Category: Health

The Comedy of My Panic Attack

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Thursday we flew out to Las Vegas to celebrate our wedding anniversary. My son and beautiful daughter-in-love were flying in to meet us there as well. We boarded the prop plane and sat down. I had my ipad with books loaded and a magazine for the few moments that you can’t have it powered on. I was excited because I was going to see Donny and Marie that evening. I think I’ve confessed several times that I had a major crush on him as a little girl.

Then it happened. The door of the plane closed and I heard the pilot’s voice. “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to have a bumpy flight about 25 minutes into our flight due to the heat and the clouds over the Sierra Nevada. Please make sure  your seatbelt is securely fastened and we’ll try to get above the clouds and make your ride as smooth as possible.” I don’t have a clue as to what happened within me but I had a panic attack. I looked at Doug and said, “Should we get out? We can drive.” He laughed and said, “Noooo, we’ll be fine.”

There were maybe 30 people on the flight. We take off and it’s smooth so I begin to breathe. We have some maybe normal dips but in my head, in that moment they are huge. My heart is beating so hard. So I begin to self talk:

Ok, just breathe, you don’t want to be on the news as the lady who made the flight turn around. Just breathe.

Susan seriously! Your dad piloted a four seater in the desert of Tucson. You’ve sat in the back seat eating snacks when it felt like a roller coaster.

Yes but you were a kid. Children don’t think in terms of death.

What if I never get to see Donny Osmond?

Wait! Pray! You know how to pray! Dear Heavenly Father, please don’t let anyone be on this flight whose time is up. Okay, and if by chance I’m on a plane with someone whose time is up, don’t let me feel the crash. Knock me out or whatever you have to do. Or better yet, send Jesus to catch me, that would be cool, but whatever you do, if it’s my time, let me wake up in your arms secure in knowing you are with me. But yeah, if I get a choice, I want to land in Vegas and go to the show tonight. In Jesus Name!

He’s coming on the clouds, so lift your head up, lift your head up, lift your head up. (This is a Deluge song, don’t ask I have no idea!)

Dr. Myles Munroe says you should take authority. You’re an ambassador, a daughter of the King. Take authority of the birds of the air. Yes, that’s it, it’s a modern day bird. I’ll take authority over it.

Why can’t we just be in the Millennial Reign already? Paul says these are tents we live in, that’s why we need airplanes. Once Jesus died he got his mansion body and he could transport himself. I’d never have to worry about falling out of the sky. Plus, I would KNOW Donny Osmond because he believes in Jesus.

Okay, we are not only bouncing we are fish tailing.

Wait! Who am I kidding? The bible says “Lo, I am with you.” I shouldn’t even be on an airplane. It’s anything but low.

All of this was going on in my head and then right about then, we landed.

Life is a ride my friend, don’t take it so seriously. The flight home was probably more bumpy. I had seen Donny Osmond, spent time with my kids, and Doug was snoring so loud people were turning to look at him. There were other cares to pray about but we won’t go there!

It’s a Matter of Priorities

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An Aesop Fable:

THE ANTS were spending a fine winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?” He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”

Translated by George Fyler Townsend. Aesop’s Fables (p. 17). Amazon Digital Services, Inc..

So often we put things off that need to be done. Then we scramble to see who has worked for provision so we can mooch. Bail outs often only hinder progression and foster slavery.

I’ve Created My Own Prison

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We learn through pain that some of the things we thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can’t find the door.

Lamott, Anne (2012-11-13). Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (p. 37). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

Trapped verb
1. a contrivance used for catching game or other animals, as a mechanical device that springs shut suddenly.
2. any device, stratagem, trick, or the like for catching a person unawares.

That ideal that once seemed so right is now the very thing that holds you hostage to its demands. It’s a scary place to be, sometimes lonely, sometimes heartbreaking, and always a place that you can move from, but always with consequences. Consequences that will be good and bad because there is always pursuit in a prison breakout. Only you can determine when you are willing to face those consequences.

