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“Life will break you” quote Louise Erdrich
“Life will break you.
Nobody can protect you from that,
and living alone won’t either,
for solitude will also break you with its yearning.
You have to love.
You have to feel.
It is the reason you are here on earth.
You are here to risk your heart.
You are here to be swallowed up.
And when it happens that you are broken,
or betrayed, or left, or hurt,
or death brushes near,
let yourself sit by an apple tree
and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps,
wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
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It’s the love that hurts the most: Poem
~It’s the love that hurts the most~
Is that you?
Is that your voice I heard whispering to me last night?
In a dream,
In a nightmare,
In a moment, I felt you again.
I rolled around in the sticky sickly pieces of our past.
I awoke covered in your aftermath.
Threatened by your promises,
Violence to my heart,
The remnants of our love still cut me,
Shards slice through my consciousness,
Ripping me apart.
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A Season of Waiting
Waiting is never a simple task. If you ask me if I am a patient person, I will say that I am patient with others, but have difficulty being patient with myself.
You might be waiting for an important test result to come in, for doctors to finally diagnose you after years of unexplained illness, for the medication trial to become available, or you might be waiting to see if your surgery heals without additional complications. You might be waiting for a loved one to return safely from a dangerous trip overseas, for important news about your finances, or you might be waiting to see if your friend will recover from cancer.
Waiting is a helpless feeling, no matter how much we can “help” the situation…the feeling that we are not the ones in control of the outcome makes us feel useless. Not knowing the outcome causes anxious, nervous impatient feelings that, for me come in waves which are accompanied by a racing mind.
For a person who started out bread to be the go-to person for fixing and fast problem solving, it seems life instead has been teaching me about patience, seeking guidance and waiting out storms. Instead of giving me problems to solve, I have problems that can only be solved through the healing of time.
Even though it is a useless feeling to wait, wait, wait, I don’t believe in waiting we are supposed to throw our hands up and stop seeking guidance. There are always more calls we can make, more specialists we can see, ways we can take care of our health, and people we can reach out to. But, if you have been waiting on something that weighs on your heart, there is only so much you can do to push the pace of the answer you so desire. Sometimes we can spin ourselves into a frenzy trying to get the answer we want to come to us faster, when some things are out of our hands. Praying, quietly seeking guidance and listening are also useful actions- though exceedingly more difficult to choose.
I am waiting for some very important answers in my life right now…Some answers that will forever change life as I know it to be. Maybe you remember a stretch of time like that from your past, and how you felt. How did you fill those long days waiting for tomorrow? Because of so many years of chronic illness, it feels as though waiting has been a regular part of life. Life with chronic illness teaches us to find the good, useful, and gratitude inside of the seemingly unlivable. These years of health struggles have taught me to lean into my faith and seek spiritual guidance. I am so grateful for the support and wisdom from those I respect, and I hope to be molded during this trial – what is God teaching me in this moment? …Because nothing is ever wasted.
Earlier this year, I wrote that “strength comes at the step we are on. Not weeks or months ahead.” As I work on waiting, and asking for patience, I try not to dwell on what challenges might come tomorrow. If you remember, my opening post for 2015 was a “No Fear Campaign.” It makes me want to shake my head when I think of the year God has been preparing me for!
About waiting, many say, “Just give it to God” as though it is as simple as forgetting about your heartache with your spouse, or your worries with your family, or your daily physical struggle with health that I know so many reading this are living with. I’m sorry if anyone has said that to you without compassion for what you are going through.
The past couple weeks have felt like an avalanche in many ways. When all of the rubble and dirt fell over me, and I went sliding down the hillside into the valley with the mound, even though I’m covered in a whole pile of dark unanswered questions, underneath, I’m praying, and studying, and being still (listening). Hopefully, this trial of waiting will lead to growth from that soil and rubble. My story is not finished. God is not through with me. Waiting is not doing nothing, waiting can be the most growing period in a person’s life. I am asking to be transformed during a time in limbo.
What did you do or what did you learn while you were in a season of limbo?
“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is “timing”
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”
― Fulton J. Sheen
“But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
“What we are waiting for is not as important as what happens to us while we are waiting. Trust the process.”
― Mandy Hale
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If I Ask You For More: poem
~If I Ask You For More~
If I ask you for more, are you sure that’s ok?
Will you break into pieces?
