2022! Kyrie Eleison!

Hey there! I know, all y’all thought I had quit or something. Nope. Just a long dark struggle in the same direction.  Find a comfy spot, and grab your favorite beverage, and I’ll fill you in a bit.  Looks like the last time I posted was…  August of 2020?  Yikes!  If you’re wondering what I posted a year and a half ago, it was about truth and lies during a time of struggle.  It was called Coping.  You can read it here, if you like.  Here’s a bit of the back story.

Isolation

Hey there!  Yeah, I know.  Two in one night, and I need to be in bed asleep… but drinking Diet Soda too late in the day has me up…  Grab another cuppa and find that comfy spot again.  I promise this will be quick, lightly edited and then I will crawl into bed.  Or something.  😉

Just One

Hey there!  I trust all y’all are healthy and safe.  Grab a cuppa and find a comfy spot and I’ll share what I’ve been learning during this COVID lockdown lifestyle.

Being Human

Hey there.  Hope all y’all are doing well.  This has been a very difficult season and I just need to write and process. If you want to hear me whine a minute, grab a cuppa and find a comfy spot.  There’s just so much going on I’m overwhelmed.

Awhile back, I posted on Resiliance.  You can find that post here.  I talked about how we can get to the point where we can’t even pray a proper prayer.  That can happen even if we are in church and are doing our best.

Today, January 28, 2020, I’m there.  My favorite prayer is, “Lord, Help!!!”  I’m acutely aware that only the prayers of the ones who love me are holding me up enough to function right now.

I moved back to KC from Ohio, and it happened so quickly I didn’t have time to find a house or a job.

You need to understand how much I loved Ohio.  I never knew it was so easy to put down roots so deep and thick in such a short time.  I loved the small town and have always disliked big cities.  I loved my church, my friends and ‘family’ there.  Everything I needed was 10 minutes away.

Now I’m feeling disoriented, disconnected, and like a tree blown over with it’s huge root ball sticking out to the side where it had been wrenched from the ground.  I’m in a hotel, with no real prospects of a place to live or a job at the moment.  That could all change tomorrow, but I don’t know that.  All my stuff is on a truck that arrived today in KC; I have about a week to find a place to put it before they start charging me storage.  Everything I knew when I was here before is across the state line in Kansas, about an hour away.  All my friends and family with the exception of my grandson are over there.  The grandson is the reason I came back.  I want to watch him grow up and see him more than once a year.

I know, you’re gonna ask me, “Don’t any of your relatives have a place you can stay for a month or so until you get your feet underneath you?”  The answer is actually no.  I have five sets of relatives here, but each has a very valid reason why I cannot stay with them.  There are no excuses in the lot.  These are real situations.

I have some friends who live about 15 minutes farther out the other direction who have offered me a place in return for helping with their daughters, ages 6 and 8.  They are good kids.  I just don’t have the emotional energy to care for anything or anyone else but myself at the moment, and that’s a bit sketchy.  Then I feel bad because they are offering me a great place, but I just can’t.  I don’t know if they could ever understand all my reasons why.  It’s not them, it’s truly me and the situation.  I’m exhausted, scared and depressed.  That happened as quickly as the closing on the house.  I cry a lot.  The Ohio doc put me on Xanax; I’m trying my best to save it for when I absolutely can’t function due to the anxiety.  I don’t have a doc here yet.

Everything here is priced at least three times what it was in Ohio; the job wages don’t even really keep up with what rent costs here.  I sank my entire life savings into a fabulous 100 year old house.  I thought I’d be there forever.  But the pull of the grandson was too much to resist.  I sold the house for a small fraction of what I had put into it.

It’s terrifying to be starting over with basically nothing just a month shy of 60 years old.  I can’t find a place to rent because I don’t have a job.  I can’t even open a local bank account without an address, or change my driver’s license or my car insurance.  I’m looking for a job, and applying with staffing companies and individual companies alike.  We’ll see what happens.

Everyone is telling me God’s got this; He brought me here and He will provide for me.  Part of me believes that – the deepest part of me.  But everything else is screaming that the reality is that I’m in really big trouble here.  Then part of me knows that in a few months, I will have a story to tell of God’s faithfulness!

The readings from Evening Prayer helped a tiny bit.  “The Lord surrounds His people with His strength.”  “Through all eternity, Lord, Your promise stands unshaken… Your faithfulness will never fail.”

If I can really get a solid hold on that, the peace will come.  He promised.

Jesus, Where Are You?

Hey there!  How is everybody?  It’s been a tough season, but I’ve some things to share with all y’all.  Grab a cuppa your favorite beverage, find a comfy spot and let’s talk.  Oh – you may not need them, but I have a box of tissues next to me.   Just in case.

Fear

Hey there!   Hope everybody’s doing well!   As I write this I’m still in Kansas.  So, grab a cuppa something warm and find a comfy place to relax so we can talk about fear.  Yeah, I know.  Not a fun subject.  But we don’t need to fear it.  I’m not sure I totally agree with FDR on that one!  Fear is an emotion, it has a cause, it has a remedy.  It’s not a huge psychological thing, usually.   I know sometimes we may have things that are so big and so deep we need professional help.  But our day-to-day little fears don’t need to torment us!

Emotions…

Hey y’all!  How is everybody?   Hopefully y’all are staying warm and dry, and things are good.   Hopefully everybody is healthy and happy.  Hopefully 2016 has begun with you searching for your socks – because God has already blessed them right off of you!    😉  I’m on a writing binge today.  I’ve cranked out two posts already, and this is number three.  But God is doing some amazing things in my life, and I wanted to share them with you!  So, if you’re new here, find a cuppa something you like and a comfy spot to relax a minute.  Even if you’re not new here, you know the drill.