When your best just isn’t good enough….

(an oldie but a goodie, not much has changed, gotten worse actually, but… there is always hope….reposting for your consumption 😉 )

I am between the hammer and the anvil right now….

My husband has been out of work for six weeks now. I am not healthy in body, but I have to keep working 12 hour night shifts, in hopes of staving off at least some of our debtors. I have health insurance now, but can’t see a doctor because my bank account is in the negative before I even receive my pay checks… I have a business that I am trying to build but struggling to reach customers, because of the limits on my time. The demands are so high, my dreams are on a shelf temporarily… the chips are down and I am almost out…

It’s ok to say my life really sucks right now. It’s also ok to admit that my best, my hardest try, my desperation… is not enough to make any of it better.

I have this analogy. It’s a manure pile. All of the garbage, tough situations, the ugliness of my life is manure…. and I’ve got a whole mountain of it right now… so each additional trial is just another shovelful on top of that ridiculous pile. Manure makes compost. Compost makes tired worn out soil fertile and young again, thus allowing amazing gardens to grow and flourish. The trick is allowing the manure to break down enough to make it usable, so you don’t kill your plants. I have so much manure working toward compost right now… but I have to be patient. I have to let the processes that make it into something functional, work. I am not a patient person by nature. It is a learned behavior.

Last year was about my letting go. Letting go of bitterness, and forgiving things that I hadn’t realized I had been harboring against my family. It was learning how to cope with depression honestly, dealing with my PTSD honestly….. I graduated from therapy officially and I am med free right now… and this is the hardest thing I have ever done. It’s like I am starting over from square one again. The last time we were in this position, we had more help. This time, I am more sane, but our circumstances are more dire. We are not alone, but I feel abandoned. Feeling and reality are not the same thing. I can see this, but I am struggling with my anger, and helplessness right now.

That’s where the title comes into this piece. I am doing my best but right now, it feels like all I’m doing is shoveling around manure, all I am doing is running in circles unable to rest because the needs of just my own family are too great for me to handle, let alone the world and it’s troubles.

That is where the Master’s hand comes in. It is the natural forces of rain, wind and sun, work together to break down the pile, and so it is God, who is working through the ordinary, to turn my crap into compost…. I have to cling to that.

I am in a place where my best, my hardest, my most earnest, just isn’t enough, and this is the fertile ground necessary for God to grow miracles.

From my heart to yours,

Donna

The mouse that roars.

The prayer of my heart….

The prayer begins through gritted teeth, fists clenched, Hands forced open, the words heavy in my mouth…

Our Father,

A relationship I don’t understand…

Always distant. A great provider, a place where love is supposed to exist, my own father was always at a loss, in how to express love to his headstrong daughter….

Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy Name…

So far away, the gulf, the abyss, the gap I can not cross alone, overwhelms me…

I feel so small, yet there You are.

Your Greatness evident in the vastness of the Universe. The distances of Time and Space, unfathomable by finite human minds, encompassed in your hands;

Yet Your Love, so immense is evidenced in the beauty of simple things. Flowers reaching for the sun, and in the undaunted ants, who simply serve one another, for the good of the hive.

You are so great the human heart cannot begin to compare, the human mind fails to understand, the soul quails in your presence, yet wretched though I feel,

You pursue me….

Thy Kingdom Come…

There is so much work to do! We hunger for the fulfillment of Your word. You came to us…offered everything for us… and yet, two thousand years have passed, and we are so foolish as to distance ourselves from Truth. Your Kingdom come…

Thy will be done… On Earth as it is in Heaven,

Four words… humility, restraint of the will. My fists no longer clenched, because if I truly believe You Love me, that You pour out Your Mercy, from Your very Heart, how can I refuse you anything?

You offer me the choice,

You are fully deserving of all my devotion, still, I often hesitate over these words.  I surrender all I am, for truly what do I have that you did not give me first? Give me the courage to utter the words, “I am your servant, do with me according to Your will.”

Give us this day our daily bread…

Trust. You will not allow us to starve, Neither in soul, nor truly in body. When we make the choice to give to others, lack, becomes abundance, kindness moves in circles. A community that seeks your will first, though they struggle, will have what they need. I will always have what I need, even if it isn’t necessarily always what I want. Humility and Trust, Father grant me these gifts that I may rest in You.

Forgive us our debts…

Ah the abyss, the one I can not cross over. Forgive me my sins, my weakness, my fear, and lack of trust, my petty selfishness. I am humbled that you build a bridge to me, that you Cross the gap, and walk with me into the Grace you call me to.

As we forgive our debtors…

You give us the power to bind up, to be instruments of healing to one another. I fail. I break things, allow my anger to overwhelm Your love in me. I hold bound my injuries, hiding the scars, nursing self-pity, like the wretched servant, demanding what compensation I am owed.

