Tag: wife

God gave me you

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Nor ordinary Christmas we had this day

Sleeping in then slowly moving into life out of necessity more than design.

Broccoli for my breakfast and handfuls of granola for my man

Brought us to our traditional reading of Isaiah before revealing our worldly gifts for I and you.

Who paddles a new long board down the hallway

But two middle-aged lovers holding onto our respective gusto of life?

A rest time had to follow for me again

Not as unusual as the waking episodes that have returned changing my hopes for the day.

Perhaps we would visit or do something fun

Yet return to my bed of sickness I did go for a most unfortunate interlude.

When your husband holds you from joy to sorrow

The same day seems surreal: later he feeds you medicine whilst you seize.

Siiiiiigh. Not that old tune returneth even today

For chronic illness ne’er takes a holiday when you want it to my dear.

This did not matter to you: your love never fades

And my greatest gift revealed its beauty the ten thousandth time: it’s you!

I could never conceive of this way that you have

To give beyond your self with a gentle spirit, still manly all the same.

You spoke only of my rest to your family on the phone

Preserving my dignity when I could barely feed myself with fingers weary from the beating moments before.

Yours is a love from the Father, the Son all in One

The kind that sustains you through trials when Jesus comes near with skin on.

He made you for me oh I am the blessed one

I pray he loves you back tenfold for the task of loving me well done today my love.

Will you still love me tomorrow?

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The question we simply don’t need to ask.

The question that I simply don’t need to ask again, yet have wasted too many moments wondering, is the one posed in this song by the Shirelles.  Oh and Dionne Warwick.  And maybe Amy Winehouse too.  Such a classic song!

Each time I wind up in the Emergency Room, I wonder if my beloved will still love me the next day.  This morning he referred to yesterday evening as “another date night!”  Unbelievable.  All this love continues after about 16 trips to the ER in the past 7 years.  I am humbled and blessed beyond measure.

This blessing is hard to see sometimes when my body is breaking down in a new way once again.  Looks like an ulcer in the lower part of my stomach is the reason for a month of abdominal pain.  Over-the-counter and walk-in clinic medications did not solve the problem.  So after a CT scan under the influence of anti-allergy drugs and some more potent medication, I am in less pain . . . but oh so worn out.  I’ll see a gastroenterologist this coming week with an endoscopy likely to follow.  Going to try to keep my stress level low in the meantime.  I mean I don’t have any other of the risk factors that contribute to an ulcer (e.g. spicy foods, caffeine, alcohol) unless of course there’s a hidden H. pylori infection.  So more testing is needed to figure this one out.

The other “love” that could be easy to question is that of my Heavenly Father.  But I don’t.  I look around and see tremendous blessings in my life in that I have a warm home in which to convalesce, enough food and clothing, and finances for the important stuff.  My beloved is faithful and loving like “Jesus with skin on.”  What I don’t understand is how these illnesses isolate me from friends and family outside of our home and most notably, my husband’s adult children. 

My extreme sensitivities continue and are triggered by the fragrant products they (and many folks) tend to use.  We are just not sure how to manage this reactivity with our Christmas gatherings rapidly approaching.  We already had to decline having both daughters stay with us (which was a delight to host them in years gone by).  A trial of having his oldest stay with us for about a week 2 months ago, despite extreme precautions, triggered a violent relapse in the convulsive episodes.  I am now sensitized to even trace amounts of fragrance on her coat that was kept in a suitcase in our garage in between scheduled visits.  Then I had a seizure spike 2 days ago when she returned from some travels to pick up her suitcase . . .

My heart is breaking from more than the loss of acquaintances and friendships:  my relationships with my husband’s children never really got going.  Steve and I have been married for 11 years and I got sick just 4 years into our marriage.  I have been battling a serious illness for most of our marriage!  You could say that my limited visits with his adult children gave them more time to adjust to the fact that their father is remarried.  Well, o.k. maybe that’s it.  I already sensed that I needed to lie low during their visits in the beginning anyways, focusing on serving them good food and comforts and not speaking up too much nor complaining when their Dad jumped to see them, rescue them when the trials of young adulthood came along.  No problem.  Fix the car?  Pick them up at the bus stop?  Join them at church?  I just had to stay home due to illness factors and couldn’t go with their Dad to help them, that’s all.

