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Don’t Give Up Series Begins

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” – Proverbs 17:22

I thought I’d start the holiday season with a series of blog articles about not giving up. So many have a profound sadness or depression around this time of year because it reminds us of who is no longer with us. It chronicles what we can no longer do or what we no longer have since last holiday season.

Most of those struggling with chronic illness or other chronic issues will come to a time of desperation at some point or another. We all get to a level of discomfort, overwhelm, sadness, or frustration (or all of the above) when we feel we can no longer go on or we no longer want to. In fact, it may happen several times over the course of your life. It certainly has with me!

There are times when I feel like giving up. I’ve never really been suicidal, but I have had thoughts along the lines of, “God, if I meet with an unfortunate accident, I wouldn’t be at all upset! In fact, if you’d hurry that along, I’d be grateful!” But so many with chronic illness or issues feel a deep depression or thoughts of wanting their suffering to end in any way possible. If that’s you right now, I’d like to speak to your spirit this month.

The first thing I’d like to share with you is not to give up looking for your joy. Joy is something that leaves you first when you are overwhelmed, frustrated, and saddened by the long, difficult road of chronic issues. I’ve talked about this many times, but the phrase, “There’s light at the end of the tunnel” really bothers me and angers some with a chronic journey because our tunnel doesn’t end this side of heaven. So, if your tunnel doesn’t end, how can you see the light at the end of it?

Why you should not give up looking for joy:
1. The obvious answer is that without joy life doesn’t seem worth living. Without joy, there is only misery inside of that chronic illness tunnel.

2. Believe it or not, there IS joy inside your tunnel! No matter how dismal, draining, or painful your tunnel is. The beauty that was there around you is still there whether or not you’re looking for it. The grass is just as green and peaceful looking. The flowers are just as vibrant. Your children are just as precious. Your spouse’s smile is just as soothing.

3. The more you search for the joy, the more of it you will find. The more you find, the more it will minister to your soul.

4. The more you find your joy, the more you can share it with others even though you are going through tough times. This ties right in with my article for next week on purpose so I’ll have more on that next week.

How not to give up looking for joy:
1. If you’re going to find the joy, you’ve got to actively search for it. Satan has a habit of hiding the joys surrounding those who are in trials or struggling with things. Depression moves us away from our joy and isolates us from others. Those of us who have chronic illness are isolated enough already.

2. Actively searching for something is very different from casually noticing things so you will need to be conscious of every opportunity to find the humor, the beauty, and the kindnesses as life brings you to them. You must keep asking yourself, “What joy can I see right now?”

3. They say it takes 21 days to make a habit. After a few weeks of actively, consciously searching for the joy, you will find yourself able to see it without being active about it.

4. So, challenge yourself to take 21 days to find the joys, the humor, the beauty in each place you find yourself. Here are some ideas for you: Write down what you are thankful for each day. Keep a journal of the beauty around your house, your family, your job, your church, and your situation. What’s funny about the ridiculous situations you find yourself in? What has made you smile each day?

5. And then after 21 days or a month or so, take out your notes and reread them. Take special note of just how many you were able to find.

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” – Proverbs 17:22

Next week, I’ll be sharing about the next thing to leave those with chronic issues: a sense of purpose. Stay with me on this journey. Check back next week and please share this with friends and family.

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The Case for Wrinkles

I wrote this about eight years ago. I had hoped it would go viral and there would be world acceptance of wrinkles by now. Maybe you’d be willing to pass it along and help the cause?


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At the end of a long, joyous, productive, meaningful life, what will people see when they look into your face? WRINKLES! And they won’t be thinking, “that face shows a joyous, productive, meaningful life” either. They’ll be thinking, “boy is that woman OLD!” Well, I’d like to change all that and I’m asking for your help.

It’s important to use your communication skills to change the world around you for the better. Why start with wrinkles? Well, I’ve written articles about grace in politics and faith before, but it struck me that I never did start at the beginning. In order to start a movement for world grace, I think it needs to begin with something more universal and easier to discuss. If you think of it in colloquial movie terms, this article is a prequel.

