Been about a year

 So it is January 2021 - it has been about a year since my last blog post. What a year it has been. There is no going back over the year of 2020, it was rough. We have been able to find silver linings in the waiting for the global Pandemic of COVID 19 to stop shutting down the county, our state, our county, our country. 

The Hubby and I are both working from home full time and right now both boys are remotely in school. Benji was in his self contained classroom for a couple of months at the end of the year. While I love the idea of working from home, the reality of working a telephonic job from home is that I am tethered to my desk 8 hours a day. My "office is in my bedroom because that is where I get the best wifi reception. That means that I am in my bedroom about 16 hours during the weekdays. Ugh!

I know that when I get back to the office I will have a nice large cubicle, a space that I have been waiting for my entire working life. I know that sounds funny, especially for a nurse but I have always wanted my own office space where I could help people, 9 to 5 and be able to go home and focus on my family. Of course making a good salary was apart of that. I am blessed to have found that job, I can't wait to get back to the office, see my co-workers and so how far I can rise up the corporate ladder. 😊

Now for my personal struggle with weight. It has been a struggle since I was 12 and now that I am 37 years older, I am ready to take this bull by the horns. I have made and appointment at a weight loss clinic that is covered by my insurance, physician-led and seems to have good reviews. 

According to my calculations based on health BMI and age, I need to lose about 80 lbs in order to be in my ideal body weight. That type of weight loss takes resources that I have never been able to afford until now. What I know is, this is my last chance. If I can stick to this lifestyle, I have the greatest opportunity to loss that amount of weight. If I fail, the only other option is surgery and I don't want to do that. I have family who has, and it's not something that I want to do. 

I have my first appointment on Saturday the 23rd. I will have a blood draw, physical exam and B6 and B12 injections. Then a high protein diet for a week before adding vegtables back in. At least the way understand it. They will supply supplements We will see how it goes. 

I will update ya after my appointment. 

Shelley 

The truth is that I can't do this by myself. I need someone to be accountable to, someone to help me fight the good fight. 

 

The Waiting is Over

The move over the summer did not exactly go without a hitch, but we have been in our new home in Charlotte, North Carolina for 8 months now. It is beginning to feel like home. 

It is strange not being leadership in a church for the first time in 11 years. My husband's new job is being a Chaplain at a local hospice not a church Pastor. So it has been an adjustment in our ministry mindset. We had to do a little church shopping as well. It was very strange to walk into a church and not have any prep work or "work" to do for morning service. For myself this has been a wonderful change of the worship experience. The church that has become our new church home is much larger and has a contemporary worship band. It is hard not knowing many of the songs but we are learnng so pretty cool worship songs. 

I am still searching for something. I can't quite explain what it is that I am looking for. I am waiting for the Lord to reveal the next ministry journey that he is taking me down. I am both scared and exciting for the many possiblities. 

Until next time

Waiting

So, here we are in the throws of winding down for the summer break and getting ready for the new school year. My boys will be in the same school building for the first time in years, for this one year. Middle school. Be still my heart...

Right now, at our house, we are in a period of waiting. I dislike waiting with a passion. It reminds me that I am not the one in charge. I have to wait for something to happen, someone else to do something. It is so frustrating.

I remember when I turned 30 years old. I was single and that was not on my list for my 30th birthday. My expectation, up to that point had been by 30, I would be dating the man that I would marry and have a family with. But alas, that had not happened. Well, I had met him, but I didn't know that he liked me in a romantic way. We were good friends but that was all, at least as far as I knew.

I had to wait another 2 years to discover that this guy was really into me. It was one of the most painful and dark times in my life as I was waiting for the Lord to make things happen. I clung to Jeremiah 29:11.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I was not until I read, and took to heart, the next few verses that things started to happen. And I have no doubt that if I remember that during this time, once again, the waiting will become bearable.
Vs 12-15 says, "Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. If you seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "and will bring you back from captivity."

You see, I had to turn my focus away from myself, what I wanted, what I thought that I needed. I had to focus on God. I had to seek HIM with all my heart. I had to surrender what I wanted and find out what He wanted for me. I had to line up my will with his.

Was it easy? Nope.

