How Does God Speak to You?

Something happened last night that just served to remind me that God speaks to me all the time--I just have to listen and be aware or I might miss it.

I take a few prescription medicines for health issues, including two types of blood pressure medicine. With one of them I take a full pill and with the other I take half a pill. My doctor said that if I ever feel like I need a full pill, I can do that.

That said, yesterday I forgot to take any of my medicines. By the time I realized it, I figured it would be too late, as it would throw my medicine schedule for the next day off, so I didn't take any. I felt okay, so I figured it wasn't a big deal.

When I started getting ready for bed I noticed something odd. My blood pressure machine, which I had not used in a few days, was partly wrapped around my alarm clock and partly on the bed. Had I inadvertently moved it when I turned my alarm off in the morning? Had the cat been fooling around there and moved it? I don't know. What I do know is that when I saw it lying like that the first thought I had was that I should take my blood pressure right then.

I'm glad I made that decision because my blood pressure was high. I decided to take half of the one pill right then, and I would take the other half when I took the rest of my medicines in the morning.

That is the first way God spoke to me on this matter. The second came a few minutes later. I didn't want to take the pill and go straight to bed. I have read that you should sit up for at least two minutes after taking a pill rather than lying down right afterwards. I grabbed one of my crossword puzzle books and the closest available pen and started working on a puzzle. It was very late, and I needed to get some sleeep, but the puzzle was interesting and I was really getting into it. Then, a couple minutes into the puzzle, just as I finished a word, the pen ran out of ink! I thought to myself, I guess it is time for bed! I checked my blood pressure again, and it had come down significantly, so I went to bed.

I truly felt God speaking to me in this. If I had not checked my blood pressure right then, I would not have known that it was way too high. The ink in the pen lasted just long enough to give me the time I needed to know the medicine had done its job.  Some may think it was just a coincidence. I just know that I serve an AWESOME God!!!

Random Thought of the Day--Pain Tolerance

Yesterday my pinball machine of a brain hit on the topic of pain tolerance. I know a lot of people with a low pain threshold. I knew a girl years ago with a low tolerance for pain. When she was giving birth to her first baby, she actually started to get up from the delivery room bed because she was "done."  Of course, giving birth is not a low-pain activity for anyone.  I have a high threshold for pain, but I had a couple complications and I screamed at least once during delivery.  Which brings me to my point.

I think a lot of people assume that if someone has a high tolerance for pain, it means that they don't feel pain like most others. That is a ridiculous notion!  While there are people who do not feel pain (something rare and dangerous), most of us do.  The phrases "high tolerance" and "low tolerance" are exactly that.  Some people can feel the same pain, but their level of withstanding that pain is different.  I do have a high pain threshold, but if you hit me with a hammer, it is still going to hurt!

It may sound strange, but if I know the source of my pain, I can tolerate it better.  In 1984 I started having horrible pains and ended up in the hospital. For four days they did not know what was wrong with me.  In those four days, I had roughly 30 pain-killer shots. As soon as they found out that it was an ovarian cyst, my level of pain dropped drastically because it was no longer unknown.  Of course, I did have surgery to remove it, as I was not willing to put up with the pain just because I knew what it was!

Another thing that helps me with pain tolerance, when I am going through things like kidney stones, is knowing that as bad as I hurt, someone out there is in worse pain than I am, and is possibly dying. That doesn't make me feel good about being in pain, but it helps me focus on others and to pray for them as I pray for my pain to stop.

A little silliness to end with--I have always said that you can cut my arm off and it wouldn't hurt that much, but give me a paper cut and it hurts like the dickens!

*Sigh*

I hate that I keep waiting so long to write.  I will be home a little more now, so maybe I will be a little better about it.  Even if I am the only one who ever sees it (although I hope I'm not), I need to keep it up.  I enjoy sharing my thoughts with others.  Sometimes they are not very interesting, but once in awhile I think I say something that someone can use.  I'm off to make tacos right now, but hopefully I will think of something to write when supper is over.  :)

Mountaintop and Valley Experiences

We all have mountaintop and valley experiences. The mountaintop experiences (when things are going great for us) are definitely the best, but if it weren't for the valley experiences (when things are not going so well) we probably wouldn't appreciate the mountaintop experiences as much. When we are on top of the mountain we sometimes tend to forget why we are there. We suddenly think we climbed to the top of the mountain on our own, forgetting that God brought us there. It is when we are in the valleys that we remember God is the only one who can get us out.

This morning I had an interesting thought about this whole topic. I came to the realization that sometimes we fling ourselves off of the mountain. We are on top of the mountain, and things are going great, but we make some choices that are not very wise, and in essence, we throw ourselves from the mountain top and begin to tumble toward the valley. As I sit here in a valley, I now know that while I am not completely responsible for being here, I could have probably avoided this particular valley by making a few wiser choices.

Yikes, not happy with myself.

I can't believe how long I have gone without writing. I feel like I am never at home anymore (maybe because I'm not), but that's no excuse. I keep thinking of things I want to write about, but then I end up forgetting. I can't promise anything, but I will try to do better. :)

Our Christmas Tree Star

When I was 8 1/2 years old we moved from San Diego, California to Kansas City, Missouri. We were there a few months, and around the time I turned nine we moved to nearby Independence, Missouri. The moving company had added extra charges and fees to our bill and we were not able to get our furniture for a few months. We sat on wood orange crates and slept on mattresses on the floor.

When Christmas came, we could not afford much, but we had a tree and some inexpensive lights and ornaments. We had nothing to put on the top of the tree, so my dad made a star. It was nothing fancy. He cut a star out of heavy black construction paper. He cut a hole in the middle for a yellow light to go through. Finally he covered the black star with a pretty matte gold wrapping paper (not the bright shining foil wrap, but it had sparkle to it).

Over the years my mom's and dad's finances improved and we added lots of pretty ornaments, but since 1966 nothing else has ever topped my family's Christmas tree.

It's an Aardvark!

I am going to talk about some of my favorite Christmas memories in my next few blog posts.

One of my favorite Christmases involved an aardvark!

One year when my sister and I were in our early teens, I asked her (jokingly--I never really want to know) what she had gotten me for Christmas. She said, "It's an aardvark." For a few years after that, every birthday and Christmas one of us would ask the other what the other had gotten for her, and we would answer, "It's an aardvark." Then, when I was 17 or 18 and she was 15 or 16, I found a stuffed aardvark toy at Sears! Diana asked me again that year what I had gotten her, and I responded, "It's an aardvark." The look on Diana's face when she opened the gift and saw "Artie" the aardvark inside was priceless!