November Awareness

November is the month we all remember to be thankful. If you have trouble finding things to be thankful for, you can check into the calendars that show "national day of..." or "National Awareness...". Some of the awareness and causes that stick out the most in my life are:

National Alzheimers Disease Month
*Grandma King*

National Doughnut Day (Nov. 5)
*Evan's first powdered donut*

Saxophone Day (Nov. 6)
*My Michael plays the sax!*

National Home Care & Hospice Month
*Grandpa Stouffer was able to stay home
and the family was thankful for hospice.*

National Novel Writing Month
*I'm not writing, but I'm thankful for those who do!*

National Scholarship Month
*My beautiful Kaylee is a senior! She's looking at
colleges and looking for scholarships.*

NoSHAVEmber
*I can't remember the last time I
saw Mike's face. It's NoSHAVEember
every day here.*






















Epilepsy Awareness Month
*My dad has epilepsy and my brother-in-law had it.*
















Family Stories Month
*Always a great time with the family!*













Worldwide Bereaved Sibling Month
*Travis was such a great person. We all miss him
terribly. SUDEP*

I'm very thankful for the people who are and who were in my life.
I have many sweet memories and a future to look forward to.

You can find more at:
Holiday Insights
National Day Calendar

A Quick Bit of Encouragement

This album is one of my favorites. Jeremy Camp's music is always an encouragement. It's been a rough day, but I'm still following Jesus. 

Sunday, November 2, 2014

 

 

Today is Sunday. There are a lot of times I am feeling sad because I am home instead of church. There are a lot of times I am sad that I am home instead of anywhere. My fibromyalgia keeps me at home and I miss out on being able to live life the way I want to.  Making plans and scheduling anything is difficult. Yesterday was a good day and I didn't overdue anything so there wasn't any chance of being too tired or sore the next day. Sounds great except guess what? I'm too tired and in too much pain to be able to attend church today. At the beginning I mentioned I was sad, but I have a lot of other feelings that go along with being at home. Sad. Lonely. Angry. Bitter. Irritated. Left out. Isolated. And with all the emotions there are physical problems to deal with. Tired. Pain. Dizzy. Weak. Aching. Fibro fog. I struggle to make sense of all of this. I wonder what good will come of this? What good am I at all to anyone?

I search and I find little bits that help me through the pain.

 

From Randy Alcorn's book Seeing the Unseen:

Perspectives from God’s Word

“For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

Perspectives from God’s People

“I want to stay in the habit of ‘glancing’ at my problems and ‘gazing’ at my Lord.” —Joni Eareckson Tada

“There are rare and wonderful species of joy that flourish only in the rainy atmosphere of suffering.” —John Piper

OBX Souvenirs

Vacations are fun! Even though my fibromyalgia kept me inside today, I'm still enjoying myself. The family went out today and picked up some OBX Souvenirs for me. Dolphin goodies and a spoon. It was so awesome to see the dolphins swimming the other day and these dolphin trinkets will be sweet reminders of the special vacation I had with the family.

Being Real With Chronic Illness

I have the perfect quote about chronic illness:

"Ok. I’ve thought a time or two that perhaps my “over-sharing” on my blog (and then to Facebook, etc) may make some of my friends uncomfortable. But, honestly, these are my “friends” (most in the internet sense, some in the very real sense) so I would hope that they would love me regardless.... Stop letting our pride get in the way of allowing our invisible illnesses to be visible. If we need help we need to reach out and take it, and not deny ourselves those things we need because we don’t want people to see how bad we really feel, or because we don’t want to make others uncomfortable... It’s time for those of us who are chronically ill to start making our illness more real to those around us."-Julie Ryan

 

You can read the entire blog post here:

 

The Slow Death of Compassion For the Chronically Ill