In my case, I had to finally say, "Ok, I will stop pining for a man and start serving the Lord." It really was that simple. I started finding new ways to serve Him at my church. When I did that, I noticed that my friend was there was well. We were serving God, learning about him and spending a whole lot of time together in the process. We were growing in our faith both separately and together. So when he did finally let me in on the secret that he REALLY LIKED me. I was ready.

I believe that my waiting then could have been much longer, if I had not taken my focus off of what I wished for and turned it to how I could serve.

So, that is what I am trying to remember today, as I wait for God to move or move me. I am turning my focus back to him and watching for where He is working so that I can join him there.  Trusting that the rest will fall into place.

What are you waiting on today? What do you think God says you should be doing in the meantime?

Overwhelmed

"Over Whelmed" 

So this was me Saturday after a quick trip to our local Dollar Store (the only store in town). It has been one week since my return from the hospital after a bout with an bad infection and I have no endurance. But we really needed some things, TP and Trash Bags were on the top of the list. So there I went.

Last week I spend a lot of time in prayer because it seemed about all I could go. National news headlines were filled with death and tragedy and continued arguments over things going on around our federal government. I have been taking strong doses of steroids along with my antibiotics, and it seems that these meds make me an insomniac. Not the best when you are already sick and tired. So, I spent a lot of time trying to turn my sleepless mind back to prayer instead of worry.

I have not been able to return to our Sunday morning services yet because of my illness, so I spent some time in worship at my dining room table Sunday morning. It was wonderful!

Praise songs filled my head as I put on earphones and let my cell phone playlist fill my ears. It is something that I do frequently when the boys are in school. But it has been months since I have had the chance. It felt wonderful to lift my hands in praise and sing along with the music that pulls me into the presence of Jesus.

As I reviewed the last couple of weeks in my mind, a thought came to me. JOY!

"I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest , and a bride adorns herself with jewels."  Isaiah 61:10.

In January I did about two weeks of JOYFUL posts on my Facebook page. I wondered how long I could remember to keep it up, and I wasn't surprised when it ended. I am not very good a consistency and follow-up.
On the day that I ended up in ER, I was driving home from my part time job, listening and singing to tunes in the car. It has been a long time since I had done that too.
A quotation from the Movie CARS by the character Lightening McQueen kept going through my head. "I LOVE being ME."
While in the movie it was a statement of arrogance, in my mind it was more a statement of fact.

I do want to spend each day of my life here on earth, loving being me. The me that God created me to be.

I am not a supermodel, beautiful and shapely.
I am no 20 or 30 - those sweet days of youth is behind me.
I am not going to be the mother of an infant ever again - I am not the mother of Middle School-ers.
I have a special needs child who will always require more of my time, energy and patience then a neuro-typical child.
I am the wife of a man called by God into ministry - we will never be rich unless God decides to richly bless our ministry in ways that I can't imagine right now.
I will have to struggle to get to and maintain a healthy weight for the rest of my life.


I understand that I have the choice, every day, to love BEING ME or Hate my life.
I  can live life to it's fullest or I can waste it away.
I can enjoy the sunrise or dread it.
I can make fun memories for my sons, my family and friends each day that I am here on earth, or I can make none.

I was reminded this week that life is short, we have no guarantees for tomorrows.

I am choosing today to enjoy life. I hope that you all do the same. Count your blessings, make a list.

"Choose life, that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Deuteronomy 30:20.

"Trust in him at all times, O people; pour our your hearts to him, for God is our refuge." Psalm 62:8

Updates in July 2018

2018-

This is my first post in the past three years. Yes, the bible study that I using as a method to remind me to do this post, discontinued its Blogger post reminders week their studies. I used that as an excuse to quite blogging. It's sad. But it's true.

With that being said, I am now 10 years into my job as a Pastor's wife and I am beginning to think that I have some information worth sharing with others once again.

I have been struggling for the 10 years that we have been in ministry in our small town rural church to figure out exactly where I fit in to my new role.

