rainingviolets

It's too bad you can't give the little darling a personality test ahead of time. Attitude is everything. We've had lots of cats pass through our doors over the years- mostly strays that adopted us. Some were so laid-back and easy-going all they diid all day was sleep and stare out window. They used the farm fields for their potty, ate cheap cat food and table scraps, and adored us. The cat we have now is a rescue and she is a demanding diva. She will eat only one brand of pricey cat food (for kitties with sensitive tummies). She suffers from treat insecurity so treats must be visibly placed in a certain location for whenever her ladyship desires them. Water dish must be kept full, the bottom of her food dish must never be visible, and litter box must always be clean. At the stroke of sunrise the kitchen and living rooms drapes must be opened. If she decides at 3:00 a.m. that it is time to get up, trust me, she'll make sure we know she is ready to start her day. If any of her living conditions are not met, she will howl and meow loudly until she gets her way. Definitely a diva. For a cat that was discarded as a kitten in a country road in a cold autumn rainstorm, she is one fortunate feline. I do dearly adore her, though.

I was concerned when I first read what this was about! I'm glad it was just the battery. My one and only ride in a cop car was EXTREMELY memorable: An intern who did not speak English well took over my regularly-scheduled psychiatrist's appointment one afternoon. In our casual chit chat as we started the session we were discussing the upcoming holidays. I mentioned making "lists" for all the things I had to do for Christmas. Dr. Bozo-who-can't-understand-English thinks I'm making my lists of what to do before I off myself and calls in the big docs who promptly "pink-slip" me as a suicide risk. The cops show up, put me in handcuffs, and haul me off to the psych ward. The story is actually much longer and definitely more entertaining, but you get the idea. So, I got the ride AND the handcuffs.

The best gift I was ever blessed with is repression. The more that is uncovered, the more I realize what an incredible gift it is.

Wow! How beautiful! I'm jealous. My friend in Kentucky texted me photos of the annuals she had potted outside for spring already. It will be a long time before the weather will allow that here. My husband hung the porch swing in our pavilion by the pond for me on Wednesday because we had a few nice days, and then yesterday we had freezing rain, sleet, and snow. You'd think someone who grew up in Buffalo could handle Ohio winters, but I'm too old for this. My younger grandkids are obsessed with trains, so for the past month I've been planning out the railroad for my big fairy garden. I was really getting into it until some wise guy told me "fairies don't ride, they fly,"

"bang the bad guy"????? WHAT???? I have to go with June on this one. Listen to yourself! I wouldn't let my daughters near you!

I'm sorry you're having a hard time. I recently shared this illustration with a friend who is going through a horrible medical crisis with her husband along with several emotional and financial issues. Maybe it will encourage you, too. Have you ever heard of Kintsugi? The literal translation of the word is "golden joinery." It is an ancient method of Japanese art used for mending broken pottery. The shattered pieces are put back together and secured with gold (sometimes silver or plantinum), but it is widely known for its gold artistry. The process is used to highlight the history of a piece - to tell its story. The idea behind it is that broken pieces and cracks in any object's history are to be embraced. They are part of the unique beauty of an object that make it a precious, priceless art treasure. The philosophy behind it is "Broken things aren't to be hidden, they are to be displayed with pride." As the shattered fragments of the pottery are fit back together, the pieces are secured with a gold mixture. When completed, an art object more incredible and valuable than the original unflawed piece remains. If you've ever seen pottery repaired using this technique, it's gorgeous. There's an analogy here. The lovely pottery becomes more beautiful and treasured because of its brokenness and cracks. We are refined through our dark times, hurts, and struggles. Two kinds of healing, yet similar. It reminds me of the song Refiner's Fire. The fire makes us come forth as gold, pure gold. We each have our own special story. We have our own unique scars and wounds created through our painful and traumatic experiences. Much of the hidden beauty in our lives is revealed through our brokenness and scars. "Sometimes in the process of repairing things that have broken, we actually create something more unique, beautiful and resilient." -Candace Kumai Sadly, the world has taken this simple imagery I love so much and tried to distort it into a hocus pocus worldview of psychic mumbo jumbo healing. I'll stick with the ancient craft and meaning. I know through personal experience that as we are going through heartaches and trials it is difficult to see the big picture of our life - the purpose and the meaning those hard times serve in the tapestry God is creating. I have spent a lot of time in the fiery furnace of life. I know problems are to be expected. That's a lesson it took me several long, painful decades to learn. Somedays I feel like I need a refresher course, but for the most part I think that I finally comprehend that "Those who sow in tears will reap with joyful shouting." Psalm126:5. Thinking of you! -m

