Category: acceptance

The change of aging

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, aging, anxiety, connections, coping, emotions, friends, sadness, Uncategorized

I have been overwhelmed lately by my friends crises. When I think about the things that others are facing tears come to my eyes. If only we could fix whatever we wanted. Sadly, life is not that way.

As we get older we have to face the reality of others traveling with us are also aging. With age come health issues. We cannot live forever. I know this and yet it still hurts to see those we care about struggling. I tried to express some of this in this poem.

aging-is-not-lost-youth-but-a-new-stage-of-opportunity-and-strength-its-a-di-0d2b7866058da1dd7ec4aa7d4024fc53

 

Aging Change

Life doesn’t last

forever

we know

yet watching

as time

erodes

friendships

descent

into pain

how to

absorb

loss

loss of abilities

bring

aches

and yet

we

continue

to love

to grow

to love

until

the end

And beyond

Almost 57 years

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, appreciate, celebrate, choices, connections, love, marriage, Uncategorized

Quite often I sit and wonder what I am going to write about. Most of the time something comes to me and I start with a thought and have no idea where it is going. Usually it works into something that what never what I thought in the beginning.

Today the only thing that came to mind is that in June my husband and I will have been married for 57 years. I can’t say that a single one of them have been bad. We never questioned that we belong together even on the off days. Ups and downs yes but never infidelity or desire to be with someone else. This quote from C.S. Lewis is fitting.

marriage-cs-lewis-quote

Testing Christianity

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, change, connections, consequences, expectations, hope, life changes, perspective

It is so sad that Christianity is struggling today. There have been so many issues not confined to one group. The Catholics have been fighting sex scandals for years and this seems to be the most explosive. The United Methodists made decisions recently that may split the denomination. Episcopalians meeting in England were distressed to have same sex spouses barred from the proceedings. These are all mainline churches.

testing

The less united denominations don’t seem to have suffered as much since members who disagree just move elsewhere. However, over the years, they have suffered from what seems to be leaders who took advantage of them.

time for change

Christianity has been tested before. Usually it seems to help people assess what it means to them and what it is really about. The way it looks after this testing we can’t know. It may be radically different. Hopefully people will look deeply into their hearts and draw closer to the deeper meanings of that faith. All I know is that testing usually results in change. Hopefully for the better.

About hope

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, belief, faith, hope, wisdom

Hope…something to cling to when there is nothing else. Suzanne Boyd

hope (1)

There are times when there seems to be no way forward. We can’t see ahead at all. Everything around us tells us that there is nothing that can be done. But somehow, we have hope. Hope allows us to get up in the morning. It helps us to sleep peacefully at night.

Some situations truly do seem hopeless. Someone is dying and there is nothing to do. What we can’t see may be that death is not the worst thing that can happen. In death itself there is hope. We will grieve. Sadness will rise up and swamp us often. But we are alive and will find hope in the rising sun. Each day will help us to see a future that is different. It may not be the one we planned but it is there. There are joys to be had and people to love.

The situation may seem hopeless but beyond it is a new beginning. We may have to change our hope to something different but it is there. Hope may seem lost but it is just waiting to be reclaimed.

birds2

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all. Emily Dickinson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love is worth it

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, choices, commitment, connections, love, Uncategorized

secretToday I did another mediation. It is always interesting to see what it is about. Sometimes it is someone owing someone else money. Sometimes it is member of a family arguing about something minor. Usually with families the problem is not what they have brought to us but lost in their past history. With cases like this it is usually not possible to resolve anything. There is too much water under the bridge.

Too often we see families divided over long standing hurts and disagreements. Families are not perfect but it makes me so sad to see them totally divided. We have so few people in life who love us unconditionally. What leaps to mind is my dogs. It seems we humans have more trouble understanding each other.  We are so ready to let good relationships fall away.