Dear Jesus, I beg You, please, continue to tear open my scars, Divine Physician, drain the infection and renew my heart. Help me to Love as You do, from the Cross. Grant me the humility to let go, to give it all to you.

Lead us not into temptation…

Purify my heart, oh Lord. Fill me to overflowing with your love that there may never be room for anything else. In YOU is joy, hope and the fulfillment of all things. I need nothing more, for as I offer up my dearest possessions and relationships to You, they are restored, made more, precious. I truly lack for nothing. Keep this ever in my mind that I may not be tempted to despair.

Deliver us from Evil…

The devourer comes! The Accuser comes! I am helpless Abba! Once confessed our sins are no longer remembered, yet he lays them out before me, my sins, the book of my failures, volume upon volume, yet O Lord, You Cross over to me, cover my shame with Your Mantle, my Bridegroom! You take me from the slums and bring me to your Father’s House. My Deliverer, Beloved of my heart and soul, You come.

Amen

It is so. I believe it.  It is Truth.

 

 

 

 

 

I am back…sort of.

Dear reader,

I have written on my depression, my Ptsd…whatever… but lately due to technical difficulties and really a flat, unresponsive emotional life, I have not really had the will or desire to write anything about anything. I have been moved again and I think…. I have found hints of my new normal.

I think we got my formula ok for my prescriptions. That being said, I am reluctant to continue with drug therapy as I have never been flat and weepy until I was on them…. emotions lie. I know this is supposed to help but I feel like two people. The emotional person is being walled in, while the logical person is looking at her going, really?! I don’t like feeling this way.

EMDR…that is an experience to remember….It is hard.

I am reprocessing, or fully processing memories right now. And that is not fun. The process is deceptively simple. Through questions asked by my therapist, we established a timeline of traumatic events that have shaped my psyche, and personality, how I respond to life, and the deep seated fears, insecurities and primal tendencies to fight or flight. Then we get to relive these memories via discussion, and using bilateral taps, etc. process through those memories….sometimes over and over again until I am at a point where I can lay them to rest, see them for what they are and move forward.

I got through early childhood. I got through the abusive discipline I received as a kid, and now I am approaching adolescence, and the tangle of distant relations with my parents, difficult home life, and school bullying, the combination during those formative years that made me a wreck of suppressed emotion and suicidal. Admitting these things has been its own form of trauma….but in the same respect also freeing me to start living again.

I don’t recommend this process to people who don’t want to heal. I don’t recommend this process to people who want to be numbed up on drugs and not feel anything but happy. I don’t recommend this process to people who’d rather be pitied, or self centered. It hurts. It tears you up inside and makes you raw and frayed for hours afterwards. It brings up stuff you buried years ago and makes you look at it with fresh and more mature eyes. It puts a mirror in front of you….

If you are willing to do the work, if you are willing to accept the truth about yourself and give it up to God, when all else fails, it will help you heal.

Healing is hard work.

When we pray for healing, I almost wonder if we know what we are getting into. Most people expect healing to be something instantaneous, some flash of miracle and then life automatically is better. Well, it isn’t like that. We are deceived if that’s what we expect from the Gospels too. I think of the man born blind who Jesus healed, who the Priests and Elders disbelieved, and eventually threw out of the temple because he declared Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus made no bones about telling people they’d suffer for his sake, yet somehow, Christians twist this to a health and wealth ideal. No… Christianity is about suffering, sacrifice and Love. Love so deep that it hurts, and is willing to be crucified for the other person. Healing is like that…. Healing is reaching outside of yourself, reaching your hands up to Jesus, and embracing his broken body on the Cross, and kneeling there, knowing that he is walking with you in your agony, that he experienced it before you, and experiences it with you, and will draw you into the victory of the Resurrection if you keep walking with him, even through death itself.

I have experienced pain this last year that rivals child birth. I have had to release my heart, my emotions, even my deepest truest relationships to Jesus. I have had to allow all of my scars to be torn open again….

I went into denial this last month. I stopped my meds for a couple weeks, I fell into a depression and started fixating on death again…only this time, this time I saw it for what it was and rejected it.

Last night I took my meds. I slept soundly and woke at 6 am and was available to send my kids off to school for the first time in three months. I still need the chemical assist. I still need behavioral therapy to cope with this. I am coming up on the one year anniversary of my most serious ideation…the one that catapulted me into seeking real help.

I am changing so much I don’t know what to think any more.

