Have you ever asked yourself why God put you on the Earth to the family that you were born into? I know one thing for sure, when I was younger, I didn't realize that God had a purpose for my life. I was concerned with ballet classes, playing soccer and being a big sister. Now as an adult, I wish there had been a warning during childhood or even before we were born warning us that the road ahead is not going to be like silky water on a morning pond, but there will be boulders thrown at you every so often that you will need to navigate with precision and grace! Life isn't all a bed of Roses, and there is darkness and tragedy for everyone, especially for believers!" Here on Earth, you will have many trials and Sorrows ':( John 16:33) It is written right there in the Bible-but we don’t know how to read before we were born, and we could really use that warning ahead of time! The good news is that as it says in Psalms 46: 1 " God is our Refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble."

 

There is the promise that we need to know that the Lord will help us when things get dark and scary. I have had my fair share of dark, stormy and extremely scary times. I contracted water borne staph which turned into necrotizing fasciitis, and I became a double amputee, and my very active productive, workaholic lifestyle to being a sick, stay at home, surgery after surgery broken fragment of myself.

That fragmented woman had zero self-esteem, was in a marriage marred by emotional abuse and financial insecurities, was hiding so much pain from my family and my in laws and did not know how to move forward. I had always been a very faithful servant of the Lord. At this point in my life, I was feeling as though God had forgotten my address. I knew intellectually that He was still there, but I felt so alone, even though I had family around, I could not let them know what was happening in my home.

 

I loved my ex-husband, and he had struggled over the years with his sobriety but when I got sick his drinking got so much worse. I wanted to succeed in my marriage and be the best wife I could be. Nothing I did was right, I did everything I could to appease him, nothing ever worked. I was getting sicker, he was getting drunker, and our life was completely falling apart! The night of the Super Bowl in January 2014, he told me he was done! He wanted out. I had foregone taking care of myself to take care of him, pick him up when he was drunk at bars, bail him out of jail twice, and would cook dinner and wait for him to get drunk enough before he would eat a meal that had to be re-heated. On occasion he actually graded me on my performance~ A scale of A-F!

 

 I put up with more than any human should have to endure. God had not forgotten me or forsaken me, he was watching me every day, I was deciding not to listen to my own mind and heart.

 

The night after the Super Bowl I did not sleep at all. I called my mom first thing in the morning and told her. Before I knew it, my brother was calling saying that he and my brother-in-law would be there Saturday with a truck to pick me up and my stuff and to start packing. That afternoon, my Mom and Meme showed up with boxes and moving supplies and we began packing. My ex-husband never came home that week. He had left and gone to his brother's house. I didn't see him again for at least a month. I moved in with my parents that first weekend in February 2014. I slept that first night at my parents’ home and didn't want to wake up. I stayed in bed that entire Sunday. I was lost and not only sick and broken but abandoned by my husband!! What was I going to do now?

 

I spent time with my niece and nephew and sister that week. It was good to be with the people that loved me, and that I loved more than anything. I had missed so much of their lives. We lived in Delaware for 5 years and then in Connecticut for 15 months. We would move for work for my ex. He was a chef, an excellent chef, but had a terrible problem getting along with managers and owners. He never stayed at a job longer than a year at most! It was a real issue and took me away from my family and his family that I adored! He had a little sister and brother that are much younger from his father’s second marriage. They were so adorable and grew up to be amazing productive professional members of society! My ex has very deep emotional scars from his childhood. And that is really all I can say about that. He broke me and my spirit, not to mention my heart!

 

I say all of this to let you know I am a normal individual who like you has experienced extraordinary hurt and loss in her life. What has gotten me through is the love of family and friends and my faith in the Lord.

 

 

Blog Post 2

 

Have you ever wanted something so bad, and you just knew that there was no way it was ever going to happen? I know that you know the saying" with man this is impossible; but with God all things are possible" Matthew 19:26

 

You just have to hold onto your dreams and pray and do everything you can do to make them come true.