My girlfriend’s husband recently was promoted in his job. The money is fabulous but it doesn’t make up for the fact that he is working 12-14+ hour days, comes home after the children are asleep and leaves before they wake up. “This is too great a price to pay”, she told me, “I never have time with him and if I selfishly envision a date with my husband, I take a father away from the precious few moments he may have with his children.” When I asked her why he didn’t just take a step down in position she said, “We bought a new car, leased a beach house for the month of July, and put the kids in private school, we couldn’t even consider it now.”

Seemingly trapped without a door of escape.

An acquaintance who began dating a man who was still married but separated from his wife. Dating for almost two years now, but he hasn’t filed for divorce. She’s well invested into this relationship now. She loves him and he says he cares for her but he’s in counseling with his wife.

The fairytale that has trapped the princess in the tower.

My stepmom friend who fell in love with him before he met his kids and crazy ex-wife. Then thought somehow love was going to cover it all. Now everyone is miserable.

Locked in a state of despair.

Then there I stand. Trapped in an ideal, up until last year, where I thought any time sitting down relaxing was wasted time. Headaches and heartache and stress and anxiety were so normal to me.

I decided to take a Milwaukee Super Sawzall to that mindset and I cut a hole for a door to walk out of the castle I had built. I can’t tell you it was easy. I can’t tell you that I don’t still have moments of anxiety where I hear myself try to coax my body into one more activity. These days I stop and I take a good look at what the cost will be, and I pray for the wisdom to know what the right thing to do is, even when I am afraid the answer is no and I desperately want a yes.

Laying It Down

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There’s freedom in hitting bottom, in seeing that you won’t be able to save or rescue your daughter, her spouse, his parents, or your career, relief in admitting you’ve reached the place of great unknowing. This is where restoration can begin, because when you’re still in the state of trying to fix the unfixable, everything bad is engaged: the chatter of your mind, the tension of your physiology, all the trunks and wheel-ons you carry from the past. It’s exhausting, crazy-making.

Lamott, Anne (2012-11-13). Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (p. 14). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

Have you ever just had to lay your burdens down? I mean I know it sounds dramatic but there is something so freeing in the surrender. Something about the Be still and know that I am God, process of life. (Psalm 46:10). When you just kind of look up at the sky and say,

“I can’t figure this one out, you’ll have to kick in some help here. I know You know, and I know You’ve been waiting for me to give up, so I’m crying uncle.” 

I wish I could tell you that magically it happens in an instant and a remedy comes but it doesn’t usually work out that way for me. Sometimes it seems as if I’ve taken a number and I’m waiting at the DMV of heaven for one of the clerks to make sure my paperwork is correct just to send me to wait in the next line. Slowly but surely the answers come. Not always in the form I would like but  here is where it gets tricky, I have begun to trust it’s the form that is intended. Even when I don’t like it. Even when I don’t understand it. Even when it makes me mad.

I talked to someone recently who said she can’t come to church because she’s mad at God for making her go through some things she doesn’t feel are fair. I smiled and said nothing. Maybe I should have been God’s defender but I figure God is dealing with her just as he is dealing with me and maybe she has to walk it out just as I do. Sometimes despite what people say, your testimony just sounds like a political speech. I simply pray for her for the most part. Other times, I go through scenarios of what I could have said. “Why are you special?” “Oh, so it’s okay for others to go through this but not you?” Only that isn’t effective is it?

I wish I could tell you that I’ve mastered the secret of surrender and I have 5 easy steps for you to follow. I don’t. I know I do roll over and show my belly a lot easier than I used to. Maybe it’s age, or maybe I might have learned a thing or two. I do know this: Worrying gives me a headache and doesn’t make the answer come faster. Instead laying it down, clearing my agenda, and waiting as patiently as I can seems to be working.