I do know the person I am becoming is a heck of a lot stronger than she was a year ago, not in herself, but because she understands that she is not really alone, not any more. I have learned to appreciate the network of friends, and professionals that have carried me through when I can’t carry myself. I have learned the true meaning of surrender, and in doing so, I am learning what freedom really is. Healing while assisted with psychotherapy, can only truly come from God himself.  While I know I am healing, I also know that God may have a different plan for me than just simply taking my mood disorder away from me. I see him using me in spite of it, or more with it, as I can relate to people on a different level, than I would without it. So, I am learning to embrace the cross, and in so doing, I hope I can lead others to Jesus too. God doesn’t always lift the cross from your shoulders, but he gives you what you need to persevere.

From my heart to yours,

The mouse who roars.

Porn vs. Art, Just ’cause they are naked, does it mean it’s porn?

So… here’s the thing. Nudity is not always pornographic in art. A person will think what they want to, when looking at a piece of art, and purity often is in the eye of the beholder,  but there are some things that are very blatantly porn, and things that are not, and should not be classified as such. The issue for many is the question, “Where does that line get drawn?”

Well, I have a little experience in this arena. I am an artist. I am married to a recovering porn addict, and I have been interested in art and the Renaissance period for a long time.

So first, a little check list.

• Porn distorts the human form. Pornographic images often display the body with emphasis on breasts, buttocks and genitalia. (Think comic books with busty females bursting from spandex and painted on costumes.) often the imagery is a stylized perception of beauty, or more frankly “sexy, ” standardized, manufactured and sold to the masses for consumption.
• Does the image have a face? Very often pronography will remove the identity of the model by focusing on various parts of the body, but not including the head, or by masking the face, or changing it beyond recognition with make-up and computer enhancements.
• Does the image place genitalia, exaggerated or not as front and center? (not as obvious as one would think I suppose….)
• Does the image depict a sexual act, perversion or fetish? I would think this is obvious, but I remember a painting I looked at as a kid with an armored soldier on a horse tossing a woman on to the ground barely wearing a stitch… and the painting had the word “rape” in the english title and was painted a couple hundred years before I saw it in an encyclopedia. I think, it was depicting a scene out of a myth, but it did leave a sad impression on my ten year old mind.
• Even a draped and “covered” body can be depicted as porn, “Come hither facial expressions”, suggestive posing, usually with legs open, or in positions meant to reveal and emphasize the erotic intention of the model or artist. Very often this is labeled soft porn, it is designed to pique curiosity, and begin arousal, drawing the viewer deeper into the fantasy he is seeking. It is an enticement, like candy from that psycho in the windowless van.
• Porn is a visual thing in our culture, but it exists in writing as well, women tend to use soft and written porn more frequently than men…but it is the same thing. Writing that goes into graphic descriptions of sexual encounters, suggests sordid fantasy and degrades the sexual act, objectifying the characters, reducing them to their sexual urges….and nothing more, is just as bad as the images of sadomasochistic violence. This is not romance, people.

Porn is designed to separate emotion, spirituality and identity from the object described, it creates a manufactured fantasy in order to create pleasure with no feeling or consequence…it’s like crack cocaine, heroin, you name it… and our society is so saturated with soft porn images in advertising, in our entertainment, we have grown so accustomed to it, we don’t recognize the difference between porn and good, wholesome, earthy, lovely art.

When it comes to nakedness in art,

Not Porn: depicting the nude form as it is… post-partum women with folds and bulges, men with beer bellies, Beautiful eyes, lovely faces, usually in postures where there is a suggestion of modesty, the genitalia are not often in view, but when they are, they are not emphasized or enhanced.

Art nudes often depict gleeful children, doing what children do… innocent, usually at play, or in the case of many cherubs I’ve seen in religious pieces, adoring God.

Art nudes often show an emotive ideal. I have seen a lot of tasteful work done in the last few years by modern artists.

In our perverted post-fall society, covering of the body, shielding our vulnerability, is a requirement, although, at times, it is those very coverings that get used to reduce a person to their sexuality, to be seen as nothing more. Nude humans in art are shocking because, in many ways, this is more honest… you can’t hide from yourself in the mirror… what you see there, is what there is.  Nudity in art can hold up a mirror for us, because, when done honestly and modestly, it reminds us a little of what we were made to be… what was intended for us in the beginning. It reminds us that we are not infallible, not necessarily invincible and we certainly are not always the way we intentionally see ourselves.

God made us beautiful in our own ways… sexualizing a human body is wrong. We are more than that. My favorite artists illuminate that, celebrate the beauty and loveliness of the body, and point back to our Creator in their work.

I hope this helps some of you who struggle with scrupulosity… I hope this helps those of you so far desensitized to porn, to begin to see the body with new eyes. We are not dirty, or disgusting objects. We are women, we are men, we are children, made in the image and likeness of God. In that alone, we are sacred, special, and our bodies should be given the same respect.

Much love,

From my heart to yours,

Hiland Rose,

The mouse that roars.

 

The ending….

It is getting close now…..

