a great span in a single step

I have not forgotten this blog, although I know it seems I’ve abandoned it.   Instead I find myself spread maybe too thin for the dribbles of thought and experiences in my life right now.  I am currrently maintaining three blog sites and have only the brain power of one and the life experience of an  old woman in a nursing home!!  My efforts have been focused on trying to corral my blossoming figure (which is blossoming out in every conceivable unwanted direction!) as well as to nourish some newer, healthier habits of life and exercise … while striving against a body that is determined to curl up and die very soon.  The result of this mixture of ingredients is a good amount of frustration and impatience….as my wheels spin and I get nowhere fast. 

For the past few days, I’ve been determinedly plugging up and down the halls of the hospital dragging my IV pole and stopping to cough frequently while simultaneously thanking fortune for the makers of Depends and Poise undergarments which are catching the contents of my stressed bladder!!  I’ve yet to accomplish more than two laps of the hospital medical unit I am on (and it’s a small one at that)….today I accomplished far less than that even.  I awoke tired today feeling like an elephant had returned to squat on my chest for a rest…coughing and not being able to summon enough air to speak above a whisper.  I don’t know why I should be losing ground rather than gaining….And I don’t want to nourish any suspicions that this may be the case because then discouragement and psychosomatism so quickly set in.   My doctor listened to my chest today and asserted that my wheezing is unabated.  He assured me that he is doing all that he possibly can and now can only wait for my body to respond to the treatment.  I don’t know why my body is so stubborn, so bent on self destruction.  Even when I’ve done all that I can to foster health and a good attitude, it seems hell bent on frustrating me.

But a person can only whine about such things in a limited number of venues before they sicken themselves and everyone else with their self pity and negativity.  So I’ve been rather quiet on here.

I could cuddle up to you and confess that I’ve crawled up on Jesus’s lap and asked him to bring me home now.  He had assured me last weekend that what remained undone in my life could be considered  completed in his competent hands….  I know I’d harboured great dreams of high hopes for me in my life…I know that those who knew me growing up held high aspirations for my levels of accomplishmnet.  I have had to slowly and painfully come to terms with the fact that those things may remain on the “uncompleted list” for my “to do’s”;…had to admit that maybe ego and ideals based on factors which no longer are relevent or binding may make that house of cards unbearably shaky….and had to open my fingers to let God pry loose dreams that were given to another girl in another lifetime free of my clutch.   God has made me what I am.  And it’s time I let it be just that.  It is what it is.  And I still know that it can be made much more with the power of his competent, all powerful, creative hands….but that I must leave it in HIS hands and in HIS will to determine that.  It is no longer in the power of my will or my ambitions to force his hand to make something of me that maybe is not to be.  And I’m okay with that.  I’ve given it the all-american try…I’ve invested all of my strength and energy into wrestling with a recalcitrant mind and body and have met with continual frustration.  But my heart is in his hands.  It is my spirit that he has been molding…even when I’m unawares that this is where the true work is being wrought.  And to me, it looks like I have SO FAR TO GO….but in his hands, a great span can be covered with a single step…   That’s the trick…To remain in his hands and let him take me where he will.

heading for life or aiming to die?

My experiences of the past few days, as well as my involvement in the website called “SparkPeople.com” have all led me to assess where my attitudes and heart are lying in regard to my life and impending death.  It is true that we all are going to die…but it is true also that God has granted us this time on earth to live and to “live life abundantly.”  I have not been living any kind of “abundant life!”  I’ve been vegetating, going from one illness to the next hospital and to the next….waiting in my sickroom at home, accepting my “limitations” and doing little to fight or to change them.  People have prayed for my healing….and I have  prayed too…with a cynical spirit….one that believes that I am on a path to death and that not even God will alter it.

Jesus said that we must be as a grain of wheat, dying and falling to the ground, before we can live and produce fruit.  What kind of fruit does wheat produce?  Bread.  Bread of Life.  And the bread can be broken and poured out for others.   There must come a time when we recognize that this life is not our own.  It is not to be spent nourishing our own fat bodies and living for self indulgence….that road leads to death. 

Once we face that death  and we embrace it…give our lives over to his control and management…for him to heal and restore as he sees fit….with our best efforts behind him….then we can pursue LIFE…a life to be spent as nourishment to others.   But in order to feed others, we ourselves must be fit and healthy.  And allowing the farmer to grind us down and use us as he sees fit …to get rid of chaff, sift, grind, mix and bake, until we are ready to be food for others.

I have decided to yield myself to this process.  Rather than selfishly waiting for my own death and calling it my own….I want to die to myself and to live to him.  To engage in this process will involve some effort; some stretching and some discomfort.  It will involve saying no to my own desires and conforming and yielding to HIs for me instead.   It will involve engagement rather than disengagement.   Communion rather than isolation.  Giving rather than receiving.  Joy rather than a bitter spirit.  Effort combined with relinquishment rather than mere subsistence which waits to see what the morrrow brings.

Self denial; self discipline; energy; encouragemnt; engagement; seeking out rather than sinking in;  this is the path I am committing to.

so now what?

Here’s a progress report.  I now can speak audibly (most of the time), whereas yesterday and Saturday had less than a whisper due to lack of oxygen volume.  I walked around a small loop of hallway (with the O2 hooked up to a portable tank) and with a short rest, was able to complete it.  It was not easy though…the exertion set off long fits of  convulsive coughing and shortness of breath.  But again; yesterday this would have been out of the question.  My doctor said there is no pneumonia or major infection happening at this point but I’m just recovering from my flu and a massive asthma attack from Saturday morning.  I’ve never come so close to dying and been conscious of it (I’ve been close before, but didn’t realize it at the time because I was too sick or else unconscious.)  During the actual attack’s onset, I was in a panic, just as the result of the complete distress physically that no air brings to one’s body.  Once I calmed down in the hospital and I lay barely breathing with my O2 SAT’s in the basement, realizing death could come at any time while I was in that semi conscious state; I had great peace and even excitement to finally see Jesus and put an end to this  life’s suffering.

Today when the doctor told me, now it is just a waiting game until you feel better and we can get rid of the wheezing, I felt–yeah–disappointment.  I’m not suicidal; but I am SO READY to die.  I know where  I’m going.  I’m eager to go.   And the thought of returning to that small bedroom in that house that’s too big for me to manage to sit in my recliner day after day as pain and asthma and mental illness wreak their havoc in my life — well, it’s not appealing.  I need to come up with some changes I can make.  Some life affirming changes which I can take on to bring myself some quality of life once more.  If  I’m going to have to live; then I should really LIVE.