Tag Archives: Disability

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What Do We Seek?

What do we seek on this journey or from this experience? Taking time to ask this question of ourselves affords us the opportunity to understand the answer despite any excitement or anxiety we might feel.

Do we hope to learn something? Connect with someone? Are we planning to challenge ourselves, or are we simply hoping to embrace the joy of the experience? Maybe there is a bit of all of this in our plans. However, it is not just the meandering, spur-of-the-moment journey that includes unforeseen excitement or anxiety. We can become frustrated or even lose our way if we have not taken the time to understand what we are seeking.

Origins of This Thought

When this thought first began swirling around my head, I was contemplating the way personal relationships can devolve. A brief conversation with a stranger had left me troubled. The stranger had conveyed how difficult they were struggling now that they were the guardian of their young grandchild. Their struggle was one of lost hope, as much as one of real challenge. Their expectations of this new, full-time relationship was fraught with the dread of knowing life was going to be forever changed, and was going to be quite difficult due to the child’s very specific struggles.

I was troubled by the lack of hope the stranger shared. Many hours later, this thought came to mind.

What do we seek in our personal relationships? What do we hope to learn or experience?

While we may not be able to change the specific elements of human existence that make life hard, sometimes so hard we struggle to see a way forward, we are able to reimagine our expectations. Sometimes this can be achieved by simply identifying what it is we truly seek from the situation or the relationship. Often we are counseled to changed our perspective, but first we might be wise in understanding what it is we seek. From that understanding, our perspective, or in other words, our vantage point might become clear. We might even discover that our frustration is not from the challenges we face in this new journey, but simply from having become lost in the fog before reaching the summit.

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Turning the Other Cheek vs. Turning a Blind Eye

Where is the accountability in this statement?

No one can offend you unless you choose to be offended. 

A person may choose to remain offended, in essence to remain a victim of someone else’s offense, but they did not necessarily choose to be offended in the first place. Whether the offender intentionally or unintentionally caused offense, they should be held accountable for their actions.

Turning the other cheek and turning a blind eye are not one and the same.

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Saith Me… Exhaustion

First I laughed so hard it hurt,

Then later I cried the tears of healing,

Finally, I slept.

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Life With Fibromyalgia: Finding a Reason to Smile

Living with a disability like fibromyalgia is a never ending lesson in adjusting and making the best out of a tough situation. Take this morning for example. I woke up feeling rather good, a bit of shoulder stiffness, but otherwise bright-eyed and chipper. I prepared for church and found that the fatigue that often hits just prior to leaving the house at 9:15 AM was absent. I was really quite pleased because last week the fatigue hit just as church was starting. I find hiding a bout of pain is relatively easy compared to hiding a bout of fatigue. While it may be acceptable for small children and old men to doze during the congregational meeting, it is usually frowned upon for middle-aged ladies to do the same. So by comparison, shoulder-joint pain was manageable and I was looking forward to enjoying the meeting.

Alas, to my great dismay, I found myself becoming queasy and lightheaded not more than 10 minutes into the meeting. Sure I had arrived 10 minutes early to get a good seat, but 20 minutes sitting in a pew should not have been enough to have cause discomfort-induced nausea, regardless of the fact that my shoulder pain had been joined by a stiff neck and sore back. By the time the sacrament had been passed and the bishop was thanking the deacons for their efforts, I knew that I had to leave. I asked my husband to carry my overly large purse as a precaution, and I proceeded to leave the chapel. Upon reaching the foyer, I discovered I was struggling to breath much like I was having an asthma attack, but upon stepping outside, my breathing began to ease. Oh and the gooey eyes that I had been doing my best to ignore, cleared almost immediately.

It would appear that I was having an allergy attack. Since I am not terribly susceptible to airborne allergies and perfumes usually only give me headaches, today’s strange reaction left me flustered and a bit frustrated. It is when the unusual, unanticipated, and odd physical symptoms hit that I find myself most severely struggling emotionally with my health issues. It during those moments that I want to weep. It is during those moments that I do my best to find a reason to smile. Today’s reason to smile – fresh baked cookies.

I am now sore and tired, but I am not frustrated or emotionally weary. If I do get weepy by the end of the day, at least I now can dry my eyes with one hand while I eat a cookie with the other.

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Saith Me… Treading Water

In the journey of life, standing still is often the first action in a backward slide. However when we change the metaphor from walking to swimming, we find that there is a wonderful way to indicate a need to pause without losing ground – treading water. Unlike with the notion of standing still, treading water requires effort. Sometimes in our quest for self-improvement we neglect to embrace the place we have reached, and we forget to fully appreciate the waters that support our efforts. Treading water provides us with the opportunity to pause and take in the surroundings; to enjoy the pond they are currently in before seeking the next one.

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Saith Me… Embrace the Journey

Life is not a race. Some days we must walk rather than run so that we can more easily pause and take in the beauty around us.

 

Embrace the Journey

 

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Stumbling

In our pursuit for excellence, let’s never forget that we are already excellent. We are not starting from a place of failure, but rather from the exulted place from which our diligence and charitable natures has brought us thus far. Yes, we may stumble, and that stumble may make us feel low, but a stumble in itself does not make us lose ground. Rather the stumble reminds us of where we are on our journey. A stumble reminds us to take in our surroundings and reaffirm where we want to be and where we want to go.

During our journey, well-meaning people may only focus on where we need to go and minimize the importance of from where we have come. They will tell us not to dwell on the past and will tell us that we are weak for weeping. We should not wallow in frustration, disappointment, or pain, but we should always remember the struggle of our journey. It is when we remember from whence we came that we can truly celebrate where we are and where we are going.

Stumbling

 

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The Parable of the Old House

There was an old house that had once been beautiful and grand. It sat on a road with many other beautiful, grand homes, but over time it began to fall into disrepair until one day its windows were boarded up and it was abandoned. In order to hide its sad state from the others, the boards on the windows had been painted to look like windows; dark panes of painted wood trimmed in white had replaced the clear glass. To the many who drove past the old house barely sparing it a glance, the evidence of its downfall was easier to ignore once those painted boards had covered broken windows.

Eventually, the decay and disrepair reached a level that the city decided the house was an eyesore and a danger. It was decided that the once beautiful and grand house would need to go, to be torn down. Yet, just as all looked lost for the house, someone took a closer look and saw past the overgrown yard, the damaged roof, and the boarded up windows. With dedicated care and work the house was restored.

We are all in danger of becoming the house. Without maintenance and care, we can go from a place of beauty and love to a place where we board up our windows and fall into decay. The Lord’s mercy and love, His atonement for our sins can help save us. It is important that we remember this when we feel as if the storms of life are ripping at our exteriors and the wind and rain begins to seep into our souls.

The Lord admonishes us to learn of Him and to take His yoke upon us. He teaches us to be mindful of our brothers and sisters. He admonishes us to be mindful of those who have boarded up windows, those who may be falling into deep disrepair. We should be careful when driving through our communities to avoid condemning the houses we see that have been storm damaged or neglected.

by Jessie A. Hagen

The Parable of the Old House - sm

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FYI: I cannot view, nor do I endorse any of the ads that are shown on my blog.