I have been staying overnight to help out with my mother in law, and give my father in law a break a couple times a week, or at least that was the plan… but as they do, things changed… so, this week I am anxious as they are moving my Mother in law to a facility for respite care, to ease the burden on my father in law.

As a CNA I know what to expect. I know the place they are sending her will do a good job at keeping her clean, hydrated and her oxygen levels as stable as possible…but… she won’t be home. She’ll be surrounded by staff, who will care for her, but not know her. They, hopefully, will find the time to speak kindly to her as she wanders in the strange between before death, but they won’t know who she is calling out for. She will have the best, but not her whole family surrounding her, only my husband, his sister and their father can be with her, and only during visiting hours…

The pandemic will give us no peace….

My heart is breaking and I can do nothing to ease her pain, and my words are hollow as I try to comfort my father in law, so I speak very little. I watch my husband retreat inside himself just a little further, bracing for what is to come. I watch the tears well in my sister in law’s eyes, and her face as she forces her professional demeanor into place, to defend herself, from the pain that is rising in all of us.

We all know there are only days left and my Father in law is showing signs of failing health as the stresses of caring for a dying loved one, topple him.

I am angry. I am afraid. I fear her dying in that facility, alone, or worse surrounded by strangers. I know they will do well by her, I know the cares they will provide, what they will do after… the sense of abandonment as they let the body leave with the mortician….I’ve provided the same services, and witnessed the death of elderly patients after the family went home for the night… but it might not be us that send her off… this bothers me to my core, and I don’t know why.

My children’s last memories of her will be of her sitting up in a bed in the middle of their posh apartment living-room. Catalina received her First communion, and we took her to see Grandma and Grandpa in her dress and veil…. that was the last truly lucid moment she had with one of her grandchildren.

The next weekend was Fathers Day. We went as a family and celebrated with them for a couple hours, she got to see all of her grandbabies in the same room, all of her children and children in law… she was so pleased, until her body just took over, and we left to give her some quiet. I went back that night to stay with her, she’d been exhausted and confused, angry at everyone, believing we were all going to conspire to lock her away in a nursing home…. which we all reassured her was not the case…. I stayed overnight, and then again last Friday, and the difference was shocking… the woman who was sitting in bed beaming is gone… the angry frightened woman who was suffering from morphine induced paranoia mixed with the bipolar symptoms she could never escape, was gone….

The lady I resented, and feared, and struggled to love for twenty years… is now reduced to her primal existence, the conversion of her heart, the hunger for Christ that lay dormant for decades had blossomed in her and now, I see the fading rose, the sweeter part of herself, the more vulnerable… The person she must have been in the innocence of her childhood. I wept with her, as she pleaded with her Grandmother to come to her, now… asking if she could come, over and over again… all I could whisper was, “It’s ok, you’ll be with her soon, we’ll miss you, but we know you need to go, you’ll see her soon.” She woke an hour later, lucid, and asked me what had happened to her. I told her the truth, that’d she’d been wandering, and calling after her Grandma….. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “We were close, I miss her.” To which I responded, “She sounds like a great lady, I wish I’d have met her.” and then, my Mother in law slipped back into her wandering state…. On Fathers day night she had apologized, weeping over the pain she caused me… I let her know she was forgiven, that I had nothing against her. I let her know all I wanted was now… and the past was done. I could see the peace on her face when I came in this last time, even though she wasn’t certain who I was at first, she relaxed when she realized it was me sitting with her, and helping her to the bedside commode and cleaning up after her… she took comfort in my presence with her… I am still in awe of this. I said my goodbye the only way I could… and I hope that she is comforted by it.

I may not see her again til the funeral.

I hope she has no regrets.

Love is a crazy thing. When you give yourself to Christ you really can forgive anything, and when you see through the gift of His sight, all things, even death can be made new… my mother in law’s soul is not so earthbound as it once was. She will fly soon, to what waits for her on the other side. It is my prayer that Christ is waiting to gather her to his heart.

Please pray for my family as we are preparing for the first death close to home. Please pray for the end of my Mother in Law’s long painful suffering. For her full healing before the Throne of God…

Thanks,

The Hiland Rose

Some thoughts

I am not sure how to feel right now. I am watching my country go mad…I am watching the cycles of history spinning more rapidly, what took a hundred years to circle around seems to be shrunk to thirty, forty years…. the same anguish, the same racism, the same turmoil over the role of government in society, the same battles we faced in 1776, the thirties, the sixties and now, in 2020 come to a head again.

Will we ever learn? Will we ever see the beauty of our forefathers’ vision? The idea that individual freedoms, and a community built on the recognition of those sacred God given rights was meant to live past them, to transcend their imperfections and personal sins, to create a place where with God a nation could rise and be great….