Keeping a family together is hard work just as keeping a marriage together. Feelings get hurt, people behave badly, things go wrong. Sometimes parents have tried their hardest to do the right things and sometimes the parents are damaged themselves and can’t parent well. No matter what happens having a loving family to support you in life is one of life’s greatest blessings.

loved and loving

 

Unconditional love is not easy but we do have to try. Sometimes is it impossible and we have to move on. When that happens my hope is that a new relationship can be formed using the lessons learned from the past. Being loved and loving is worth the effort.

Are we willing to wait?

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, expectations, frustration, Uncategorized

I like to bake bread. This week I decided that I wanted some sourdough bread but had no starter. It takes time to make starter. You have to let it sit for at least several days to sort of ferment. The starter did beautifully and I used a recipe for the bread that said let it rise for 12 to 24 hours. I left it for one afternoon and it rose out of the bowl. Needless to say the starter works. (it is what makes sourdough bread rise)

impatient

The process to make this bread takes time and patience. Today most of us don’t want to wait. We don’t want to do anything that takes time. We have little patience. Yet patience pays. Look what happened when I was willing to take some time. The bread not only rose but rose way up. Time can yield results if we allow it.

We have to learn to be willing to wait. Good things can come of it.

The past lives with us

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, answers, anxiety, coping, family, memories, parenting

Many times when I am reading other’s blogs I see the tragedies they have endured. So many had childhoods fraught with abuse, neglect and pain. My life has been so different. I makes me wonder why I have been plagued with anxiety and IBSD. Then I remember that even though I grew up in a loving family attitudes and ideas about parenting were different.

Pat & Murrel Clark
My mother and father

My mother was isolated from me when I was small. I remember little about it. She was diagnosed with TB that she caught from my paternal grandfather. She had a very mild lung case and was allowed to stay at home in a separate part of the house. Unfortunately, the TB attacked her adrenaline gland and the doctors were unaware of this. She was well for a while and then by my early teens had declined and was quite ill but no one was able to diagnose her disease. The ins and outs of that period are for another post.

Do-parents-sit-down-and-tell-their-kids

The bottom line is that I was aware that my mother was very ill but the family never talked about it with me. It was thought that you didn’t share this with children. She was in and out of the hospital and my aunt would come to help and keep me entertained by taking me shopping. Needless to say this was not a good coping skill to be learned by a teenager.

Just prior to succumbing to her illness she was diagnosed with Addison’s disease and lived to be 95. I know now that those years of her illness were terrifying for me and explain anxiety and fear of illness. Anxiety and all its companions also run in my family.

It is nice to know why I suffered in those years and it is wonderful to have coping skills that keep me sane. So much was not understood in those days and mental health was not discussed or treated. Women had the vapors and spent several days in the hospital with “nerves.”

Even though mental health is not treated as well as it should be it is much better than in my growing years. I am grateful for the strides that have given others help and hope. I pray that things will continue to improve and that one day things will be much better.

Change AGAIN

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, aging, coping, life changes, memories, viewpoint, wisdom

Life moves along. The things we knew slide away and new things come. The church that I used to work for has 2 new pastors. They seem to have jumped in with vigor and lots of things are going on. This is a really good thing. The offices, which were in another building, have been moved back to the church building and rooms have been updated. This is moving forward.

old new

I was there today and it did bring memories and nostalgia about the past. There are things that I will miss. A while ago I said I should have a T-shirt made that says “I have survived 8 pastors.” If I added the ones I worked with before that job it would be even more. Each one had their own personality and own way of doing things. Part of the job is to support the pastor so I learned the ways and ideas of each one. It feels strange not to be doing that with these two but it is time to help elsewhere.

We have all talked about dealing with change. it is a constant like death and taxes. There are changes that are easy to move on from and some that are not. Regardless that is life. There will always be changes that we will regret and mourn. That is as it should be. We just have to accept that there are things we can’t do anything about and we don’t need to get hung up on them.

life changing2

We have to move on to new things ourselves and find our place and our fulfillment somewhere else.