Sufficiency in Difficulties

These thoughts are taken from my readings the morning of May 10 with additional thoughts I added.

From Jesus Calling by Sarah Young (written as if Jesus was speaking to the reader):

“Do not resist or run from difficulties in your life. These problems are not mistakes; they are hand-tailored blessings designed for your benefit and growth. Embrace all the circumstances that I allow in your life, trusting Me to bring good out of them. View problems as opportunities to rely more fully on Me.

When you start to feel stressed, let these feelings alert you to your need for Me.  Thus, your needs become doorways to deep dependence on Me and increasing intimacy between us.  Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on Me produces abundant living in My kingdom.  Thank Me for the difficulties in your life, since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance.”

My thoughts:

Wow! Pretty much exactly what I needed to be reminded of right now.  I need to step back and allow God to have full control of my life and trust that He knows what He is doing and that He is using the tools that He feels will best develop me according to His plan.  I must cheerfully/joyfully submit/yield/surrender to Him in full trust and humility.

From 31 Days of Praise: Enjoying God Anew by Ruth Myers with Warren Myers (written as if the reader is speaking to God):

“I choose to thank You for my weaknesses, my infirmities, my inadequacies (physical, mental, emotional, relational)…for the ways I fall short of what people view as ideal…for my feelings of helplessness and inferiority, and even my pain and distresses.  What a comfort to know that You understand the feeling of my weaknesses!...and that in Your infinite wisdom You have allowed these in my life so that they may contribute to Your high purposes for me. 

Thank You that many a time my weaknesses cut through my pride and help me walk humbly with You…and then, as You’ve promised, You give me more grace-You help and bless and strengthen me.  Thank You for all the ways I’m inadequate, for they prod me to trust in You and not in myself…and I’m grateful that my adequacy comes from You, the all-sufficient God who is enough! 

Thank You that I can trust You to remove or change any of my weaknesses and handicaps and shortcomings the moment they are no longer needed for Your glory, and for my good, and for the good of other people…and that in the meantime, Your grace is sufficient for me, for Your strength is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.

My thoughts:

Wow! This really fits with the other readings.  I need to surrender fully and let God work-His way.  

This however, is not the end of the story for that day.  The following is copied from something I wrote that evening:

Processing

I had an amazing quiet time this morning!  I was so encouraged, everything was fitting together and connecting with where I am and what I dealing with at present.  The day started off well, but somewhere, sometime, somehow things started slipping as one incident followed another, new issues came up that were entirely unanticipated, old issues resurfaced, or had new components added to them.  Somehow, I went from excited anticipation of what the day held to a pathetic heap lying in bed and crying the hardest I have cried in a very long time (and I am not ordinarily a crier). What happened?  Is this just the depths after the mountain height this morning?  I am writing now in an attempt to stop the tears-not because I have pulled myself together.  Next to me is a box of Kleenex that is in serious danger of being emptied before I am done. 

Questions: is there something I am missing?  Is God trying to teach me something I am not getting?  Am I being too prideful?  Thus, it takes repeated and harder lessons?  Is this simply something He is allowing for now to teach me more complete dependence on Him?  I think one of my biggest fears in all of this, is that instead of bringing Him glory by my response to things, I will mar what He is trying to accomplish.  

Thoughts written today while putting this together:

