#300 Endurance

#300

I’m officially back folks . I’m back to writing and hopefully this article will make the paper this week because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from coming back after a two month break of not writing at all. I learned I’m always gonna be broken , I’m always gonna have hurdles and I’m always gonna need a Savior to help me over each and every one and there’s always going to be a hurdle and every person in this life has them . Some people are just better at hiding theres is all. You can count on one thing. There’s always gonna be another player that’s gonna make the race look so easy because that player is gonna be a faster runner in this game of life but remember one thing. God isn’t worried about the time in which you run your race because he already knows your time . But what if I told you , you weren’t being judged by how fast you ran but merely how you helped the people you came across next to you and how you helped them get over their own hurdles. It kind of changes the way you think of things a bit when you take a step back and ask yourself . What is God really asking you to do in this life? And how am I to serve ? It’s so easy to run with endurance and take so much for granted when your running next to healthy people and your at your best in this life and all systems flow together and your at your healthiest . It’s almost a drag to stop what your doing to help the weak over their hurdles when your on the clock and the clock is ticking. As there seems to be an expiration date on everything. Because in this sinful world , not everyone runs for the Lord and on his timetable . Let’s face it. There are bills to pay , deadlines to meet and people to please . The world doesn’t stop because some weak person has a hurdle they can’t get over. I mean if that was the case. Nothing would ever get done. Who doesn’t have problems right ? Cry me a river . The human body was meant to get old. The human body was meant to slow down and break down . From the time we come out of the womb. We are like new cars that drive off the lot . We lose value in this life. To people, we are worth nothing if we have nothing to give . But to God . We are worth everything . Especially those who have little to give. The human body is meant to break down and get ill . Of course the human body does wish to restore itself naturally through times in our life. But as we age . Overtime, we can’t turn back the hands of time and run the race like we once could. Those hurdles change . The body that God blessed us with changes and so does his blessings. If you live long enough to watch your body change your going to see your blessings change as well and that’s a great thing . To watch people take your hand to help you up and down the bleachers . Is actually a blessing. I use to look at it as a curse. I was so humiliated that I needed help because I’m only in my late 40’s. I had so much pride that I didn’t want people to see an overweight woman that had a knee that might buckle , a bad lower spine injury and a body that wouldn’t cooperate and a fear of what would happen if my brain didn’t send the correct signals to my body. I didn’t want to go down and be an embarrassment to my family and to my children . Because that is what people would see. The embarrassment. People don’t see the knee that buckles or the brain that doesn’t send the correct signals to the body. Or the spine injury. They just see the 40 yr overweight woman spread out on the gymnasium floor like roadkill . Well forget that. So I figure, taking the hand of a family member or the guard rail is a lot better then letting pride get the better of me. I have to remind myself that I’m not the same person I was four years ago. God made me a new creature for a reason. To be a blessing to others through this injury. So they would be blessed through their health and by stopping in their own race to help me over my own hurdle. So i won’t feel so bad about myself and I could actually learn to find laughter or joy in my own race. So I’m okay with sharing my story and the fact I’m not the same person for a reason. Pride is of the Devil. If your striving and surviving with cancer. Or you have a loved one who has fought Cancer and found victory through it. I bet you have many stories to share. So much to honor your loved one by. never hide that light behind the fear of the word ‘cancer’. You are a blessing ! Share your story ! If your Parents are dealing with dementia or have dealt with dementia . Share your story . Share their story with others. If Your a survivor of a traumatic brain injury or you battle PTSD. If it is not too painful and it does not cause you any more effects or harm . Do not be afraid to open up to others. You have no idea what lives you can be saving or touching right now by what you went through. Of course ask your doctor if you have one or seek one. But I’m gonna tell you. I thought I was going crazy last year when I could not understand why I could not spell my Daughter Raelee’s name correctly . I still have trouble. I started