For a little bit of review. I was living in a city of about 80,000 people when we moved 3 hours away into a town of 2,100 people. Now, I was not completely naïve of small town life because I spent 5 years on a small island in the Smallest State of the Union, Rhode Island USA. It is 7 miles long and 2 miles wide. It had a population of 5,405 in 2010. It was connected by two bridges to main land bodies. While I wasn't driving at the time that I lived there, I do remember driving a bit to do shopping and get to events an other such things. So I thought that was prepared enough for small town living in the Midwest.

I was wrong!

There are several things that have lead to this I believe and I will list them without much extra information for now. I may go into more detail later.

1. My family moved here for a Part Time position as the Pastor of a very old church (150+) with a small congregation.

2. I am a nurse had difficulty finding a Full Time position in the area that didn't require me to be working so many hours that would make my husband unavailable for those in the congregation.

3. Within a year or two of our move we discovered that our youngest son had some severe developmental delays and was later diagnosed with Autism.

4. My husband was able to get a second Part Time job which eventually lead to a Full Time position, but we had to wait for over 5 years for that to happen.

5. I figured out that I was literally working my full time job to pay for the daycare and gas to get back and forth to work (I had to commute an hour each day)

6. So, with both my kids in school, a child with special needs, I made the choice to become a stay at home mom.

7. The area that we live has had progressively bad winter weather every year that we have been here, making travel very difficult.

8. Within the first 5 years of our living here both of our young children had accidents that required significant hospitalizations.

9. Our closest family and friends live 3 hours away.

10. I moved into a depression for several years because I have not been able to find close friends here.


So, that brings me to the point that I am contemplating today. I have been deeply disappointed by people that claim to be a part of the Body of Christ. I have a friend in ministry that used to say to his congregation, if I am not meeting your expectations, lower them, for I am only human.

Unfortunately, I have had to do that with the Body of Christ in general over the years of ministry. I came from a small church by city standards (and probably today's too) of about 200 people. I have been very involved for many years with a ministry of people that have hundreds of people involved.

Currently I do not have that support system other then through social media. So, when things go wrong for my family, I feel alone and abandoned.

It's not anyone's fault, it's the nature of the ministry that we serve. Small, close knit community.
We are outsiders. We will always be outsiders, That is never more evident then when you are in need of physical, tangible help.

Last week I was hospitalized for 4 days. Leaving my husband alone to care of our two boys on his own. For a normal family, my now Middle School Aged children would have been able to handle it as the incontinence that it was. But for my special needs child, it required my husband to stay at home while I lay 20 mins away in a hospital bed, not for sure what was going on or when I would be better.

God is Good! And he took care of us. My husband was already on a three day vacation so he didn't have to take off time from his full time job. (Our primary source of income) And his sister who lives 2 1/2 hours away was also able to change her vacation plans to come and help him take care of the boys.

However, my disappointment came from the local body of Christ. One person, came to our house to help. One family ordered pizza for our family the first night I was back. The next day, Sunday, my husband went to church, did his job and we were left to our own devices. Sad that our society has become so selfish that we are quick to light up a social media post with "Prayers" for one another but never making an effort to really find out what people in need actually need.

Church members of any church forget, I think that when a Pastor excepts a call to your church, they are often leaving behind all their personal support system to do so. Sometime we are lucky enough to live and work where we know a lot of people, sometimes we know no one but the people that come our church "family". How far do any of us get without the Body of Christ?

I think that we would all do well to remember The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Message Version) Luke:25-37
25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" 26 He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" 

27 He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence - and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 28 "Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live."

29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" 

30 Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. 31 Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. 32 Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

33 "A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him. 34 He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. 35 In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill - I'll pay you on my way back.'

36 "What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" 

37 "The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

Friday Follies

It has been a while since I have blogged, but I am going to remedy that. Next week I am starting a new Online Bible Study with Proverbs31 ministeries. Even though I don't believe that they are doing the Blog Thursdays any longer, I liked and did really well with the idea of sharing in such a way. So I am planning on posting every Thursday during the study with the hope that I can continue after it is over on a weekly basis. Perhaps changing the format a bit to cover my ever changing habits and hobbies.


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Mama to Males

So it has been a while since I have posted anything but I thought that since I was starting a Online Bible Study thru Proverbs 31 ministeries I would take the time to add a quick post.