Every one of us, if we are blessed, will live to see the day when our face has an abundance of creases and lines. There will come a day when even the fresh-faced, four-year-old will be weathered. I’d like to start at the beginning with something we can probably all agree on and feel confident enough to pass along. I say wrinkles are desirable (dare I say fashionable) and I’m going to prove it.

The Case for Wrinkles

  1. Wrinkles are better than the alternative!
    Yes, given the alternative to growing old, wrinkles come in on top! Death is a very distant second! Once you realize how much worse you could have it, wrinkles don’t seem so bad.
  2. Wrinkles are soft.
    Yes, the more wrinkled your face is, the softer it gets. My 11 y/o son loves to touch my 48-year-old face and always comments, “It’s so soft!”
  3. Wrinkles are knowledge.
    The more wrinkles you have, the more knowledge you MUST have accumulated, even if by sheer luck! You just know things younger people don’t. You’ve lived through stuff.
  4. Wrinkles are earned.
    Wrinkles are not some honorary badge. They are earned! Not just anyone can have these babies! Laugh lines mean you must have laughed. A joyous life, even if fraught with struggles, is a prize, indeed. Wrinkles mean you’ve endured, you’ve persevered. Wrinkles mean you have really lived.
  5. Wrinkles show you have character.
    Wrinkles are character lines and mean you aren’t just any old body, you’re a character! Wrinkles make you cute, cuddly, adorable, wise, and worthy of honor!
  6. Wrinkles are wisdom!
    If you have acquired wrinkles, you MUST have also acquired some amount of wisdom. At the very least you remember history like it was yesterday. You remember what life was like before iPods and can regale the younger generation with quaint stories of what kids did before PlayStation 3. If you’ve really been paying attention or have garnered an education, you can teach people stuff-stuff they might really need to know!
  7. Wrinkles give you license to be silly again.
    Let’s face it. When you see a 4-year-old being silly, you think, “How cute!” When you see a 40-year-old being silly, you think, “What an idiot.” When you see a wrinkled old guy being silly, you think, “How cute!”
  8. Wrinkles are your ticket to free help.
    If a 29 y/o woman is having a hard time with her lawnmower, you’d rather not take a minute to help her get it started because, hey, you’re busy and her husband will get around to helping her…eventually. If you see an 80-year-old woman struggling to get her Christmas lights up, you’ll take three hours of your day to string them for her!
  9. Wrinkles mean you don’t get any more pimples!
    One of the great perks of getting wrinkles is that your face no longer breaks out! You don’t need to worry about those embarrassing blemishes due to oily skin when your face has dried up and turned raisin!
  10. Wrinkles allow you more time to have fun.
    Once you realize you’re no Farrah Fawcett (I know I’m dating myself) anymore, you can stop worrying about your looks and focus on the fun of life. Not having to worry about your makeup, the latest hairstyles, and your Jordache Jeans (now I’m REALLY dating myself) means you can wear what’s comfortable and have more time to enjoy life unimpeded by the bonds of high fashion!

You and I may not agree on politics, religion or even what to watch on TV, but I’ll bet we can forge one bond today and agree to declare to the rest of the world that wrinkles are desirable.

If you agree, forward this blog link to everyone you know, wrinkled and non-wrinkled. You don’t need to send it to 25 friends in the next five minutes, but if you do, you will have contributed 25 new giggles to the world! You will also have contributed to the beginning of the Wrinkle Movement.

Together we CAN rid the world of the stigma of wrinkles so that our children will grow up in a wrinkle friendly environment! Who’s with me?

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What CAN you do? – Part 2

Last week I shared with you my first step in focusing on what you can do rather than what you can’t. The next step in the process of asking yourself what CAN you do is to ask yourself what you are already doing that you could put more of your energy into.

There are a few reasons this helps:
1. It gives you a purpose and that gives your life meaning.
2. It allows you to put your focus more on positive things.
3. The less free time you give yourself, the less time you will find your mind wandering to negative thoughts.
4. The less free time you have, the less time you have to dwell on what you can’t do because you’re doing great things!
5. The more you do for others, the more joy you will feel and the more you will know you are not useless!