noticing that things were not right with me. When it came to numbers, dates and memory. Directions and words in sequence. Though I was tested and diagnosed with a minor traumatic head injury. Even though it was minor. It has effected me in the worst possible ways in my personal life. Yet my family does manage to find humor in many ways because i’m still alive. The blow i took to my head could have killed me. Many people fall straight forwatd on concrete and pass out and fall straight back and take the same blow to the back of the head just like I and never wake up. I’m still here. Thanks be to God ! I’m still alive. Sure , I do mess up many dates and times. My short term memory is terrible. Im gonna give my children many stories to tell before they put me in the ground I’m sure. Like last Saturday. I bought my parents these concert tickets for Christmas two years ago to go see Three Dog Night at Shipshewana, IN. Which is like an hour and 30 minutes away from where we live. Because if there’s one group I know my Dad loves, it’s them. Fast forward. Two years ago and a couple cancellation dates due to covid . A few emails notifying me that it was postponed to Thursday October 21st. 2021. I’m telling you. I swear it said. Friday October 21st. 2021 Which doesn’t make sense. Because I convinced my Dad and Mom that the concert was on Saturday the 23rd. Which was neither Thursday or the 21st. See ? I don’t know why my brain does things like that. But it did and I’m really convincing too !Thank God my Dad didn’t want to drive that far and decided to give me the tickets back. Because somehow I convinced my husband to go and I don’t know why he takes my word for it. He knows I have a brain injury. Which was all for nothing. Though we didn’t realize it until we stood in line for over a hour and a half waiting for them to call our name for the buffet which didn’t happen. Because the lines were crazy long because there really was a concert that night. Just not the Three Dog Night Concert because that concert was in fact Thursday night the 21st of October. Oops. My husband took it real well. What are you gonna do ? He knows I have a TBI. Never listen to someone who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder. I have frontal lobe damage. Though I wanted to cry because dog gone it. I really wanted to see this band. I had an empty stomach and a half a tank of gas wasted. I wasn’t gonna give the devil the satisfaction. I had to take it on the chin like a trooper because that’s what a soldier in the army of the Lord does. You win some battles and you lose some. But we always know whi wins the war. On the way home all I could think of was my head injury and that I’m a candidate for early dementia because of this head injury and that’s depressing but I can’t and won’t let it get me down . My long term memory is excellent that I kept going back to my Aunt Lu who the Lord just called home this passed week. Who suffered for years with dementia. How grateful I was that her family was never silent about that and how my Dad got to spend a lot of time each week going over to see what her and her Son Mike needed from the store weekly. She was there for my Dad when he was a child and now the tables have turned. I wondered if she still knew who he was at the end before she couldn’t speak. I wondered if she would have still remembered me if she could have sat up from that bed and spoke ? I was so grateful that I got to spend some time at her bedside and that I was able to tell her thank you for all she did for my Dad. They always say the last thing to go is your hearing and I figured if that was me . I would want someone to tell me that my children were going to be okay no matter how old they were . So I made sure she knew that. I know my Aunt Lou knew where she was going. I knew her race had been ran. I also knew she never ran it alone. None of us run our race alone. We always have people to the left and to the right of us. God makes sure of that. My Aunt Lou has given me so much strength to keep me going in my life no matter what comes my way. She was blessed with such a long life. 94 years Our Heavenly Father blessed her with. 94 years of helping other people over their own hurdles when she had hurdles of her own. And do you know . That her and my cousin Mike looked forward to my every article each week in the Democrat. I look back now and I think to myself. My Aunt Lou was one who has helped me over one of my biggest hurdles. Getting back to writing, getting stronger in the Word of God , getting back to the Alter and surrendering all that I have because God is in control of it all . I will stand firm with Jesus Christ my Savior who gives me endurance to stand. You will know the followers of Jesus Christ not by the hurdles in their own life but how they help their neighbors get over the hurdles in their life . Through joy, laughter, compassion and kindness. The kind of love that produces endurance in this life to run the race until Our Heavenly Father calls you home and the Devil does not want you to know that.