"Christ can do wonders with a broken heart if given all the pieces." - Anonymous "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." Romans 12:2 "Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope." - Thomas Carlyle "Letting go is a process. We first look at events honestly; then learn to understand their power, and finally, use that new understanding to move confidently into brighter days." - Sandra Aldrich "Asking is the rule of the Kingdom" - Charles Spurgeon. "There is no medicine like hope, no incentive since great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow." - O. S. Martin "Lord, may I not lose today's joy because I'm concentrating on today's chaos!" Hello and thank you for providing your email address. There are forum rules about what we can say and share as far as faith is concerned. I also don't visit here often any more, so if we do "talk", it will make communication easier. You sound like you are emotionally struggling - something people here can relate to. I come from an abusive, dysfunctional background, have had an eating disorder since I was a teen, and know the pain of child loss (although nothing on the grand scale you have). I can not comprehend the depth of your grief from losing a child you have loved for so many years. One of my biggest battles was dealing with my self worth and body image as all I heard from my toxic family my entire life was that I was worthless garbage and the world would have been better off if I had never been born. It took me a long time and it was a difficult lesson to learn, but I know today my life has purpose and value, and so does yours. When I look in the mirror I see a daughter of the King. As a Christian who belongs to Christ, you are, too. I'll email you later and look forward to talking with you. 💜

I've wondered if you were still into plants. You used to be pretty passionate about it. We all used to enjoy you telling us about the new seedlings you were trying or the progress they all were making. I think we even might have tried to help you think of a name for your greenhouse (?). It's too sad you lost some of your plants. Even if you don't plan to sell them I think you should still grow them. In the past few years I've learned that my gardens (in the words of Marie Kondo, "spark my joy"). Working in them definitely increases my pain, but it's worth it. The satisfaction of doing something I enjoy, passing the time tending my gardens listening to good music, meditating, praying, or just relishing the peace, and always the joy of witnessing the day-to-day growth and blossoming beauty and color - it's the best! Your plants are more than just a hobby...or at least they used to be. A couple of years ago my granddaughter and I decided to transform one of my bigger flowerbeds into a fairy garden. It turned into a family project that has grown and grown. It's probably one of the biggest fairy gardens in the country. It includes a beach, a school with a playground, a baseball field with a game in progress, a large farm, all sorts of interesting neighborhoods, superheroes (I do have mostly grandsons), all sorts of ridiculous fairy highjinks, a variety of birdhouses, lots of perennials, and much more. I was going to put in a train, but I'm out of room. This spring I'm changing part of the vegetable garden into a cottage garden. You should keep growing plants as your gift to yourself.

I don't know if you noticed, but I replied to an earlier post of yours and then removed it. I deleted it for two reasons. The first is that I decided to stop posting. Someone in my life discovered I am here and can easily tell by what I say who I am. I thought I was past the point of caring, but apparently not. When this happened before I'd leave for awhile and then come back and start over again with a new username. I'm over it. I'd just rather be quiet. The second reason I deleted my reply was that it was preachy. Before I became a Christian I had been preached at and lectured by well-meaning fanatics - the kind who shout from street corners and hit people with their Bibles insisting they repent. I promised myself I would never be like that. I want people to see the difference in my life by how I live, not by my words. I fear I've become that proselytizing nut on DF I said I'd never be, so that is another reason I decided to stop posting...and why I removed what I replied to you. But (you had to know a "but" was coming), as I've continued to read the comments posted I've wished instead of deleting my entire reply, that I'd just taken out the Bible verses and the preachy parts. This may be my last post here at DF, but I really feel in my heart I need to tell this story. Not just for you, but for everyone here. I will try my hardest to leave out all the biblical stuff: A long time ago, when I arrived as an 18 year-old on my college campus, I was a complete mess. The girl who would become my best friend continues to describe who I was as a "broken, shattered person." A traumatic, abusive past and my toxic family had left me convinced that I was a stupid, ugly, fat, worthless piece of garbage who would never amount to anything. I had no self-confidence and a massive inferiority complex. One of the first things I did as a college freshman was paint my dorm room walls a unique pattern of purple. I loved purple. Over the next several months, my friend used those purple walls as an object lesson to teach me one of the most important lessons of my life. Instead of the Bible, I will quote the U.S. Constitution. "All men are created equal." It doesn't say that smarter or prettier or thinner or people who live in nicer homes or who get bigger paychecks have more value. It doesn't say that if you have a diagnosis your neighbors find icky that you have less value than they do. In the eyes of our government, and (please indulge me) in the eyes of God, we are all the same. We are equal with the same worth and value. My friend would ask me, "If I tell you that your wall is red, does that make it red?" Of course not. It was obviously purple. She'd say, "If I insist that your wall is blue, does that make it blue?" She was getting silly. The wall was still purple. She would then flip me own narrative on me and ask me why I thought I was so "special." Special? Terrible, awful me? There was nothing special about me and I had never said there was! Wrong! If all of us are created equal with the same worth and value EXCEPT ME, then I was saying that I was special. But just saying that I was different from everyone else...or the fact that people had told me my entire life that I had no worth or value...did NOT make it true. It did not change the fact that I still had just as much worth and value as any other person. Then she would tell me, "You are STILL purple." Friends, we are not our diagnosis. We are not jobs. We are not our paycheck. We are not a number on the scale. And we are definitely not the terrible things the toxic, abusive people in our lives try to brainwash us to believe. Life is precious. You are precious. You have great worth and value. That doesn't mean that we don't have bad days and that many of us will go through trials that others will never have to face. But none of the externals of life change your great worth. Please try to remember that! Please try to be kind to yourselves! Give yourselves some grace! Try to remember that each one of you is purple! And since this may be my last opportunity to say anything, these verses are relevant here: Psalm 139:14 "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Psalm 139:16 "You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." "That God creates and ordains the days of each human life gives significance and value to each life." - Stephen J. Cole 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