In order to put more of your focus or time into things that give your life more meaning, you may need to focus less on things that don’t. Do you have a task you’ve taken on that you don’t need to be doing? Did you start a side business, but have no energy for it? Have you been doing something you thought you needed to continue, but the Lord has been asking you to give it up? Now would be the time to review and make changes in order to do more of what already brings you joy and gives joy to others.

To that end, what are you doing now that you could put more of your energy and focus into?
1. Job?
2. Kids?
3. Church?
4. Online ministry?
5. Online business?
6. Art?
7. Writing?
8. Blogging?

Well, that’s it for step two. I’ll be back next week with step three!

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What CAN You Do? – Part 1

Chronic illness takes so much away from you that your thoughts often dwell on what you can’t do anymore. I can’t work. I can’t go out today. I can’t clean the house. I can’t do for my kids. I can’t help the church. I can’t help a friend. I can’t feel useful. And that right there is the cause of sadness and even deep depression.

But it doesn’t have to be. I’ve felt that way myself, but I have developed some habits that have helped me to get out of that funk and feel useful which, in turn, increases the joy I feel day to day.

It all started with a question I asked myself. “What CAN you do?” You see, I had many times when I felt like I was too tired to DO anything. Too brain fogged to THINK of anything. Too overwhelmed to make any sense. And yet, I always found SOMEthing I could do that would make a difference, that would be positive, that would be of value to…someone, anyone.

There are four parts to this process and I’m going to cover one part per week this month. The first step is to think less about what you can’t do and more about what you CAN do. It sounds simple. It’s not. It is the hardest step in the process, but it’s worth every effort.

So many devotionals I’ve read and so many of the PMA books out there are like the Just Say No campaign. Just think positive. Just be thankful. People have it so much worse than you! Well, it may be true, but it isn’t helpful, especially when you’re in the throws of despair or you are still grieving the loss of your old life.

But there are several things that can help you to begin to think this way and here they are in no particular order. Do the ones that speak to you. Use the ones that you can and see if you can start others later as you begin to heal from the overwhelm.

  1. Start a gratitude journal
    You don’t have to publicize it. Just write down one thing each day that you are grateful for. One new item each day. Then, after a week, look back on it. After a month, after a year… The more you see in your journal, the more you realize just how blessed you are even if you do have big things to deal with.
  2. Find the humor in life’s other struggles
    I can’t tell you how many times I have had little weird things happen. These little weird things didn’t always seem really little to me at the time. But later on, I found them to be much smaller than the illnesses and conditions I face and so I now see them as not as important. I see them more as inconveniences that are kind of funny…sometimes at the time!
  3. Compare the size of the other struggles to your big ones
    If you can’t find the humor in the other struggles that come along or you still get upset when things are compounded by all life’s glitches, you can try comparing the big struggles to the little short-lived ones.

    You’re already tired and in pain, but you go to the kitchen to make dinner for your family and the oven knob falls off in your hand. You pick up the pot and the handle falls off. About this time, you’re probably thinking that someone is out to get you.

    You’re frustrated and angry, but what if you could stop and think about the size of these issues as compared with your bigger struggles, the size of your love for your family, and the blessings you have despite the problems you are in? What if you looked around and asked yourself, “Where’s Alan Fundt? Am I on Candid Camera? What if you saw the humor in it. What if you skipped to the part where you put the handles back on and that problem was solved?
  4. Think about how the Lord might be leading you to better things
    My husband was fired several years ago from a job we moved to Indiana for. We had to move out of the house we were going to buy. Because of that move, my new doctor wanted to check to see if a huge fibroid I had in my uterus was still there–even though in all likelihood, it was gone due to my age. The fibroid was gone, but a cyst on my ovary was found instead. Surgery to remove that cyst and the fallopian tube attached to it revealed a rare and aggressive cancer in its infancy.

    If it were not for that series of events starting with that job loss, I’d be dead now. Sometimes bad things lead to good things. Sometimes we are privileged to know about them. Sometimes we are not. So, if you don’t see it, just think about how it MIGHT have benefited you. It sure did for me!

Remember, this is the step that takes the most time, but the good news is that you can do them simultaneously with the other steps…which I will discuss in the coming weeks.

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