# 299 He finds your joy even in the midst.

#299

Six weeks ago I wrote my last newspaper article. At the time I believed it was best for my health and everything going on in my life to take a break from writing for the Decatur Daily Democrat and with my editor and her assistant leaving who spent time and patience on editing my articles it seemed like the perfect time for me to leave. I didn’t realize at the time how much writing for the Democrat kept me focused on that date night with my Lord. If there’s one thing we all need. It’s that date night with our loved one. Whether it be your spouse, your partner, your child , your beloved pet or yourself . You must make time for the one you love the most and you must have that one on one time with them in order to have a great relationship and ask each other the greatest question of all. How are you? That’s the thing. When I write my blog /column. I’ve never considered it my blog or column. I’ve always referred to it as God’s. I give My Father in Heaven all the Glory and Honor and praise . Everything in my life I owe to him . For without him I would be nothing. It’s all his. This internet and this thing we call Facebook is God’s . No .. Mark Zuckerberg you are not God im afraid though he may disagree . The Daily Democrat I thank God for. Not many newspapers would do what they do . I know they are God’s. Because they are his. This town of Decatur. Because this is his town . The great Adams County in which we reside in is God’s land to me and because this County is his State. The State of Indiana is in his Country and this Country is part of his Continent and this Continent is part of his Earth and this Earth is part of this great big Universe that he created . That he and he alone put in place. From the rising of the Sun to the place where it sets , the name of the LORD is to be praised ! and I’m gonna be very honest. I’ve been doing a very bad job at that for a while now. So what right do I have to write about it? You must set a side a special time and place to make for your loved one to cherish. A moment and a time to say .. ” Hey.. how are you ? Really ? How are you ? How’s it going ? How was your day ? Your week ? How do you feel ? What is wrong ? What’s going on with Camille ? I use to do that with my Lord and Father in Heaven. Every week . Every Wednesday in Church, at home . Sometimes daily. I was so obedient. What happened to me ? I use to talk to my Lord. I still talk to him don’t get me wrong. I still talk to Jesus. I’m talking about sitting down and having a one on one date night . A good hour. Quiet time. A good walk in the park. Even if you have to shut yourself in your closet. I do. That’s what is now known as my prayer room. A old converted closet. My date night for me and my Lord. Not every one can afford to go out. Thing is. There was a time. I was happy with my Lord and our closet time. Our date nights. Did I start taking God for granted ? I was still kicking out good columns and blogs every week and no one really noticed what I had been going through mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Physically that was hard to miss. If you worked for our mortgage company I’m sure you’ve noticed us financially . But something was missing In my relationship with my Father I must admit. Like a marriage where one spouse goes in one room to sleep and the other goes in the other room to sleep and they barely talk all day but they know what the other is gonna say so why bother. Is that what my marriage has become with my Lord? We know eachother so well that we don’t even need to talk anymore? He’s become almost boring to me. We have no more date nights because we don’t need them ? If you want your marriage to work , you have to work at it. Same way with Christianity. You have to work at it as well. I’m gonna be honest. I stopped working at my marriage with the Lord not because I dont love the Lord . Not because I don’t love writing . That’s the best gift I could have ever been blessed with. I stopped writing because I got lazy and frustrated. That’s how most marriages fail in the first place. I’ll explain. My atitude was this. These last few months ” If your gonna follow Jesus you might as well prepare for a lifetime of disappointments! Because once you start following Jesus everything changes ! You start getting denied the things that should have been approved for ! Things that go right for others go wrong for you ! It’s like one big backwards joke ! Like your in the twilight zone ! Like the episode where everyone has the pig faces and your the beautiful one and they all look at you like your the freak! And your screaming to God for help but he don’t answer you until you die ! Well that’s not for me man! So two months ago when I seen where my friend Jannaya posted that big changes were coming. I knew it would be effecting me in some way. I’m gonna be honest. In the Book of Luke you’ll find the story of the Parable of the prodigal son. Long story short. I realized that after years of writing. I’ve found myself more broken then ever in all areas of my life. Mentally ,physically, emotionally and financially . That I’ve became like the brother to the prodigal son. Envious. Asking God why? Confused. For years I feel I’ve done everything by the book and my life has lead to this ? Weeks before I got yet another physician and I had been left frustrated again. Thinking to myself, if I knew I was gonna be treated like I was some kind of junkie by yet another physician I would have become one. So why at the ripe age of 48 after 5 children would I want to become one now lady. Lord help me with this woman before I blow or if I knew I was gonna end up weighing over this many pounds why did I go through the trouble of being healthy my whole life and passing all those physicals saving money on my yearly deductibles Lord !? That was a bust ! If you were gonna let me have a head trauma anyhow ? Why didn’t I just throw myself into a backhandspring my junior year and impress everyone! But noooo … why ? I was afraid of breaking my neck. I was the girl that “played it safe ” and for why? I never liked doing drugs and I never ate sweets. I enjoyed my health and body. So why do I look and feel like this ! Oh I know. So I wouldn’t end up like this! Being separated from God . And behaving and feeling like a angry bitter jerk. That I told myself that if