3FoxesAndAWordProcessor

      Have you ever watched the news after a disaster and seen how swiftly aid comes from every corner of the world? People come from all over the world to try to help in any way they can. It truly is an outpouring of love. In our day to day life, this can also be seen. Sometimes it is as simple as the person ahead of us paying for our coffee, or when we let someone go ahead of us in line at the supermarket. Love manifests itself in many ways.     On the other hand, we all too often get caught up in our day to day lives. Maybe we even get short tempered and lose our patience. We are after all - human. When we have a bad day, it can be difficult to see past the moment and focus on the positives. We humans often have a habit of looking inward, or looking at the world. To quote one of my favorite authors, " If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest." - Corrie Ten Boom.   ...

  **This was originally posted in December of 2021, but disappeared for some reason. I am reposting it now.     Kummerspecken … often in English I find there is not a word sufficient to cover what we are trying to say. German has many interesting words … for example they have a word for that moment when you get off work, and the relief you feel knowing it's the weekend. Kummerspeck is along those lines. It literally translates to grief bacon. What an odd mix, but oh so appropriate at times. Now, the Germans will use it to refer to the weight you might gain while grieving. Yet, I find another meaning in kummerspeck. Kummer is an extreme grief. It is the grief that tears your soul apart a thousand times over in a vicious cycle. It is in my opinion, a bit beyond the English word grief. When my father passed it was as if I were being keelhauled in a tropical storm. I could occasionally, reach the eye of the storm, and feel a moments peace, but then it was back to r...

 You never know when what seems like an everyday moment will be life changing. Simple things that we take for granted every day. I can think of at least 2 times when what seemed like a normal conversation changed my life and may have even saved it. The first was when I was graduating from 6th grade, and we were about to move. I was discussing my dad's plans to move to North Dakota with my teacher. She had lived in South Dakota and told me a story about how she fell into a snow drift, and managed not to panic, and dug herself up and out. Less than a year later, I fell into a snow drift and I remembered her story. I didn't panic. I dug. I survived. Snow went down my snow suit, and I was a good five to ten minute walk from home. I made it home and quickly got out of the wet clothes. Anyone who knows how deathly cold it gets that far north will understand the dangers. That one simple conversation saved my life, and Ms. Djonne will likely never know the impact the story had on my li...

     Patience. That word again? I can be patient after I've had my coffee. Wait? You mean I have to wait for it to brew? I don't want to wait!    I am not a very patient person. I am always needing to move, needing to act, needing to problem solve, needing to do anything but be still. Do you see the problem here?    Recently, all I've done is wait: for my husband's CAT scan to be scheduled, for him to agree to get a cat (21 years, still nothing), for the scan results to reach the doctor—which took a week because we had to set up a patient profile, a detail my husband didn't pass on. Then there were more days waiting for a doctor’s appointment, and finally, struggling to schedule a biopsy.    We finally got the biopsy results, then waited again for the oncologist. We had already gone in for fluids, steroids, and medication to lower my husband's calcium from a dangerous 15. We FINALLY made it to the diagnosis appointment. And now, more waiti...

                   As a child, I used to believe that things would make sense when I was older. I believed that as a grown up, I would not feel vulnerable and would always know what to do. A few years ago, I took my youngest to see Frozen 2. When Olaf sang the song 'When I'm Older,' I laughed out loud in the theater, much to the horror of my daughter. She could not figure out what could possibly be funny.      The truth, of course, is that growing older doesn't mean everything makes sense. In fact, we are warned in the Bible not to lean on our own understanding.  5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart  and lean not on your own understanding;  6 in all your ways submit to him,  and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6).     One of my favorite passages is found in Matthew. Where Christ calls a child to him  2  And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of th...

       **This was written over a 2 day period and is unedited (mostly). I am still focusing on my husband, who remains in the ICU.  August 13th. Today I sit beside my husband. Yet another day in the ICU. You know it becomes normal when you start reading or blogging ...      One of my favorite books is The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. For those familiar with the book, you will know why. To those who aren't, I highly recommend it. It tells the true story of Corrie Ten Boom and how her family hid Jews from the Nazis.      Even the events before the Holocaust that Corrie writes about are a bit hard to read as I sit here. I came across a line that talked about death. I had to set the book down for a moment. And then I came across a part where Corrie describes the first day she went to school. She didn't want to go. So her father took her hand and said he would walk her to school. I will give a small quote here, "My hand in Father's! ...

    Life is filled with trials and tribulations. Sometimes it seems ... Often it seems it is more trial. Little did I know I knew nothing of pain. We won't get into my past right now. The past is just that. What I care about is the now, this very moment, as I watch a life hang by the barest thread. This post will not be polished and refined. It is more free flow to release pent-up ... things that are spiraling in my mind. Writing is my way to cope, to reason, and with God's help, find peace.      Life is as fragile as snow. Beautiful and fleeting. Seasonal. The things we find comfort in are sometimes the strangest of things ...The gentle hum of the ventilator is music that lets me know there is still breath. It's the alarm that makes my heart scream in protest. I've never heard such a loud alarm. I would say it can wake the dead ... but that is too morbid even for my sense of humor. The sounds of the IV machine have become as normal as a sneeze. They are there, ...