Even Birds Do It

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Think of the now ubiquitous “failure to launch” syndrome of those twenty- or thirty-somethings still living with their parents. They cannot end childhood and fully enter adulthood. But the bigger issue is often the parents’ inability to end the pattern and stop the toxic dependency by pushing the grown “kid” out of the nest. They refuse to end their “helping” role, which is not in fact helping.

Cloud, Henry (2011-01-18). Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward (p. 11). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The book Necessary Endings will clarify things for you. I read it at a moment of desperation and eliminated and limited detrimental things in my life, even clutter both physical and mental because the wisdom penetrated that deeply. However, this thought made me stop reading for over 24 hours as I processed the concept and tried to figure out the why.

There is an idolatry of ourselves going on these days and it manifests in the control of our children. We have determined that our child is the smartest, brightest, most likely to succeed (even if I have to do it for you), brilliant, talented, moral, beautiful, and end all to all humanity. Cancer has not been remedied, nor wars ended simply because our child has not reached that age of maturity YET. But fear not world! Our child will git-ur-dun. Oh, and by the way, if you don’t like my child? Well, you’re just a hater who wishes your child was as good as mine.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only woman on the planet who thinks her children are smart and they are one of many smart children, but my measure is are they good kids? I think my kids are good looking but so are so many other people but are their hearts right with God?  I love my kids but life is life, consequences are consequences and  I knew one day I would push them out of the nest so that they can either fly, or fall to the ground. So far my stats are decent. Two have launched willingly, two have been launched, all have flown. Only, the verdict isn’t in yet because I hear sometimes they boomerang.

We could just chalk this failure to launch thing to the economy, to immaturity, to a variety of factors but the statistics are that suicides and homicides are climbing, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, drug usage, and STD’s are at an all time high among our kids. Something is wrong. What is it?

Could it be that in this consumer driven, all about me culture that we live in we fear that our children’s failure reflects on us?

Therefore, propping them up in whatever capacity we can alleviates the self-inflicted embarrassment that is thrust on us. We have to have the best kid  and provide the best privilege because we are the best parents.

If you think I’m wrong watch how it plays out. I’ve seen parents of adult children throw their grandchildren on the altar of their ego manifested in their child. We all watched it play out with the Casey Anthony case. We aren’t doing it for the child’s sake. We’re doing it for ourselves. We have created an image of ourselves and the statues that we worship resemble the faces of our children because they look like ours. None of us have to watch TV to see how this plays out. We need only to look in our own homes and those of our community to see the reality.

Cry Out Help

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This is part 3 of 3. To read part 2 Click Here

And we don’t understand a lot of things. But we learn that people are very disappointing, and that they break our hearts, and that very sweet people will be bullied, and that we will be called to survive unsurvivable losses, and that we will realize with enormous pain how much of our lives we’ve already wasted with obsessive work or pleasing people or dieting. We will see and read about deprivation and barbarity beyond our ability to understand, much less process. Side by side with all that, we will witness transformation, people finding out who they were born to be, before their parents pretzelized them into high achievers and addicts and charming, wired robots. 

Lamott, Anne (2012-11-13). Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers (p. 24). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.

We proceeded on the road to file civil charges to add to the felony charges and the thief returned the money to get us to drop the filing of the civil charges. We agreed to this because after all the felony charges are what’s important. Some felt we should have gone to the legal system to ask them to drop the charges but a wise friend asked me an extremely important and very poignant question:

“So you’re thinking of dropping the charges so that what? He can go to his next job and steal from them? What will be your accountability to the next employer because you will be accountable, just as everyone who doesn’t hold him accountable to, at minimum, an apology will be held accountable when he does it again.”

To say this was powerful was NO JOKE. Do I want to be accountable for his next robbery? Without godly sorrow we continue on the path to destruction. Evil was allowed to live in the camp because we have a distorted view of what it means to be a Christian. Did I want to contribute or did I want to get off the ride? Yes I want off the ride, because it was nauseatingly painful to watch the ripping apart of friendships.

