendition of this period of his life a few times. This is my rendition. I just love my son and thank God every day for his life. His life is full!! When he was in that rehab and I finally got to see him after 10 days of no contact, we walked around a few blocks and he said to me "I see God everywhere". I hold on to that. I know what healed him. He belongs to the Lord whether he is on the Prodical Son tour or not. He belongs to God and I'm thankful because the Lord told me to let that go. This is therapy for me...a release of this past incident that worked out so wonderfully. I know God did it. I'll never forget the day my son asked me to "put my Armor on".