September 22
I could really feel the fall season today and how perfect for it to be on the actual first day of fall. I LOVE summer. I wish it could be summer all year around. But….I also love the fall colors, brisk air and sloppy sweaters with boots.
Mark and I took a very short walk out into the orchard behind us..wearing out winter coats!! The lighting was perfect and the apples were beatiful.
Getting out is crucial for so many reasons. Fresh air, exercise (even though its so much less than he is used to, its what he can do now) and just to enjoy our home and the beauty around us.
We live on the Ridge surrounded on all 4 sides by orchards of some sort. It’s a beautiful place to live and we love the hustle bustle of the harvest season. The crates out, workers conversations carried from off in the distance, sometimes music floating over the trees and even the tractors coming down our dirt road with a trailer full of metal ladders. It screams fall! I don’t get into Pumpkin Spice Lattes and all that jazz but I do like the season for what it natrually brings. Driving down my road today, walled in by corn fields turning yellow, I was reminded of why I love here and why it so important to slow down.
Slow down. Says the girl who goes so fast all-the-time! Don’t want for God to slow you down. I see you moms! I see how you go from house chores, to work, to meals, to kid time, to kids sports, to trying to make time with your spouse and family and the on top of that, wanting to have a little slice of time for yourself doing that one thing that makes you feel alive. I wrote the book! I did it all because I could. I can DO! But sometimes…it suffocates you and at the end of the day you are NO GOOD.
I have felt an urgency to simplify for about a year. I mean, the last few years it has nibbled at me but this last year…it has really hounded me. I have really felt like I need to get “stuff” out of my hosue and take “stuff” out of my calendar. I made a group JUST to sell my stuff. When my studio space was looking grim, I decided to not hold on and to not get new space. So I think I taught maybe 4 classes ALL summer long. When Cora went off to college I handed off the ballet school to another mom and helped her move it to another facility so it could continue to thrive. Those were huge portions off my plate. But because I have a large plate all the time, I still had more to scrap off into the compost pile.
And then all of this happened.
I do truly believe the urgency was from the Holy Spirit and it was to prepare me for this. The other things on my plate will be fine….waiting for me later. Or not. It doesn’t matter. I realize I may never pick up those portions ever again and that is okay. Because I can DO, God is asking me to do something else but I will get overwhelmed and I cannot have any other extra “food” on my plate to pull me away from the task at hand– so at the end of the day I am still providing.
Sometimes I feel like my head is very foggy and floaty and I can’t finish my thoughts or know exactly what I was doing. I day dream about the dialysis machine procedure, how to clean and declutter house, which counterop to select and that ongoing list on my bright pink sticky pad says to do next. I am amazed I can sleep at all!
This post was more about me. But to keep you up to speed. We have a virtual appointment with U of M tomorrow morning. Please pray that it gives us direction. We might think we know what that direction is but we don’t. So direction is direction. I’ve been counting down the days to this. I desperately want someone to take lead on this and help us. I’m hoping this is it!
Mark is still making efforts to eat each day even though it is little. The pain still seems managed-ish and so the nights have continued to be bearable. We are like school kids who don’t want to get up each morning and go to school (dialysis) but we rise up and we go. We have a hard time grasping that this is what our life will be like for the next few years if not longer.
I got a message today from a gal I do not know but we are friends on facebook. She works with a gal whose husband also has one kidney AND also had kidney cancer. We are attemting to connect. I just thought that was kind of cool.
Before I go to bed I will share this. I read somewhere that if we truly believe God is in control then we are waiting on things (like biopsy reports and treatment plans) we are waiting on God, not doctors etc. That helped me and put this all in a different prespective. I do think we have to take massive (not passive) action but it is all let by God. We are waiting on God. All in HIS timing.
Goodnight.