No, America is not some idyllic ivory tower that will draw the eyes of nations. We are not a new Jerusalem, or some chosen people who has special favor from God protecting us and glorying in a non existent perfection. We have a bloody history, a history built on the backs of slaves, the poor, the workers, the disenfranchised immigrants, the political prisoners of european nations, the efforts of First Peoples….. Our nation has a lot to answer for before God.

We have no right to accuse other nations of violating human rights when our own workforce can’t afford to survive for the most part on a single income, when we murder our own children in the womb to the tune of three thousand a day, for two generations, where the police are equipped like the military and given carte blanche, while the mentally ill, the poor, fill hospital beds and jail cells, with no real hope of recovery, where the military can write blank checks to contractors, and waste millions of dollars on bureaucracy, while schools continue to be underfunded and teachers caught between the anvils of testing pressures, parental failures, and budget shortfalls… Where insurance companies dictate the care of patients to doctors based on dollar signs alone…. no… we are not a great nation.

Trump is a delusional maniac, and Biden is a hypocrite…. the party I would normally turn to in the absence of integrity from my former political leanings, has put forth another elder white man with racist tendencies in his assertions…. so… what do I do? I look white, but I am the product of both native people, and european stock… I have friends of so many diverse ancestries, I begin to wonder why this white washed British imperialistic ideal of what history is, should dominate all I have been taught?

I ask, what is the American? Who are we as a people? What have we forged in two hundred years that will bring us together?

I ask in sincerity because I just don’t know. It feels like what I learned was hope, has been rejected by society at large. It feels like we have left God out of the equation and now we are falling into chaos. Everyone has an opinion, everyone can finger what is wrong, but I don’t hear anyone bold enough to offer a solution. There is a lot of talk, but not enough action for the positive, and the unifying.

I propose the solution, (once more..) is as individual as the rights we are supposed to be protecting. I propose that each one needs to research our history with the eyes of a child, open, honest, and willing to learn. Slavery built the south, child labor, and oppression of the Irish, Italian, Polish, and scandinavian immigrants fueled the industrial revolution, and the western expansion. The murder and warfare with the native tribes, gave us the land where are largest cities have been built. The greed of the gold rush and oil barons built us into an economic giant on the backs of impoverished miners. Chinese immigrants banded the nation in steel furthering the wealth of rail barons…. Every monument erected, every building built, every dollar in our economy is linked to this history. We can not keep pulling down statues. We can’t burn books, or selectively teach our history and lie to ourselves, suggesting that somehow we can return to a greatness that never was.

Without God, we learn nothing. Without a good to work toward we are lost. Without love, it’s empty, cold, angry, chaotic. Profit, and the pursuit of property, worldly wealth and prestige are not enough to pull us together. We need to mourn the violence in our communities, black on black, Police against citizens, white indifference or straight racism, economic disparity, the decline in health care systems and the breakdown of family…. we need to take the time to mourn this, and then, rebuild.

America, should be about families, small communities, building something together. The solutions to racism, to failing schools, to poor access to healthcare and mental health care, won’t come from Washington. The solution to hunger, and poverty won’t come from a government so far removed from the man on the street, they think throwing money at things will make it better while taxing the hell out of the average worker… the solutions to our greatest issues, begin in our faithful practice of corporal works of mercy, of building faith communities that extend beyond preaching and worship.

Perhaps instead of building political hybrids of religion and the adoration of political leaders, we turn back to Christ, we turn toward the God who allowed a nation to rise from the ashes of a bunch of misfits and fanatical idealist’s hopes and dreams. I believe in Jesus Christ, King, God, Savior, and most intimate lover of my soul. I believe that allegiance Him will in turn give rise to the healing and hope of our country too. If you are a Christian, act like it. We need that light more now than ever. You don’t have to shout, just live….Live what you preach. Be bold. Be kind. Love fearlessly in the face what you fear most. LOVE! Be fierce and fight for that love daily…. I promise you, we will rebuild, but it is up to each person what we will end up building.

When confronted by evil…

Today’s gospel, and Father Goodyear’s subsequent homily hit me in the gut this morning. My energy in the last month or so has been to build the defense of my unjustly accused daughter before a disciplinary board for District 11. I want a social worker run out of town on a rail. I want a school principal fired, I want… to avenge her. I want the bully that drove her to the brink of emotional destruction to feel her pain. I want to scream, to beat people…. I want to shake the kid who hurt my daughter and got away with it.

This is not the way.

“When a man strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other. If a man would take you to court for your tunic offer your cloak as well, should you be pressed into service to go a mile, then go two…” These words, coupled with the story that inspired the movie, “For Greater Glory” (look it up, it’s really good) stripped my heart before the Tabernacle and made me feel wretched.