I don't really have answers to the questions I asked above.  It is interesting to look back over the readings and the "crash" that evening.  I think the meltdown was a combination of things including the opportunity to practice what I had learned that morning.  Looking back, in the midst of the tears, as I was writing and trying to process and make sense of things, I made a list of the major stressors and difficulties I was facing.  It was a rather lengthy list.  This allowed me to realize that an emotional meltdown was natural under the circumstances and most likely unavoidable when considering everything that was weighing on me.  It also allowed me to identify which issues I could take action on myself and which ones I needed help with as well as which ones there is nothing anyone can do about right now.  I then sent a couple of emails and set things in motion and was able to put a plan in place to effectively manage some of the issues.  Others are still definitely present and will be for awhile.  Still others are most likely things I will be dealing with the rest of my life.  The permanent difficulties are sometimes the hardest and sometimes the easiest to accept.  I came through a period of deep discouragement and frustration, where I acknowledged that God had to still have a plan since I was still dealing with things, but I was failing to see even the tiniest glimpse of what possible good could come out of the circumstances.  Then, God showed me some of what He was doing and how He was using me.  He used encouraging words from others, He even showed me how some of my ramblings in this blog were reaching others with similar struggles.  The realization that God was using me in spite of my less-than-stellar attitude was humbling.  It was also the encouragement I needed at the time to keep on going resting in His strength and joy in the midst of the difficulties and to know more fully that truly He is all-sufficient to carry me through the most difficult times.  

I realize this was another long post, but could not figure out how to break it up without losing the context of how everything fit together.  I am ever amazed at God's love and faithfulness!

Finals Week: Writing on Demand

Finals week has caught up with me again.  I have been struggling to finish two short papers to finally complete requirements for a course I received an incomplete in last spring.  Why is it so hard to write these two papers?  They are even along the lines of where my greatest strengths in writing are.  I love black and white, logic, sequence, putting things together in order, thinking through how things fit.  Admittedly, I am not a writer, but critiques of science and research are far easier for me than creative writing.  Or so I have always thought.  Recently, I am beginning to wonder.  Why can I write a couple of pages in my journal in 30 minutes or so?  Why can I draft blog posts? Facebook notes? I do take the effort to make sure wording is accurate, anything I have quoted is appropriately cited, etc. So, why can I write these, but not assignments?  My latest conclusion (as of 5 minutes ago) is that I cannot write on demand.  I can free flow what I am thinking, learning, experiencing, etc.  I can vent out frustrations, negative thoughts, other less-than-admirable content.  What is so hard about writing something that I put the outline together myself, chose the papers I am to analyze, picked the topics based on interests?  Is it simply pressure of deadlines?  I don’t think so.  Why am I writing this now?  Because it gives me something to do when I am struggling to point of frustration with the assigned papers that absolutely must be finished ASAP.  So, I am washing dishes, cleaning, thinking as I work, jotting down the thoughts here.  Open documents on my computer? Why, the two assigned papers (still trying), and my journal for today of which this random piece is actually just one section. Hopefully, after my lovely little side track here, I will be able to again focus and get these papers finished...!!!
 

Weekend and this Week in a Nutshell

I had an amazing weekend with family! This was the first I got to go back since Christmas break! Everyone was able to be there! It was nice to catch up in person with everyone. It was lovely to be able to relax fully-very long daily naps, or multiple naps per day if shorter naps.

I enjoyed a homemade meal for supper-not even a crock pot one-a rarity these days. There are cookies in the oven, smelling wonderful! I am trying to avoid the state of being totally, completely overwhelmed...by choosing not to think about the full list of everything that has to be accomplished, or the short amount of time to accomplish said list. I had time to go home and write for awhile today between meetings and class-and ended up falling asleep until I was wakened coughing-still not over this crazy cold/cough. I am sadly confused regarding day of the week due to not coming back until Monday afternoon and not going in to work until yesterday. I have bright potential opportunities and am waiting to see what God does with me over the next few months as I strive to meet the various deadlines and remain resting peacefully in Him at the same time!

Another Successful Experiment!

I was in the mood for something sweet, but had limited ingredients on hand. I decided to use up some of the powdered sugar and cream cheese I had gotten on sale sometime...in not too ancient of history.

Normally when experimenting, I have a recipe, or two, or three...that I start from and make adjustments from there. Today I just started with 2 ingredients and modified from there based on how things were going...it was actually fun-especially since it turned out!