I went into a time of reclusivity and prayer and just as my faith demanded I cried for help.  Just as God promised, he was quick to issue the balm to soothe the wounds, the strategy to combat evil, and the lesson so that it doesn’t happen again. Life Happens.

Mistaken Seasons

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Gary Crabbe http://www.enlightphoto.com

It’s the celebration of harvest season in the valley. We’re having parades and festivals to mark the bounty that the Lord has bestowed on us. The cotton fields are completely white with cotton that will be have to be harvested shortly, the packing sheds are winding down the packaging and processing of tomatoes, and everyone’s personal garden is exploding with growth. It’s a happy time in the valley of California, a prosperous time, a time when the children go back to school and the world just seems to ease into the new season where the weather cools down. Everyone in this season complains about the abundance of trucks on our two lane roads that slow the traffic down as food is moved out of this corridor and distributed to feed the world. It is like this every single year, you can count on it. With the water shortage, it does cut down on the crops and the activity but the overall picture of farming remains the same. In the natural realm there is no mistaking this season. It’s harvest time.

And then a thought came to me, what happens in the supernatural realm? Do we recognize the seasons there as well?

2 Samuel 11:1 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

David was a king who wasn’t in season and the story goes on to show us that when we ignore or mistake seasons in our life all hell breaks loose. Perhaps David got complacent, as we sometimes do, and decided not to worry about going off to war with his men. Perhaps having known victory he may not have thought it important. Maybe he was crispy fried with the demands of work and decided to sit this one out on purpose. Whatever the case, we catch a glimpse of what can happen when we mistake a season in our life.

How can we learn from this powerful story of the seduction of self gratification at a time when the season dictates self sacrifice? What if here in the valley the farmers decided not to seed the fields? We would then be missing our harvest season and the result of that would be a food shortage.

Seasons are important in our life. Just ask the mom who has come to the end of her six week maternity leave and realizes she doesn’t want to leave her baby with a sitter. Just ask the bride who is anxiously preparing and awaiting her wedding day. Just ask the parents of first year college students about the emptiness of their nest in the first few weeks.

While these are obvious seasons that are readily recognized as transitional times in our lives, what about those that we may not see clearly or lacked clear understanding of? The missed opportunities to sow into a barren field because we ate the seed. The unexpected opportunity to travel but our credit card has limited out and our savings account is dry. The mother who lives in perpetual guilt because she sowed into her career and now her children are floundering. The father who was never around but now desires a sustained relationship with his family. What about just being apathetic to the things you are called to do in this season? It is time to look up from the tyranny of the urgent and make sure you are not missing the important. It’s time to step outside your bubble and gauge the season. For each of us it will be different, but nevertheless critically important that we are where we are supposed to be in this season. If you aren’t sure what season you are in, do a word search on season in the bible. You’ll see that God has a lot to say about it!

How’s Your Self Talk?

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How’s your self talk? Sometimes the devil doesn’t have to do much work in our lives. Our self talk is so hateful towards ourselves that it brings the same effect. What do see when you look in the mirror?

Luke 6:45 A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

This is not to say that when you speak negatively about yourself that you are evil, only that what you think about yourself is evil. In other words, it doesn’t produce life affirming things, or good things for your life. I don’t go and look in the mirror when I’m talking to myself. No, I talk to myself all day in my mind. So when it says that what I say flows from my heart, I have to remember that it’s subconscious, or embedded belief, and that what I am saying to myself can either be constructive or destructive. What is the price we are paying for what you are promising will come to pass in your own life? Be kind to yourself.

The cost of negative self-talk will be negativity towards myself and others, missed opportunities, loss of potential, doing things to fit in rather than doing things because they add to my life.

Sunday

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Luke 6:25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

I love Sundays. We wake up, get the coffee going, get the shower started and get ready for church. We all head out to church separately because we all have to be there at different times. We worship with fellow believers and before we know it, it’s over and it’s time to figure out lunch. Today it was hot outside so my husband decided to grill some steaks. I got some artichokes steaming on the stove and some red potatoes boiling and pretty soon we had a fantastic “linner”. You know what that is right? The lunch that is so big it takes care of dinner as well.