I am struck silent. In the face of the crucifix, I am confounded. In the blood of martyrs, I am shamed… because my initial response is to fight back, to defend what is mine, against all comers… but… this is not what I am being asked to do.

Surrender…

“When evil men come for you, offer no resistance, for it is a greater glory to die for Christ. Who are you if you do not stand up for what you believe?” Words uttered by the now canonized St. Fr. Cristobal, played by the actor Peter O’toole… I saw the movie, heard of the persecution of catholics by the Mexican government for the first time when “For Greater Glory’ came out and I got to attend a screening a few years ago. Those words… and the humility of white martyrdom are flooding my heart at the moment.

My daughter is struggling with teen hormones, depression and we are facing spiritual attacks against her, our whole family in the form of despair, violent nightmares, and an ominous presence in our home. There is discord, as our unhealed brokenness is laid bare yet again. I see that the devil wants us to break, but we must not fail. The victory belongs to Christ alone. We have to let Him rise to fight the battle where it truly is. We are not enough, we are weak in worldly terms, and the only thing we have to cling to is the assurance of Christ’s mercy.

This is a hard truth for me to accept. I am praying for the increase in humility it will take, and the grace to accept whatever comes. Surrender is not cowardice, it opens the door for God to work, for the conversion of souls. May the hearts of my daughter’s accusers see the light of Christ, May the bully who drove my daughter to her breaking point, find repentance and discover the peace of Christ, purity of spirit and chastity. May my daughter’s example shine a light on those around her. She is broken, but still refuses to let the things that have transpired turn her eyes from Christ….I am in awe of the resilient and loving spirituality my little sparrow has. She is teaching me. She is being tested, and I pray that she will rise from the furnace pure and golden.

In the end the prayer remains, “THY will be done.”

From my Heart to Yours,

the mouse that roars.

Caregiver’s Journey, A glimmer of hope

I’m a week behind on developments… time is not really something I have a good grasp on managing. My Mother in Law has had a good conversation with her doctor, and decided, after all, to follow through with a Chemo regimen.

I am grateful. If she goes further and needs bone marrow, I have already offered my contribution, if I am a match. It was my first thought… My heart is always yearning toward life, Life lived well, and joyfully. I wouldn’t wish cancer on my worst enemy. There are other complications related to her mood disorder that cause her deep anguish, and I continue to pray for her peace of mind and the soothing of her spirit as she walks this healing journey for the second time in her life.

That being said, I still struggle with mixed emotions…. I watch my husband entirely disconnected and stoic upon receiving the news that her cancer was terminal without treatment, and her initial thought to not fight it. I worry about him, as he suffers from a milder form of the same affliction of mind that she does. (Milder in that his seems more stable and less erratic, but no less intense when episodes occur.) I watch my children grappling with the nature of illness, and the inevitability of death visiting someone… anyone, but someone they love possibly sooner than what they’d like. She is their grandmother, a figure of laughter, for the youngest ones, one of changeable mood and awkward exchanges for the older ones… for us, my husband and I, sigh…

We’ve walked through fire with her, and because of her. Bipolar Disorder is an ugly beast. I grapple with this right now… because I know how quickly she goes from Mania, to Depression, and the denial of her illness (while entirely natural at first) could be twisted into a false reality, or she could become so depressed that she could end her own life too soon…. (As a family we journeyed through two attempts since my husband and I were married. The first about a year after she was in remission from her first tangle with cancer.)

I have an inkling of what that struggle is like.  I was staring down the road to suicide one Saturday afternoon myself.  (I was struggling with a long bout of depression, related to untreated PTSD) That voice, is so logical, so cold, so real in the moment, that you begin to believe that nothing else will be better unless you are no longer a part of the picture. It makes you feel so tired… so, just, done, with everything. I fear that voice in my mother in law’s head making a come back, especially in the throes of pain and chemo driven nausea. I fear the temptation of “Death with Dignity” being offered to her as part of her treatment plan. Suicide is not dignified. I hope and pray my fears are in vain.

My mother in law delights in her grandchildren and when she is healthy, enjoys spending time with them. Her smile and bright laughter fill a room. I don’t want to see this dimmed. She loves the color purple, she loves flowers, she enjoys games, and when she is doing well is sweet and would give you the shirt off her back. Our relationship has been torn many times by her narcissism, there has been much forgiveness and letting go over the years… even so, even so, I promised the first time, and keep that promise this time too, to be there for whatever she needs.

That’s what family does. No aide, no nurse no counselor, can ever really fill that role.

I see this in my profession all the time. We do our best as CNA’s, but there is no substitute for the gentle presence of loved ones through the difficulties… even if all that can be managed is a short visit at intervals. I have the professional training to do more… if I am allowed to be there to do it. I hope and pray all goes well, and she beats this thing. I fear the worst, as is the nature of my anxious mind, but I hope for the best and that is the stronger nature of my heart.