They don’t really know me either though.  We profess the courteous “love” greetings yet would I ever really see them again if something happened to their Dad?  Oh dear, I should not even go there.  I now realize that this barrier between us is completely out of my hands.  Remember when I sent along baked goods with Steve for when he visited his family in Arkansas without me 2 weeks ago?  Yes, I need to rest in the hope that what I could do has been done as unto the Lord.   My Jesus and my beloved know my heart.  They hold together the parts in me that are breaking and the inner tears.  And the Lord also holds me in tender moments like these right now.

I need to know that your love.  Is a love I can be sure of.  So tell me know so I won’t ask again.  Will you still love me tomorrow?

Yes, for sure.  JJ

Jeremiah, 31:3, everlasting, love, doubting, Christ's, Lord's, faithfulness,what He thinks of me, endurance, love through the trials

In a far-off land the LORD will manifest himself to them. He will say to them, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love. That is why I have continued to be faithful to you.’

A Well Worn Path

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If you travel the same way and expect different results they say it is the definition of insanity.  I get that so I resist the same.

If your baseline shifts and you take the same precautions against a disastrous outcome, you might say you are taking a chance that you might get different results.  I usually control the factors I can and go with the new direction . . . when amnesia sets in from the last failed effort and something new looks promising.

If you smash into a devastating blow anyways and have to retreat to combat the devastation, you might say that you were more rolling the dice than making a reasonable plan for success.

If you add too many factors in any plan, precaution, retreat and come up against a surprise attack from an unforeseen foe then you won’t know what hit either one of you until the smoke clears along with your heads.  Me:  hours of violent convulsive episodes and the aftermath.  Him:  heartache, exhaustion, and no peace.

And if you are me in the latter years of battling a complex illness, you live in shock from the blows of what hit you in the last 24 hours when it is after 6 days of relatively few symptoms.  The new treatments did look promising.  They did not hold off the onslaught, however.  And you paid one of the highest prices once again this side of heaven.

And if you are the beloved husband trying to navigate these landmines, help fight the war while carrying on with the normal and fun activities of life . . . you will have to watch the horror of your beloved get tortured on the battlefield.  You try.  Success is elusive or temporary.  You fail.  Again you grieve and so does she.

And if this well-worn path brings despair then so be it.  Tomorrow is still another day.  As for me, I’m still here and so is my beloved.  Most importantly, I know that my Lord sees my waterfall of tears lain at His throne of grace.  Life will go on somehow as it always does; I have more responsibilities now.  The despair will give way to some sort of hope in due time; the Lord will add His grace and strength to see me and my beloved through once again.

For today, I am like a beaten puppy on this well worn path of life.  It is tough stuff indeed.

Dang!  JJ

I long for you

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My intended beloved, oh man of my longing

How is it that these things come between you and me?

I lie next to your warmth, oh so ready to imbibe

Til the horror of illness keeps me far, far away once more.

Albeit evil it must be:  a test for my weary, so weary heart

You know my lord and my Lord that I do shake with grief so!

Perhaps just for a time, please wait for me love

I shall return soon when illness has gone one day, I promise, I do.

Until then know that you are the one for whom that my heart sings

The one who loves me so, beyond that which I can even wanton,

My knight in shining aluminum, we jest, but you are indeed more

And know me well, I love you too . . . this is all I need to know to live.

Our Jesus is out in front of us two leading us on

When darkness comes, oh here it is again, we shall not be moved;

Hold me as you are able or as my frame lets you in

Forever in my heart you know you will for always be with  me.