 

I have been told that I live my life with my head in the clouds. That I am a dreamer, and I am not a realist. My answer to that is, God made me that way for a reason. I am not a pragmatist. I believe in dreaming that you can create your own reality with God's help. You would think after all that I have been through, that I would be a more practical person! What fun is there in that? I do get discouraged, of course I do. Things don't happen in my time but in God's. I have given into the realization that I can have all of the dreams that I want, some will come to fruition and some will not! Will I be disappointed-sure, but I will be grateful for what does come true!

 

I feel a sense of accomplishment when I conceive of an idea and implement a plan, execute the plan and then complete the goal. I do that all the time with fundraising for the foundation. It is not easy to dream of an idea that people will get excited about and rally around and achieve a goal, given the economic climate of our country right now! It is the same thing for a personal goal or dream. Don't think that I don't pray every day for my fundraising to be successful, because I certainly do! I also pray that my personal goals and dreams will come true.

 

 My personal goals have been different than most people’s in the last twelve years! A lot of people dream of obtaining a dream home, retiring on a beautiful beach with the person that they love and being financially stable if not well off. Sure, I have those same dreams, but I have also dreamed to walk again, to not live my life in my wheelchair, not to be a burden on my loved ones and to be able to be independent again. Some people may say that those are not dreams but I beg to differ! There were times that I never thought that I would walk again, much less be able to work out! God saw past my pain in my dreams and gave me great strength to achieve greater heights than I thought was possible.

 

Don't listen to naysayers, they probably don't have vision and may not have a deep faith. Faith is believing without seeing, so have faith that God knows your heart! God knows your mind. If you do your best to do the right thing, stay prayed up, trust in the Lord that all things happen in His perfect timing, keep the faith and put your head way up in the clouds with me and dream!!

 

 

Blog Post 3

 

Pain is a funny beast.  It can come from any number of sources.  It can be internal in our hearts and minds and of our own making.  It can be from injury or illness and can be from exterior sources.  It can be caused by other people creeping into our hearts and destroying us piece by piece and it can be from the tiniest of organisms that can wreak havoc on our systems.  Pain can be a scary thing.  It can change you from your very core.  It can make you into a bitter person who expects nothing better than to be down and distraught and to always be in a place of negativity.  I have lived in that place in my life, and I had to make the decision that that is not where I wanted to stay!  It is a lonely, dark and cold place.  A place of self-loathing and despair.  There is nothing happy there and you are the only one who can bring you out of the darkness.  Once I made the choice to step back into the light, my life began to change, for the better!  It was amazing.  Once I decided to take those first few metaphorical steps, my heart began to feel lighter.  It was like the sunshine began to shine again on my face and the physical pain that I was feeling was not as unbearable any longer. 

 

I had decided that it was time to stop focusing on me and my troubles.  I had always heard the expression that someone else always has it worse off than you do, and I believed it finally.  I was being treated in the wound care center at our local hospital for continued infection to my residual limbs and I would see all of the individuals come in with burns or disfiguring wounds and a myriad of other ailments.  I thought to myself that I had it bad, but at least I had my family, my undying supportive parents and siblings and amazing family!  Some of these individuals were going through these procedures alone, I was never alone.  If I wasn't strong enough to advocate for myself, boy my family was right there with me. 

 

There were days that I was so sick and down that all I wanted to do was to stay in my bed.  My mom would push me to get up and get out of my pjs and do my physical therapy and go to wound care and interact with other people.  She has been by my side through thick and thin.  She really is amazing.  I have seen Mom struggle for so long with her own medical issues and never let them get her down.  She is amazing and such an inspiration not only to me to many others as well.

 

Pain can drain you; it can take your joy.  You just can't let it!  Push through it.  As the daughter of a Marine, the saying in our house is "Pain is just Fear Leaving the Body!"  A motto to live by especially when you live in constant pain, chronic debilitating pain.  You have to dig deep and find your purpose and dream big and the excitement of your dreams will outweigh the pain, I promise.  Find your happiness, find your joy, find your love!!