So, what was this recipe? Frosting-starting with cream cheese (Neufchatel, aka 1/3 less fat cream cheese) and powdered sugar. I didn't have much on hand that was I was going to be able to frost. No cookies, no cake, no graham crackers, or pretzels or any of the usual things I like to put frosting on. So, thinking through what might be OK with frosting added, the best options were the banana bran muffin batter in the fridge-bake a few muffins and frost while warm. Then, if extra frosting, I have both banana muffins and pumpkin muffins in the freezer. So, cream cheese frosting sounded like a nice accompaniment to any or all of these. Knowing what I do about flavor balance, I added a pinch of salt, then was debating what flavoring to use. I only have vanilla, almond and lemon flavoring on hand...almond didn't sound right with cream cheese and vanilla sounded too ordinary, so I opted for lemon. Lemon suits cream cheese very nicely! And, the frosting was delicious on a fresh hot banana bran muffin! Next question, just exactly how does frosting improve the health of an otherwise healthy snack? It doesn't, but it sure tastes good! :)

Recipe? Here goes, but since I was not basing it off anything, I of course also was not recording exactly what I did, so these are estimates.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting (not even remotely healthy)
1 8-oz pkg neufchatel cheese
~4? cups powdered sugar
pinch (~1/8 t) salt
1 t lemon flavor

Soften cream cheese and add sugar a cup a time. After first cup of sugar is mixed in, add salt and flavoring. I really do not know for sure how much sugar I used. I know I put in 2 cups. (I measured a cup, put it in the sifter and added it, repeated with another cup. Then forgot I was measuring before putting in the sifter and just dumped a bunch of sugar in the sifter...until full...and it is supposed to hold ~2 cups, hence my estimate of ~4 cups sugar.) Anyway, keep adding sugar a cup at a time until desired consistency. I wanted this a little on the soft, sticky side since I wanted it more as a glaze really than frosting. To test this recipe, I fixed a fresh muffin, topped with frosting while the muffin was still hot and allowed frosting to melt into muffin-amazingly delicious!

I may post the muffin recipe...later! :)

Thoughts on Health, or Lack thereof: New versus Old

I had a wonderful time with family over Christmas and New Year's. It was the longest break I have had in a couple of years and I thoroughly enjoyed it. My one goal was to get through the entire break without a single doctor appointment and I did it! (Pathetic goal, I know.)

So, break is over and now it is back to the real world. Life is super busy again. And…this is going to be another long post. I am trying to view the humorous side of things, so here goes!

I am still dealing with my crazy body and its tendency to want to try out every symptom it can think of, thus subjecting me to every test or procedure imaginable. One of these days I keep hoping I will figure out how to anticipate its crazy ideas and prevent it from acting them out. I keep thinking we have exhausted the possibilities, but apparently the only possibilities being exhausted are those for resolving things. Sigh. I wish my body weren't so terribly imaginative and creative. Unfortunately, it is far more so than I am-thus catching me by surprise with each new thing it decides to try out. I have tried ignoring it-but I deal with the consequences. I have tried pursuing treatment to stop it-but again I bear the consequences. So far, it is definitely winning this little battle. If it is trying to impress me with its broad range of ideas, or its ability to continually come up with new symptoms before the previous ones are even figured out, it is failing miserably-because I end up feeling miserable while dealing with all of this. Sometimes, I think I should try to guess its next move and prevent it. But other times, I think it safer NOT to try to think of anything else it might try-I don’t want to supply it with any further ideas. I wonder if it is aspiring to try out every single medical test in existence? Or, maybe it simply wants to meet every physician in Ames…and central IA…and eastern NE? I certainly hope not because I am literally sick and tired of testing…and procedures…and appointments…and new specialists…and more medications…and more therapies…I think this list conveys some of the idea. (I am very grateful for the many great providers I have; I am simply tired of the fact that this is part of my daily existence at present and most of the past year.) Basically, if a chronic illness is considered a second full time job (in terms of time and effort involved to manage things), then I am currently working so many full time jobs that I really should be being compensated accordingly…instead of having to pay for this privilege(?)! (Fortunately, I am not really paying much at present due to the “minor detail” that I already paid the maximum out-of-pocket amount for my insurance plan-within the first 2 months of the new insurance year. (last year it took ~8 months to reach that point.) Yay crazy body! *please note the heavy sarcasm* I try to provide this self-centered body with everything it needs to be healthy (good nutrition, adequate sleep, exercise, times of rest and relaxation, etc.), but instead of being grateful and content to be healthy, it goes and rewards my efforts with further displays of willful disregard by getting sick, or trying out some other random new symptom. In blatant rebellion, it refuses to accept the sleep I try to provide for it-it wakes me regularly every night-sometimes at the same times, sometimes to mix things up, it decides to try a variety of different times. Sometimes, it teases me by letting me almost get a full night of sleep, but then wakens me an hour before my alarm, but then won’t let me go back to sleep. Or, on other nights, it decides to wake me every 2 hours the first half of the night and every hour the second half. Then, it complains of being tired the next day. How does it think I feel? (OK, so it doesn’t even seem to acknowledge that my feelings count-if it even recognizes I have feelings.)