This Sunday there were no appointments or plans so we took some nice long naps. The great part of living in this little town is that pretty much without fail the evening brings a cool breeze. That makes for some backyard time in the evenings when we’re home.

I made a pot of coffee, and went and sat out on the swing to enjoy the breeze. The palm trees were swaying, Greta, our German Shepherd is now a middle-aged lady at 6 years old, she bounces around for awhile when she first sees you but she prefers to just sit on your feet and enjoy the evening with you. Lulu, the wonder dog, is only four so she is still quite the spas. She never stops coming to you to play keep away.

My husband has this bird feeder on the fence, he likes to help God out. The birds came to the feeder as I drank my coffee. Sometimes there were three at a time, sometimes only one. Pigeons and sparrows mostly. They come and stay a few minutes to eat their seed, then stop at the waterfall and take a quick shower. Then they stop at the top of the fence and sing as they figure out where they are going next.

They don’t store up seed as squirrels do, there are no to-go plates as funky family members make. They simply eat their fill in that moment. They don’t worry about where the next meal will come from, that is simply God’s job. As I sat there in this simple moment of life, I realize I take life way too seriously. I spend too much time on the what-ifs, making to-do lists and thinking these moments of stillness could be better used to scrub the tub. I think I need to take some lessons from the birds. I’ve been told they’re not very smart, in fact, calling someone a bird brain is an insult. Actually, I think they may be wiser than we are.

In Someone’s Shoes….

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Monday morning not long after my shower and rush to get on the road to get home from a business trip, I received a text that frustrated me. Someone was trying to take advantage of a kindness I had extended and I began to complain to my husband. Calm man that he is, he said, “Don’t let it ruin it your day. People are people.” “What?!!”, I replied, “It already has ruined my day, how does someone do this? Really? Come on!” I stomped around texting replies and working remotely.

We checked out of our room and headed for valet to wait for our vehicle. A man was looking at us as we handed the valet our ticket and waited for our vehicle. The man turned to face us several times. I was texting as the day was getting started at the office and there were many details to handle between the store and the office. Monday’s are hectic to say the least. Finally, the man stuck up a conversation. He said, “Good Morning! Where are you from?” My husband said casually, “By Fresno.” The man said, “Oh me too!” My husband then said, “Are you here on vacation?” And what unfolded was a God thing.

The man said his wife had terminal cancer. Her doctors had done all that they could do. She had three to six months left to live and they had used up a month of that. They were in town to see a doctor who was going to administer an experimental drug on her. It would not save her life but it may be save the lives of others.

I felt such compassion. I asked the man if the drugs would prolong her life? He replied no, in fact they may kill her, but he repeated, they may save someone else. Wow! What do you say about that kind of compassion? What do you say about that kind of love? All that was left to say was what I said, “We’re Christians, can we pray with you?” He extended his hand out and said, “Please do”. I grabbed his hand fiercely and prayed for mercy and for strength for he and his wife. What else to say? In that moment his car pulled up. I asked him his name as he walked toward his vehicle so I could continue to pray for him.

His wife came through the doors of the hotel shortly after. She was frail and oh so sickly looking and walking so slowly. I smiled at her from where I stood. What a hero she is. Instead of going home to quietly die and make the most of her days left on earth, she was going to donate her body to science while still alive, to see if maybe someone could be spared her pain.

I don’t know why God chose to bless me with this lesson. All I can tell you is that my day wasn’t ruined. My day, despite its trial, was blessed beyond measure. I was not watching my spouse die. I was not dying. I was merely dealing with an annoyance. Funny how minutes ago it was so important. I guess until you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes your bad looks worse than it is.

So whatever you’re going through, think about this couple, then say a prayer for them. I don’t want to post their names in this blog out of respect for them but I know that God knows who you’re praying for. Then, with what’s left, say a prayer of gratitude and be content. It could be a great deal worse.