Will you just blow away?
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If I ask you for more, are you sure that’s ok?
Will it eat up inside of you until your heart turns gray?
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If I ask you for more, are you sure that’s ok?
Would you think me a burden and pack me away?
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If I ask you for more, are you sure that’s ok?
If I’m not the same person, will you leave or you stay?
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If I ask you for more, will WE be ok?
Can you just take my hand and sit with me today?
–a Body of Hope
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Today is Caregiver Appreciation Day. Let those who have supported you along your journey know how much they have meant to you.
Please visit Maria Jose’s Etsy shop for a wide selection of heartfelt multicultural drawings and unique gifts. Check her treasures out and purchase something for the holidays!
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Don’t Come Crying to Me: How can Pain make us Better Friends?
Sometimes those of us who have had very serious struggles can have some hang ups when it’s time to show compassion to our friends. Not all of us, and not always, but there are those times when our friends or family are facing difficulties and we end up doing or saying the very things we complain about people doing/saying to us when we are in need of support.
Why don’t we know better? Spoonies may even be the worst at this. Has anyone ever said, “I shouldn’t be complaining to you about my little ______.” I have come to believe that this is a problem. If anyone should be hearing out someone’s difficult day of not feeling well or emotionally struggling, don’t you think it should be someone who can empathize with feeling crummy? Yes, even if it’s a cold!
We who have gone through our daily battles, we who have lived in survival mode on and off for so long, and then when a loved one falls into his/her own valley: shouldn’t we be the best people for the job of lending an ear? But in stead, we listen to that little voice that says, “Are they kidding me with this?” Or, we try to give them our sage advice to protect them from what is coming. We may know some of what they are facing, but we aren’t them. They have a unique struggle, isolated from ours. Their pain, however similar or maybe seemingly less than ours, is relative to their own experiences in life. A struggle or illness that is tearing someone’s world apart, however lower on the pain scale we believe it is- still is shattering his/her life into pieces in ways we may never understand, and in ways we may never face. (see Proportional Pain and My Guilty Genes)
After surviving so many challenges, we often view others’ battles through the lenses of our own lives. Sometimes we go further than relating and into the realm of “been there lived that, bought a T-shirt.” Remember how, “I COMPLETELY understand” feels when someone says it to you on a bad day? It can feel even more isolating.
But we often do understand so many challenges because we have walked such a painful road of our own. We want to make sure our friends know they are not alone. We can be close by emotionally, available, and most of all: COMPASSIONATE. We don’t need to remind them how much pain we also have felt, or how many times we have been in their shoes. We don’t need to compare horror stories or solve their problems every time they have an issue we believe we can solve. Compassion is the language that tells your loved one that they are not walking their harsh road alone.
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I have to confess that this was written in response to a few of my own very dear loved ones recently facing some challenges. I fear I am guilty of failing them in all of the above ways in attempts to “help” when I should be the one person who knows how to handle their pain and grief, shouldn’t I? However, they have been teaching, growing experiences that I am thankful for. In the beginning years of my illness, I used to get secretly annoyed with people for even talking about their allergies in my presence. But now, I want to be the person people come to for comfort. I pray I can continue learning to be a humble, caring, compassionate friend for those I love so much.
“If pain doesn’t lead to humility, you have wasted your suffering.”
-Katerina S. Klemer
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Passengers by Elle Moss
Thank you to Elle Moss Conceptual Fine Art Photography
Please go purchase one of her lovely original prints for your home or gifts. She has so many whimsical, seasonal and Autumn images to choose from.
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Love Yourself Hard
Get ready to be inspired. (Grab a tissue). Had to re-blog this:
My darling friend (codename Salarcon) is consistently more joyful than many of us put together. She has her struggles, as do all of us, but she has an incredible peace in the midst of those struggles, as do few of us.
She is also a Poetry Slam Goddess and host of a new YouTube poetry program, and her recent poem (below) is about joy — whatever the circumstances.
Life is short, my friends. Whether you are concerned about your orientation or you child’s, or falsely afraid that God does not love you or approve of you, or afraid you somehow do not deserve to be at the table with everyone else, please. You don’t have to do that to yourself.
It’s time to love yourself… hard.
Enjoy Salarcon’s poem… ❤
“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day
Whether it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of…”
May 3rd
Amanda dances…
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aBodyofHope 