Sunday Sabbath  August 23 2015  DISCOVERING OLD AGE

IT MATTERS NOT THAT I AM OLD

By Kathleen Martens

August 23, 2015

What a beautiful day it is to be alive!

White clouds and dancing trees,

Sunshine and wind caressing my face,

And my heart enjoying the breeze.

For this is the day that the Lord has made

And in it I will rejoice.

I will lift my eyes to the hills,

And sing with my inner voice.

I’ll sing love songs to the King of Kings,

And my spirit will be glad

For all the joy that lives within

Leaving no room to be sad.

I’ll give thanks for every hour,

Each moment a blessed pleasure.

No negative thought will I invoke

For every day is such a treasure.

It matters not that I am old

Or that I have aches and pains.

It matters not if the sun is shining,

Or even if there is rain.

What matters most is I’m alive

To share life with those I love.

And someday I will find out

How my life fit like perfect glove.

Everything was for a purpose,

For everything God has a reason.

He numbers our days before our birth,

And we each have different seasons.

So while I’m alive I’ll live to the fullest

Preparing for my eternity ahead!

My body may someday expire,

But my spirit will never be dead!

Just as earth’s sun caressed my face

A Heavenly SON will look me in the eye,

And He will welcome me into His arms,

For just this moment, was why He died.

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I actually started to write my blog with the first line in the above poem and then at that split second I knew that my poem was exploding from my heart.  I didn’t have a clue what it would be about, but the opening line was all I needed.  Try doing it sometimes and maybe you will find pleasure in composing a poem.  My poetry is usually about whatever I am feeling, or have experienced on this day, or something on my mind I just want to get down on paper.

I’m going to give you a little reading lesson.  Sometimes I ask people to read my poetry to me.  I want to hear how the reader perceives the poem, where they pause, does it make sense hearing it spoken aloud (I always read my poems aloud to myself in order to finalize them), is the cadence correct, does the reader feel the flow, IS there flow, does it make sense, does it have a true beginning and a true ending, and so forth.  I can learn a lot by listening to my poetry being read by another.

Now for the lesson.  Look carefully at the punctuation.  If the end of the line has absolutely no punctuation it is to be read in conjunction to the following line and so forth.  Sometimes there is a period after each line or perhaps only at the last line of the stanza.  If there is no punctuation until the ending then read it as one long run-on sentence to understand the meaning.  If there is a comma, pause very briefly, then go on to the next line.  It signifies that the first line is the precursor to the thought or meaning of the second line.  If there is another comma, it means the same thought is still flowing.  When a period occurs, stop completely and let your mind grab hold of the idea that a new thought is coming.  In other words, simply put in the punctuation as you read the poem and the poem will end up making much more sense (I hope).  My goal and joy in sharing my poetry is that it will give a smile to the heart of another and bless them in some way.

It seems so awesome that God seems to know how to orchestrate our days so much better than we do.  For some reason I felt it important to do my blog in the afternoon because we were going to see THE KIDS FROM WISCONSIN perform later in the evening.  So when I felt prompted to lie down and rest and received the nudging to write my blog instead (which I perceive as the voice of God’s spirit), I reluctantly followed lead and wrote my blog.  That way when I got home I could get to bed earlier.  Well, my day did not quite turn out like I thought it would  Sort of like the scripture in Proverbs 16:9 that says, “A MAN’S HEART PLANS HIS WAY, BUT THE LORD DIRECTS HIS STEPS”.  I certainly had my day planned out, but God sees the beginning and the end.  It was through His direction that my blog was finished and I had all my needed work accomplished.

About 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave for an event, Dave shared with me some new symptoms he was experiencing in his body.  I think I forgot to mention yesterday that on Friday Dave had to again go to the doctor because he had become ill on Wednesday night and got worse on Thursday.  By Friday morning his leg was again red and swollen.  In other words the infection was returning.  He then seemed to rally a bit and we thought he was getting better again.  It was not to be.  He discovered that he had some very swollen lymph nodes that had come up very suddenly.  We decided it was best to call the nurse on call and find out what we should do about it.  On Friday when he went to the doctor he was again put back on antibiotics but of a lesser potency.  The leg was beginning to look worse by the time I looked at it last night and we both knew he needed some kind of intervention.  He talked to the doctor on call and they advised him to again go into emergency.  We asked if 3 hours would make a big difference as we both wanted to see the KIDS FROM WISCONSIN perform.  The doctor said as long as we got to the ER that night it was okay to wait three hours.  So we promised.  We bailed out of the performance at 9:30 just as the last song was finished.  It was their final performance of the season so there would have probably of been an encore and lots of crediting of all the workers, etc.  We knew we needed to get to the hospital.

To make a long story short, rather than tell you all the nitty-gritty, we went to ER.  The infection in the leg is rearing its head, but there is no sepsis in the blood.  That is a good thing.  He was taken off the weak antibiotic and given an infusion of the strongest antibiotic that is available to man, the same thing they used last month.  He had to go to the Infectious Disease Control once again to receive another infusion today.  He goes back again tomorrow and will see another doctor.  This is a very serious infection due to the fact that he is diabetic.  It is fortunate that we discovered it early this time.  The doctor in the ER said in a rather flippant way that if Dave didn’t take the drug or if they didn’t work he could die.  No concern, no worry on his part.  He was just telling the patient the facts.  Well, now we will find out what the new doctor says at tomorrow’s appointment.  I have a lot of opinions I would like to write in this paragraph but I keep erasing them, so perhaps I am to keep them to myself. (Just in case you want to know, I really do, do that SOMETIMES).

