Thursday August 13, 2015  MY MORNINGS MUST COME EARLIER

How long will it take me to find my niche back into my former life?  Or, do I even want to find it?  It seems each day I have been home has been so filled up that I can’t quite find a routine.  And I remember my sister’s words a couple of weeks ago, “you must find a routine in order to survive old age” (my paraphrase).  Either one of two things have happened.  Either I am not old enough to have a routine or perhaps I’m just not surviving old age very well.  I think both premises are incorrect.  I am old (at least older than I was), and I am surviving without a routine.  I don’t THINK I’m old when I think of myself and all my dreams and desires, yet I have discovered since I’ve been home that my body is trying to tell me differently.  When I stumbled off the step at my friend’s house in Denver Colorado and twisted my hip, I discovered that I am not healing like I used to.  My hip is not progressing to the healing stage and I am limited as to what I can do.  Actually it is my pace and stamina that are affected.  I have the tendency to zoom around, accomplish as much as possible, and never stop.  Well, I’m still doing that and for the first time in a long time I am beginning to hear my physical body gripe at me a bit.  The hip does not want me to climb stairs.  I did so much stair climbing while I was gone that this really sends me for a loop.  I like running up and down stairs just for the exercise.  Well, it isn’t happening now.

I want to share a secret to all those who are reading this that are under 60.  “When you see someone 80 and watch  how slow and sometimes infirm they are, just remember that they did not get that way all at once.  It was just one little thing at a time.  Then you settle into the pattern that some other part of you no longer works like it’s supposed to, accept it, go on from there and do the best you can.”   Hmmm.  I’m not at the place I want to settle yet.

And where these two previous paragraphs originated from, I have no idea.  Maybe I just needed to complain and that is the last thing I want to do in a blog.  I try my best not to complain.  Sometimes I’m not quite so good at being at my best.  (I wonder if that is part of aging???)

So now to another matter.  It is the matter that made me think of ROUTINE in the first place.  My former routine before I left on my 4 month trip was to get up between 4:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., without an alarm, because I was usually in bed by 9:00 p.m.  I love morning time.  I love the dark mornings of winter and the brilliant sunrises in the early mornings of summer.  After doing the bare essentials I would make may way downstairs in the quiet sleeping house and settle in my library chair and stay there as long as my day aloud.  That was my quiet time, my prayer time, my reading time, my thinking time, and my journal writing time.  Since returning home I have not been able to routinely do that, due to all that happened regarding Dave and NILMDTS babies and needing to work on post production photo montages, wedding work, all the fresh foods to work up weekly, then surgery (and of course I used that excuse to sleep in every day), and just too busy of a life.  So I’ve been using my blog to journal and write my poems, my exercise time to listen to sermons and meditate on the Lord in the loud gym, my cooking time to think and pray, and my mandatory rest (which usually doesn’t happen) to read.  But, I didn’t take the quiet time I needed to hear God speak to me.  And I began to feel the loss of those quiet times in my library.  So today I made the commitment that that is not something I can give up whether I have time or not.  Mornings will just need to come earlier for me.

This morning was one of the few times I have taken back that part of my old routine.  And I want it back consistently, and even more importantly, I can’t live without out!  And today was wonderful.  My entire day went differently than I had planned it to go, but it was well worth it.  I had planned to accomplish a lot more but when one plan changes it often has a domino effect about the remaining hours of the day.  So be it.  I refuse to allow myself to become lackadaisical about what is absolutely the most important event in my day, spending time alone and quiet with God.  We had such a wonderful reunion today!  After a time of prayer I realized I was writing a poem in my journal, not realizing it at first.  So I took stock and continued the poem that came to me.  I will write it here.

ABIDING IN THE LORD

By Kathleen Martens

August 13, 2014

Thank You Father for loving me so.

Thank You for Your favor that I know.

Your lovingkindness draws me close.

 Your abundance of Grace, I need a dose.

Thank You for Your patience awaiting my return

To Your ever flowing love I need never earn.

Thank You for giving so freely to me

Your bountiful blessings that are always free.

Thank You for drawing my heart’s desires

That I be infused with Your Holy Spirit fires.

Oh to be wrapped in Your warm embrace

Gives me courage for whatever I must face.

But most of all, thank You for Your time alone.

A better friend I’ve never known.

You love me enough my conscience to tweak,

And teach me humility and how to be meek.

Your grace is plentiful as You guide my way

That I will rise above sin as I go through my day.

Thank You for the directions of my plans

And speaking through love and not by demands.

I’ve missed our intimacy these days past.

Time slithers by and is deviously fast.

You are always faithful and so must I be.

It is my decision to make time to be free.

Oh how I long for our leisurely walk

In my soul’s garden where I hear You talk.

I am inviting You to come in again,

It’s been a long while and I miss my best friend!

Nothing more important than being with You,

So Your love and wisdom I can ensue.

So here I am Father, to receive and to give.

And abiding in You, is where I choose to live.

After I received this poem and wrote it down I felt impressed that I was to read I John.  So I did.  And oh my goodness!  It was as if God was confirming everything I wrote in my poem and Heart Sounds, through His scriptures.  I will write them here.

1 John 2:4-6  New King James Version (NKJV)

^“ He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵ But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. ⁶ He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”

1 John 2:15  New King James Version (NKJV)

^“ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

1 John 2:27  New King James Version (NKJV)

^“ But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”

The scripture verses would actually make more sense if I had written down the words I received from the Lord.  If even one person emails me and asks me to share it I will do so tomorrow.  I just don’t know if anyone is interested in hearing the Heart Sounds I believe that God puts in my heart.

I will work on closing this blog with just a few comments about my day.  It is Food Day again since it is Thursday.  Fortunately there were no left over boxes left in my garage and there were not a lot of bulky foods to cram into the fridge.  I fit in what had to be fit in.  I left the melons out to ripen a bit more and that helped with the space.  No major cooking today, just prep work and reheating.  I like those days.

Dave and I went to the gym together this afternoon.  My membership was coming due and Dave decided to join with me.  That was a great event.  Now, hopefully I will be able to continue to do my workouts once I build my strength back up from being off these past two weeks since surgery.  I had my sutures removed yesterday so now I can do what I can do but must build back up to the weights and resistance I was using before I left in March.  Dave is all tidily tucked in bed and that is where I would like to be.

Now that I want to close I think of something to write.  As I was thinking of tomorrow being Friday it brought to mind what Dave and I spoke of this week about how we hope our weeks will go.  I guess this is part of the “routine” being formed.  My desire is to have ALL MY WORK DONE Monday through Thursdays.  Work out Monday through Friday and take Saturday and Sunday off.  When I decided I’d like to try that, I decided I also want to have Friday open for fun things, especially in the summer.  So I see that in a way I am at least thinking about that big R word.  So…my toilets are clean, our sheets are changed, have the guest bed ready for company on Sunday night (our grandsons), the laundry is washed and put away, and I am doing a practice run of what it will be like to have my Friday free except for the gym time.  Only one thing, my free time tomorrow will be in front of my computer in the studio office trying to finish up Photo work.  It’s only after I am free of this work will I really know how it feels to have FREE FRIDAYS and know what it is like to be retired.  I am trying my best to make it happen.

Good night to all of you.  Let me know if you want to hear my Heart Sounds.