I've been listening to more music lately. I put away the CDs with the ocean sounds and the rhythms of nature and white noise and pink noise and I'm rediscovering the beauty that the perfect words bring to the perfect melody. It covers me in goosebumps how people who don't know me write as if they were pulling their poetic words of pain, wonder, and love right out of my heart. I came across "that song" again yesterday. I assume everyone comes across one of those songs sooner or later. That specific song where every single word seems as if it were directed at you. That song that hurts so bad to hear it, but you keep listening to it over and over again because it feels so good to hurt so bad. The song that turns on the tears and twists the heart...the song that when you hear those first 3 bars you freeze-in-motion to not miss a single word. Many years ago, the first time I heard the song I struggled to breathe. The pain in my chest was so sharp that if I looked down I wouldn't have been surprised to see a knife sticking out of it. But then the song was over and I promptly forgot all about it until I heard it again. This time I felt the full meaning of the words wash over me. Gently it tapped into all sorts of grief I thought I'd long ago released. I listened as the daughter whose little girl bruises and scars of lost innocence I thought had long ago healed but I still wondered why. The words spoke to me as a mother who had lost one child... and then another...and who had somehow learned to navigate through a world of pink and blue laughter and well-meaning friends who kept nudging me to "just get over it." Mostly, I heard the words as a child of God who many times has been in a place where I had no strength to hold on, but found rest knowing His grip is tireless. It is a song of sorrow, but also of hope. It's a song that is difficult - or so I've been told - for some listeners to grasp the meaning of the first time they hear it. My CD had long ago been passed to my daughter...she then passed it back to me. The words mean so much to me...because I finally understand what it means to be held. "My faith cannot protect me from pain, but my faith provides me with healing...He didn't promise everything would be easy, but when everything fell, we would be held." HELD by Christa Wells, sung by Natalie Grant Two months is too little, They let him go. They had no sudden healing. To think that providence would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling. Who told us we'd be rescued? What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares? We're asking why this happens to us who have died to live? It's unfair. This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved, and to know that the promise was when everything fell we'd be held. This hand is bitterness. We want to taste it, let the hatred numb our sorrow. The wise hand opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow. This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved and to know that the promise was that when everything fell we'd be held. If hope is born of suffering, if this is only the beginning, can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior? This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive. This is what it is to be loved and to know that the promise was when everything fell we'd be held. We'd be held. This is what it is to be loved. And to know that the promise was when everything fell we'd be held. This is what it means to be held. "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." - Deuteronomy 33:27

I understand the being surrounded by toxic people (my life has certainly had its share of them), but not ever having a positive people experience seems heartbreaking. You must be an extremely strong person. Without the good people I've encountered along the years of my difficult life, I would have given up long, long ago.

I know sugar is bad for a person, and I admire both you and Nightjar for being able to eliminate it, but I have no desire to even try. Sugar (primarily in the form of really good chocolate) puts a smile on my face and a song in my heart. My husband knows I'll take chocolate over diamonds any day.

I think you've made some real progress already. First, you've admitted to yourself that you're unhappy and you realize you have a problem. Second, you've taken the step in verbalizing here (even though you can't actually "see" us) what you've admitted to yourself. Since you say that talking to others is an issue for you, I'd say that alone is pretty huge. Congratulate yourself. The next step is one that just about everyone here has taken. For many of us it was extremely difficult. The people here can be great listeners and can give pretty good feedback and wonderful support. But none of us are qualified counselors or therapists and we can't write prescriptions. We can offer free words, friendship, and encouragement. At some point most of us got to a point of pain or realization or absolute desperation when we knew we needed outside help. Only you will know when you reach that point. It literally took me decades. After a childhood of abuse, trauma, and dysfunction left me a broken person, I struggled through many years until eventually I suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, depersonalization, suicidal ideations, an eating disorder, chronic insomnia, night terrors, flashbacks, and "landing somewhere along the dissociative spectrum", along with a long list of chronic pain disorders and physical illnesses resulting from the overwhelming stress in my life. When I was "pink slipped" - psych talk for mandatory psychiatric hospitalization - I was finally ready to admit I needed help. It took medication, an incredible family doctor, an understanding husband and children, and lots of time, but today that shattered person no longer exists. I tried therapy, but as my doctor says, I'm not a therapy person because I think too logically. I no longer need the help of meds for my emotional problems. I still have bad days and will always struggle with chronic pain issues, but I am the poster child for The Emotionally Unstable Can Survive. When you're ready, take that next step. It can be scary, but medication can help. Therapy has done wonders for many people. Until then, we're here to listen. Keep posting. 💜

Mine are all character issues - be more patient, kind, understanding, and loving...and definitely to complain and whine less!