To make my account of the story even shorter, I will say we came home and we were in bed by 2:30 a.m.  I slept in this morning until 7:30 and it was too late to go to church.  I drove Dave to the infusion clinic and since it was by Costco I drove over and did our weekly Costco shopping.  We made a couple more quick stops so I could pick up the food supplies for the kiddos  who are coming Tuesday evening through Thursday evening.  We have lots of kid friendly food on hand!  All healthy!   Poor kids!

Just to close tonight’s saga regarding Dave, his leg is quite swollen and angry and red looking.  He is feeling better in body.  I bet you didn’t know that a leg could get angry!  It is only Dave that hears it yelling.

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Now, to what I really wanted to write about which IS DISCOVERING OLD AGE!  My beloved sister Velma wrote me an email (which I told her no one else would ever see) (then I changed my mind) that I just had to share with my readers.  I love it.  Velma is hearing impaired and it is difficult for us to communicate except through writing because of the distance between us.  She lives in California.  Since she has been reading my blogs our communication has become more frequent.  I think my blogs to her are like reading letters from me.  I never before sat down and emailed her such a long “letter” every day and now she has a better insight to my life.  I love the correspondence with her.  Velma is almost 10 years older than I am so she is much more aware of what is yet to come for me.  It is funny to realize that it is now MY GENERATION that is in the 60’s and 70’s age bracket.  If my brother were still living he would now be 79 or 80 years old.   How could I have lived so long to see my sisters get old!  When I look out from my eyes I do forget that I too have aged.  I just don’t really think of myself as old.  But like my sister said in the quote I am going to write below, that I am “only on the fringe”.  Here is her quote.  I shall highlight it in red as it a personal wisdom from my sister that stands alone.

Velma’s quote:

“The things you are now discovering about aging are things I have been telling you about but you were never getting old—remember?  You are just beginning the journey and only on the fringe.  OLD AGE IS TOTALLY ABOUT CHANGE; one only has the choice of trying to cope and manage.  Anyway, I can still feel you are not ready for the next phase.”

Well, maybe she is right.  Maybe I will never be ready for the “next phase”.  I am so believing that my spirit will never age, and will live for eternity with God, that I hardly think of myself as my body.  I’m pretty much low maintenance when it comes to trying to defy “old age”.  I use no makeup, shop in my favorite boutiques such as St. Vincent’s or Goodwill (except for shoes, pressure stockings, and underwear), use lipstick about once a week, and shave my head to a razor cut #1 so I won’t have to be concerned about how it looks for four months.  I choose instead to eat healthy, exercise daily, do lots of reading, (I read somewhere a million years ago that reading was good for you), and love and obey God.  Now the obey part I sometimes fail at doing, but God keeps right on loving and forgiving me.

So…I will get old if my season is long enough.  Well, perhaps it has already been long enough and I just don’t’ recognize it yet like my sister prefaced.  But, one thing that I have been doing is learning to cope and manage.  I know, and see, and feel the CHANGES taking place within me.  When I lose something, like the use of my fingers, I adapt to a different way of doing things.  When I realize I don’t remember like I used to, instead of beating myself up over it, I chose to understand that I am going through changes that are natural and normal for someone my age.  When I have a new flavor of pain for the day, I work around it and handle it with a glad heart, rather than bemoan or gripe (too loudly) about it.  Yes, dear sister, I am on the fringe and have been for a long while.  And yes, I know it is about change and I am feeling and recognizing these changes, both in me and in my husband.   And over the past few months I have quietly decided to cope the best I can and manage what I must do and be willing to give up what I cannot do.  Just because I can’t do it one way doesn’t mean I can’t try something new and devise a new way.  So, so many things I could tell you Sister, but will not do so here.  Secretly I am glad that you do not perceive me to be ready for the next phase.  It means I am holding my own.

Velma referred a book to me.  If Velma refers a book it is usually worth getting and reading. I am an avid reader but I cannot hold a candlestick to the amount of books she reads.  It is truly amazing.

The title is: “THE DOCTORS BOOK OF FOOD REMEDIES”, by Selene Yeager and the Editors of Prevention.

I have not received the book as yet from the library but I pass on the title to my readers in case any would like to investigate it further.  I have it on order.

What I have learned in my “OLDER age” is that I need not be afraid, for God is with me.  I remember seeing my mother age.  Her faith was so steadfast that I truly believe she had the ability to already see with her spiritual eyes.  She was so awaiting the time when the Lord would call her home.  I too await for that day, but in the mean time I am going to jam pack every day full of life, and love, and experience, and joy, and peace, and reaching out to others, and sharing God’s love, and reading and writing and creating.  And most of all, I intend to love my family with a love so deep that it will remain even after I am gone from this earth.

What a long blog!  I wonder if any will read one so long.  Remember, I said I would try to make them shorter.  I failed.  That is what happens when I have all Sunday afternoon to write what my heart speaks.  And there is so, so much more inside me.  Sometimes I wonder if there is even just one other person out there in this world who has so many words inside them that are always just bursting to get out!

Good night!

P.S.  Oh dear!  Now I have to proof read this!

P.S. Again.  Proofreading is done at 7:52 p.m.  I had one more thing to tell you and then I forgot and now I remember again.  I am going to send a photo of a stack of books on a table here in my sun room.  This is my favorite author of fiction.  The first book in this series is “JULIA’S HOPE”.   I highly recommend these books!  Her stories and compositions are beautiful to read!  These are the only three books written by Leisha Kelly that I own.  I wish I owned all her works.

Good night for the LAST TIME TONIGHT!