Solomon, 3:4, Christian, marriage, trials, chronic illness, sickness, intimacy, sexuality, wife, husband, Lyme, seizures

The day passed with gratitude

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Seven years ago this night, I contracted viral hepatitis kayaking in a local reservoir, beginning what has become 7 years of serious illness.  Yet today passed with more of a sense of gratitude than mourning the lost years.  May I share the good things that came from this journey?

  • Learning to blog, beginning in the summer of 2012 and continuing to this day.
  • Wrote and published an eBook:  Hope Beyond Lyme:  The First Year
  • Learning to make macrame jewelry, starting an online and vendor jewelry business when up in the middle of the night and selling the business  2 1/2 years later with a sense of accomplishment, closure.

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Friendship Necklace or Bracelet with Seahorse Charm from Trinity Jewelry by Design

  • Learning about the numerous medical conditions for which I would be tested, ruled-out/diagnosed, treated, and make some level of progress on.
  • Started, developed, and moderate a mercury detox group on Facebook that now contains about 3,000 members and 1 Co-Admin!
  • Meeting some dear friends in the chronic illness community in relationships that 1) began locally and have continued to this day or 2) transformed from online to face-to-face either electronically or in-person.  Love you ladies!
  • Learned how to develop simple websites for e-commerce, blogging, and marketing for myself and others.
  • Supported my husband as best as I could in his distributorship of performance kayaks and gear:  River Bear Racing.
  • Became a Master Gardener and advanced within the ranks with as many in-home projects as those in the community.
  • Became an Assistant Editor of the United States Canoe Association publication called Canoe News under the tutelage of the handsome Editor and husband named Steve!
  • Recently became Editor of Across the Fence for the Purdue Extension Master Gardener program.  This required a crash course in another online program:  Microsoft Sway.

fence, cartoon, across the fence, transitions, crossing over, life

  • Became a better cook and homemaker/helpmate to my beloved Steve as I have been increasingly able to do so as the years have progressed.
  • Became my own patient advocate, occupational therapist, care coordinator, medical billing and records specialist, and health coach.  Sure, I hired a Naturopath for epigenetic counseling that was beyond my brain fog to understand yet kept in-step with as much of my care as humanly possible:  seeking answers and finding some too.
  • Learned to camp via travel trailer aka our mobile clean room!  We are grateful for the Lord’s provision on this one.
  • Taught myself via online videos to sew upholstery for our patio and the travel trailer.

upholstery, learning, sewing, machine, at home, YouTube videos, self-taught, Kermit, RV, cushions

  • Learned to grow vegetables and native plants; working on a community rain garden project for the near future.
  • Experimented with a some volunteer work for our community park this Fall that really stretched my abilities and tolerances.
  • Kept my occupational therapy license current with online continuing education, review of pertinent literature, and following the latest issues-and-trends in my profession.
  • Trialed being a caregiver to an elderly family member.  Didn’t succeed yet worked very hard in this role for six months earlier this year.
  • Became a writer!
  • Fell more deeply in love with my intended beloved, Stevers aka River Bear.

husband and wife, paddling, gratitude, Christian, marriage, summer day, wife, husband
Steve and Julie at the Fish Lake Race, Indiana, July 2018

  • And most importantly, grew into a vital relationship with my heavenly Father, heavenly Husband, and Savior Jesus Christ.  He is my rock now and forevermore!

How did all of this happen when experiencing daily convulsive episodes and its consequences virtually every day for 6 1/2 of these past 7 years?  Well that’s just how good our God is, Gentle Reader.  Little was done in my own strength in the most wretched of months.  The episodes in general aren’t as bad these days as long as I stay away from the worst noxious stimuli to which I am sensitive and plan rest days accordingly.  They aren’t gone yet.  I’ll write more about a recent setback soon.  Gratefully, the reactivity has come down quite a bit; I can see marvelous progress.  Yeah God and praise the Lord for His mercy and grace!

The day passed with gratitude indeed.  JJ