God is Truly merciful. He will not fail her. His Hands are were I place her, my father in law, and all of this mixed up tangle that is the road I walk.

From my Heart to yours,

Donna
The mouse that roars

 

 

A Care giver’s journey

My family is beginning a new journey, along a path we’ve known before… only this time… the destination is not going to be the same. This week we were informed by my Mother in Law that she has stage four cancer. She said it is advanced enough, that she’d rather live her life as best as she can without the struggle with chemotherapy…

I respect her decision. I see her point. I love her.

We are grieving.

She’s been down this road before, I was pregnant with baby #3. I shaved her head the day before she started Chemotherapy… while in labor with my daughter. I resolved to be there then, and I am still here for her now.

It’s been 14 years, almost 15 now. The cycle has come back around, but the illness is much worse, and the treatments more dangerous as her over all health and well-being has declined since the first time. Things are different.

My children are so much older, I added three more, and they all love her. Tonight I cradled my sixteen year old daughter as she wept, coming to terms with why Grandma would choose not to fight it… wrestling in my own mind, while trying to comfort her… knowing no words could ever assuage the ragged ache, that is knowing death is closer than anyone is comfortable with.

Cancer sucks. I have watched people die of several kinds in the last couple years of my CNA career. I hate it. It’s not pretty. It’s painful, and regardless of treatment or non treatment… it destroys a person’s body completely. There is my profession, that makes me capable of doing what needs done to care for people, but with someone you love… someone who may or may not have been good to you… there are so many layers it takes time to sort them out… and to sit with these things… because you can’t live in denial. You can’t pretend it isn’t happening, or help wondering if this will be the last time you and this person do X.

We were looking at old family photos, choosing which ones to add to frames, a project I put off for way too long. We ran across the ones when my daughter was born, pictures of my much thinner, MIL, in her cute hat, with no hair, cradling my little one on her lap beaming away. Her cheeks were sunken, her skin so pale you could almost see through it, but she was present, holding her newest granddaughter, and smiling….

I cling to those images… because those smiles were so few, and so far between, the years were not kind. Now we face this monster again… only this time, the victory will be a final one for her spirit, and we must all figure out how to let go, and let God.

I don’t really know how to feel. My husband is stoic. My kids are expressing various emotions… and I am caught between determination and grief, sadness, and anger too… because … no one should have to experience something like this… and I don’t want Cancer to win.

From my Heart to Yours

Donna,

The mouse that roars.

 

When my heart leads…

I want to share some deeply personal reflections.

You all know I am unapologetically pro life. I make no distinctions. Human life is the most precious and beautiful created thing on this earth. Whether it is the unborn in every stage, the elder in their sunset years, or the severely disabled, the terminally ill, or the migrant, immigrant or the poorest in the most difficult of positions…. All human life is indeed precious.

I honestly wish America could understand this.

I dearly wish, and pray with every fiber of my being , that American Society would wake up to this reality, put the phone down, and actually see the beauty in every human soul.

I see it.

I am honored to serve my fellow humans as a CNA. I am blown away again and again by the inherent dignity in the people I serve, in spite of the difficulties they must overcome just to keep on living, or to come to terms with mortality, and let go.

I deal with many things in taking care of my clients. I see many things, some of them just awful, some, so hopeful, they make me see things in a different light.

I can’t take on the monster of the health care industry and the crumbling infrastructure that managed health care is dealing with, but I can for a few hours a day, make the lives I work with more comfortable, and for a brief time, give hope.

We as a nation, value youth, wealth, that “diy, get what you want and make it happen,” strength and in doing so, forget that it is the weak, the fragile, and the flawed that make things meaningful.

My wish, is that everyone could look through the eyes of our Crucified Savior, and see souls, and love them through their difficulties.

Blessings,
Donna

The mouse that Roars

 

Advent, and a state of mind….

Waiting.

 

We are all waiting for something… not everything is joyful or peaceful or hopeful, but we are all waiting for something, watching, keeping vigil.

I am reminded again this time of year just how thin the barriers are between having enough, and going empty, between pain and pleasure, life and death.

There are four candles in the middle of my table. One, means Hope, one means Love, one means Joy and the last means Peace. When I can be home and insulated some, I feel these things flowing and moving over me, through me, in the laughter of my kids, in the warmth of my kitchen with cookies baking and the delicate glow of our Christmas lights on the snow.