Jannaya were to leave the paper I was leaving too. I looked in the mirror that day and I had no reason to stay. Deep down I knew who called me to write. I KNEW it was the Lord working through Jannaya. I knew this was a huge leap of Faith I was taking on just writing about my walk with Jesus in general . Who does that anyhow? When I started writing about Jesus and my battles with the devil and how Jesus helps me fight the devil in all my battles and how the Word of God is used to defend me on Facebook. I started writing years ago in an effort to help my children for when I die and I’m no longer here in this life. I know that the internet will outlive me. I wanted my kids to know that their Mom’s life wasn’t an easy one and that the devil made it worse because I was Christian and most likely I let him when I didn’t act it because I refused to use the weapons that God gave me that were right there for me in front of my face. I was either blind or too lazy to pick them up. You only have 2 excuses. Thats it. I figured if I put it out on Facebook they would read it one day and know the Lord through me if they ever strayed and they would know the Devil even better and how he works and get the Armour of God and put it on and fight and battle and be strong in the Word because that’s the only way to survive this life and find joy through your struggles. I had no idea that one day God would take it to another level and bless me with not only this kind of platform but also with a type of injury that would make it so that typing on my phone would be so much easier for me then using and holding a pen or writing . Who knew but God that I would be able to type a 1000 -2000 word blog or column in a hour more or less but not be able to remember a couple words after a fifteen minute delay or numbers in order. There are just some things that the greatest scientists or the best specialists can’t explain . All I know is that yesterday I found myself at the bedside of my Great Aunt Lupe’s remembering that her and her son Mike didn’t have internet and how they looked forward each week to my newspaper column when they would get the paper. One time Mike was laughing because I had wrote a article so long that the words were so tiny that he thought he might have to get the magnifying glass out. He had me and my Dad cracking up. I took my best friend Sue aka Ethel to meet my Dad’s Aunt Lou yesterday because two days ago my Dad told me they were only giving his Aunt two more days to live. What do you say to that? I didn’t know what to say to my Dad but that I was sorry because I know the love he has for her. I wanted to go thank her in person and before she went home to meet the greatest and most popular person in the world to me . My Savior Jesus Christ! I had so much to tell my Aunt Lou! I wouldn’t be who I am if she wasn’t half the person to my Dad. You can’t teach that kind of respect and love in school. My Dad is 78 and still obedient to his Aunt . My Dad loves all his cousins. There isn’t nothing he won’t do for them. I made sure she knew it too. My Aunt Lou was like a Mom to him. I know my Aunt is in the arms of our Savior Jesus Christ. I felt the Holy Spirit in the room with us as I was sharing stories with my friend Sue about my Aunt Lou and just how beautiful she was and how my Uncle Sal is waiting for her behind Jesus . As I found a picture of my Aunt Lou on my phone from earlier years . I seen what she was wearing around her neck. A Cross with Jesus. I didn’t even have to see her necklace to know where she was going. I already knew but to be assured that your loved one has a place waiting for them with Christ is such a comfort to me . To know I have that assurance that I will see her again because we share the same Savior on the same Cross and to know she has ran the race and the Victory through Jesus is now hers ! The tears just flowed down my face with pure joy because I knew she was going home real soon. It was then that Sue said the words ,” and soon Sis , God willing you’ll be writing again and through Christ …. ” and I just went blank and realized I stopped battling . That’s why I barely have any joy in my marriage with the Lord. I stopped running the race with the Lord toward the finish line. God has made me a very strong warrior for Christ and given me a great platform to share my love for the Lord through my struggles and my victories and yes there can be joy even in the midst of your struggles . I can prove it. I will continue to prove it. I took one look at My Aunt Lou . She never looked more beautiful. I seen the light of the Lord shine brightly on her face in her final hours. My next stop I made was to the Decatur Daily Democrat. Ten minutes before they closed to see if they still wanted to print my articles. Well. I’m baaaack. At 11:30 p.m that same day on October 19th the good Lord called my Great Aunt Lou home. Her struggles have now ended. Her pain is now over and hardworking hands now rest. She is now free and at peace. Praise the Lord ! I’m so grateful for the life she lived and the life that was given to her. I’m grateful my Dad told me that her time was limited. It got me up there right away. If you stop and think about it. If one of your friends were going to meet someone famous wouldn’t you have something to say to them before they went? Who more famous then the Lord himself! He alone has access to everyone I have lost in this life . Plus I know my Aunt Lou will continue to pray for us and I just wanted to ask her to just keep a watchful eye out like she always has . Hey I need all the prayers I can get at the rate I’m going. It has been 6 weeks since I stopped writing and had my last date night with the Lord and it felt really good yesterday to include my Aunt Lou. I was really glad she was able to meet my friend Sue. Though she could not respond. I know she could hear us. I know God gave me the courage and strength I needed to see that the Victory is already Ours through Jesus Christ who already won the race . We just need to cross that finish line through the help of the people he has blessed us with . God Bless you Aunt Lou for being the blessing that got me to sit down and have some one on one time with the Lord and for helping me shove the Devil off the platform of which he talked me off of with his many lies , may your cup be running over and the Devil does not want you to know that.