I am aware this was really random…but so am I sometimes. When things are crazy and out of my control, I often find it helpful to distance myself from whatever is causing the problems. I have done this for years with the chronic pain-I consider the pain to have its own set of likes and dislikes-often quite opposite to mine. For example, I enjoy thunder storms, snow storms, etc. Unfortunately, my neck and back do NOT and complain painfully when storms come-thus trying to take away some of my joy. Naturally, with all of the other health challenges over the past year, I began to think of my entire body as having a mind of its own. It clearly was not following my wishes. Hence, the preceding story! =)

Sometimes, I feel as if I am a mind trapped in a willful, recalcitrant body. However, when I think of this, it brings to mind the fact that really, this is not that far from the truth. As a child of God, He has put a new nature inside of this old body of flesh. The old nature is constantly striving with the new nature. The old may occasionally gain the upper hand, but the victory has already been won at the cross-the new nature wins in the end and that is what counts. When struggling with a tired, sick, weak human body that seems to be keeping my mind from doing what it would like, I need to remember how frustrating that is and when tempted to give in to the ways of the old nature, to instead choose to allow the new nature to rule the old nature.

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Colossionas 3:10 (KJV)
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

http://www.biblegateway.com/

Good-bye 2011

It is the last day of the year already. 2011 held the unexpected-and lots of it. I learned so much in so many ways. God taught me more of Himself and more of who I am in Him. He taught me that I do NOT have to be in control-of any part of “my” life. He also showed me that I do NOT need to know the reason or outcome of things that happen. He taught me that it is OK to take things as they come rather than plan all out to the last detail. He taught me it is alright to let go of my timeframe and instead wait on His perfect timing. He showed me even more the importance of family, friends, coworkers. He showed me the reason or partial reasons for some of the things that happened and reminded me that I can trust Him in all-even when I do not know why things are happening the way they are or how things will end. He does know why and how things will end and He is in control of all and that is all that matters. He is still working on me to learn to accept things that do not seem to ever resolve. I have been and continue to be a work in process. My prayer is that the coming year brings me ever closer to God in my relationship with Him and ever closer to His plan for my life.

Fall Baking: Pumpkin Cookies!

Pumpkin Cookies!
(Recipe adapted from my mother)

1 cup butter	2 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup honey	1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs	2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla	1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 15 oz. can pumpkin (or 2 cups cooked)	½ teaspoon cloves
4 to 5 cups whole wheat flour	2 cups butterscotch chips
¾ teaspoon salt

Cream together butter and honey. Add eggs, pumpkin and vanilla; mix well. Mix dry ingredients together, then add to egg mixture and mix well. Stir in butterscotch chips.

Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly. Bake at 350⁰ F for about 10 minutes (until cookies are slightly set and beginning to brown). Let set on cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to cooling rack and allow to cool.

Notes: I start with the smaller amount of flour and add more if needed. Sometimes I’ve even baked a pan and then added more flour if they seem too doughy.

Original recipe had chocolate chips and chopped nuts as an option.