This weeks blog hop is to share our "Mama Story" so here is mine:
When I was 20 I knew that by the time that I was 30 I would be married, with children, (probably 4 if I had my way) and have a wonderful career.
The day of my 30 th birthday, which was when all of my dreams were going to come true, I was single, not even dating and working a mediocore job at best. And being a Mama, was looking more and more like a pipedream.  I had no idea that God was about to do a great thing in my life over the next three years.
It started at a 3 day weekend at a church that I'll just call life changing. That weekend changed my priorities from all about me to a whole lot more about God and others.
A couple of years later I was actually dating a godly man. I was not just happy I was estatic! By then I was 32 and I beginning to wonder about where this relationship was going. I mean really I was already 2 years behind on MY plan..and I was not going wait until I was 40 to have kids. If I was going to be a mama, I was going to be young enough to enjoy it.

So one night as my then boyfriend was getting ready to leave my house to head for his own, I ran out to his truck and when he rolled down his window, I declared, "I've only got eight more years to have kids!"

To hear him tell the story, he was half way home before he said to himself, "I hope that she's not expecting me to do something about that."

But I was...and when we finally did get married a little over a year later, I was hopeful that we wouldn't have any problems starting a family......We didn't.
9 months after our wedding we were welcoming our son Andrew into the world and 18 months later, another son Benjamin.

I was happy, I finally had my family.  It was picture perfect actually...that was until things didn't go as I had planned.

We, like so many others, have had ups and downs, but the hardest thing for this Mama, (besides sitting in the hosptial for 10 days in burn unit with my youngest son who was 3 and he had pulled a pot of speghetti sauce over on himself ) was the diagnosis that we received a year later of his Autism Spectrum Disorder.  That was only the beginning of what I truely do consider our nightmare (at least somedays). Benji, as we call him, was nonverbal for much of his toddler years. Last year he was in first grade in a special education class and had worked his vocabulary up to maybe 20 single words. Most of them are food items. Our biggest challenge with him is that he has LITTLE, if at all, safety awareness. So we have to cover the windows in his room upstairs and have elaborate chains on the doors to keep him from opening the doors and running out into traffic or just wandering away.

Our older son Andrew was just diagnosed during last school year (3rd grade) with Austism (Level 1) what used to be called Asperger's.  He has trouble in class, staying on task and is socially lacking.

About 3 years ago we found it more expensive for me to work full time and find daycare then to get stay home. So that's when I started my career as a homemaker. The problem is, most days I feel like a failure as a housekeeper.
These days I wonder what the home of a "normal family" looks like. I am pretty certain that it doesn't look anything like mine.  I am spending less and less time on social networking sites because I am tired of looking at pictures and posts from my family and friends of their wonderful children getting straight A's and going to basketball camps and playing awesome little league soccer. Even hearing about something as simple as a family vacation at Disney World or the beach, makes me tear up.
Every thing is hard with kids on the spectrum. Or at least that is my experience so far. Vacations have to be planned carefully so not to over stimulate the youngest and do things that will let adults do things with the kids, I have given up on the idea that my oldest son will ever play a team sport or even be able to be with a group of kids his own age for extracurricular activities.  My kids are very smart about a lot of things but not necessarily acedemics. Certainly neither of them are genuses.
I feel comfortable that Andrew will be able to find a niche and a job somewhere along the way but I worry whether Benji will ever be able to be independent and in the workforce.  Heck at this point I just want him to stop having accidents in his pants and throwing every item that he picks up in the air. I don't want to make my house a prison because I'm afraid he will get away from me and I'll not be able to catch him before he get hit by a car.
I want my boys to be be able to ride their bikes and go play with friends at the park, participate in school programs without being the one that everyone is staring. I want to be able to send them outside in the backyard to play to give me give a few minutes of peace.
Does it sound like I am complaining? Yup I am. But you wanted my story, and this is it.

Please don't get me wrong, I love my kids, I cry when they hurt and I smile when they laugh. And most of the time I love their quirkyness. It is afterall the way that God made them. And he gave them to me to mother. (Although sometimes I have to wonder why because often I don't know what to do with them) And as my best friend tells me, "neither of your kids hit any branches on the way down the ugly tree". They are good looking guys!

My prayer is that over the course of this study God will renew my heart and restore my soul as I study His Words!