I can choose to see what I want to see, but the reality that waits outside my bubble is painful, hungry, lonely and longing for the Gift of the Christ Child. I am in the midst of a swirling storm of earthly troubles… insurmountable debt, a lawsuit aimed at my currently unemployed husband, difficulty maintaining neutrality at work… etc. The list goes on and on of the trials and difficulties we all face, whether we admit them to others or struggle silently on our own. We are all waiting for the journey to move forward beyond this struggle, this painful existence. Hope, is something that until you have everything stripped away, is elusive. Joy, fleeting without some deeper purpose, Love, must be sacrificial to make an impact, and Peace… that comes from knowing God… as anything less withers under trial.

I am in a place where my ego has been flattened, and my circumstances are so big.there is nothing I can do about it. I wonder now if my heart is humble enough to receive Jesus? I have nothing left I can call my own.

In the dusty stable, on the dung and the straw, warmed by the sweating bodies of animals,  was where Mary gave birth to the Savior. The first to witness the coming of God to Man, were beasts of burden, animals raised for slaughter as sacrifice, and for food. It was the only place where Mary and Joseph could find shelter, in a way, by design, because, God wanted to save the lost. He came to bring his children back into relationship with Him. It couldn’t have happened any other way because the very symbol of the place mattered as much as the substance there in. The Almighty, came under the most humble of circumstances in order that no man could say that God just would not understand.

I meditate on the servant’s heart. On humility, and brokenness. I wonder at the songs of angels, at dirty shepherds whose hands were cracked and dry, whose skin tanned by wind and sun, was like leather, dressed in sheepskin and homespun, kneeling and caressing the Savior. The first people to visit, to hear the angels, to see the Glory of God, veiled in flesh, true God, yet also true Man, were the lowliest, and smallest people, and creatures in Israel. God did not come for those who think themselves untouchable, higher because of education, or some other means of status. He came for the humble, the abandoned, the struggling and the broken.

He came for me. He came for you.

This Advent has been a turning point for me, as I have celebrated a year since my deepest devastation, and my recovery from it. I am working through a lot of painful places in my heart… all of the scars were torn open through therapy and through prayer. I have experienced tremendous healing, peeling back of years of bitterness, and stoic survival.

This last year has been like the building of a church window, from the shattered remains of what I thought I was creating. I have had to let go of everything, I have had to learn to really trust, something I don’t come easily to.  I am still a long way from where I want to be, but I see how God has had a hand in all of our struggling.  I see where He has been working on my heart, opening, softening, and taking away those things I have clung to that kept me from Him. This Advent, I wait to greet the Christ Child with the same anticipation I remember from my childhood. I look to welcome him to the manger in my heart…imperfect, rough, but open, a place to cradle him, and hold him near me….

Come Lord Jesus Come.

From my Heart to Yours….

Donna Hoefer

The Mouse that roars.

Catholicism….Christianity in America

I was struck by the division I witnessed during these last two elections cycles. The first, when we elected Donald Trump as the next President of the United states, and the continued partisan approach to politics after.

I voted with my conscience. I did not vote for any Republicans in legislative positions. I didn’t vote for any Democrats, either. I voted third party for everything I could for the first time.

I don’t believe for an instant that the term “Pro life” in Politics, as stated by the Republican party, means anything more than a nod to a voter base. I don’t believe the Democrats are really all that interested in Diversity and social justice either. I am also pretty certain words like Liberal, Progressive, and Conservative don’t mean the same things any more in politics, as they do in the dictionary. I also see that the term “Christian” has been warped too… into some strange, white supremacist, xenophobic, anti poor, anti immigration, anti laborer, prosperity gospel mentality, that drives policies and very unrealistic expectations.

Christianity, in general, and Catholicism in particular mean the following when boiled down to the Truth at its core.

We are supposed to be followers of Christ. Catholic, means universal, Christianity that embraces all nations, peoples and cultures, recognizing the beauty and uniqueness of each people, but gathering all to Christ….

“Teacher, what is the greatest of the Commandments?” (a pharisee, and us, really.)

“The Greatest of the Commandments is this, Love the Lord your God with all your mind, all your strength and all of your spirit, and the second, is like the first, Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“I see, to Love the Lord with all my mind heart and strength, and to love my neighbor, these things are more valuable than burnt offerings.”  (The pharisee to Jesus, and really should be us… )

Jesus, seeing the man answering with understanding spoke thus, “You are very close to the Kingdom of Heaven.”

When did this little gem get booted from the Christian lexicon? When did we forget the story of the good Samaritan, the wretched servant, the vineyard, and all of the beatitudes that defined how Jesus wanted us to show we were followers of his Way?

If God’s Law is the law of love, then why do we cling as Christians, to anything less than that, and set it above God’s law? Why do Christians throw their faith to the wind in favor of men like Donald Trump? Inquiring minds want to know.

Where did we lose ourselves?

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Even if it means having to be branded with the name of Christian spoken as a curse, because of those who have forgotten what Christian and Pro Life really mean.

I stand with Christ.

Do you?

From my Heart to yours,

The mouse that roars.