His Mercies Are New Every Morning

This is a short story about a gal whose name is Rebecca.  Her year started out okay but then she learned the news that her Mom's condition had worsened - you see, she had cancer which had metastasized and spread into her liver, kidney and blood.  Rebecca had married a man who did not live close to her Mom and siblings, so she knew that she wanted to go and spend some time with her Mom before her condition really deteriorated.  What a blessing that time was - a real special gift that she will forever treasure in her heart - memories that can never be taken away.  Rebecca's Mom passed away and the celebration of her Mom's life was amazing - whilst she was sad that her Mom had died, she was happy at the testimony of her Mom's life - her legacy lives on.  Even in the midst of her Mom's passing there were some other challenges that befell her but God stood by her and kept her strong.  She would grieve later.

Later came and she returned home and thought her life would return to normal if she could even remember what that was, but alas, more disappointment was coming her way.  Just when she thought she had endured all the pain she could, she encountered more loss.  Her job.  She asked questions, lots of questions and felt lots of pain in the process of being moved out of her job, being assigned to a completely different role and unsure of her future vocation, but the one thing she does know, "His mercies are new every morning." 

Rebecca is still grieving the loss of her Mom and others including her job, but she is so thankful that God provides strength for each new day in the midst of this season.  He provides this strength to her by way of the support of a loving husband who has been there through it all, caring and praying friends and family, a loving and thoughtful church family who have encouraged her to remain in Him and her beautiful children to whom bring her so much joy and she is so proud!

Rebecca has sought professional help through this journey as well and continues to do so; something she would strongly recommend to anyone experiencing grief.  It is not a sign of weakness, but rather of strength to pursue healing and wholeness.  Rebecca would like to encourage anyone travelling along a similar path; that pain is uncomfortable but a necessary part of the process; that has to be walked through.  There is no defined schedule; we are all unique.  It is important to be patient with yourself and recognise when you are having an off day, that is okay - something Rebecca has to remind herself of, too.  She believes the pain never truly ever goes away - some wise women from her church shared the analogy that the scar is still there; she will not feel it as much some days and other days, a memory, smell or sound may cause the pain to come to the surface again.  Never be afraid of the tears - by suppressing the pain and the tears, they will only cause more pain.  Rebecca is continuing to see a counsellor to help her process her grief.  She is very grateful for the men and women who provide such a valuable and delicate service to those in need.

Rebecca is thankful because He will turn her mourning into dancing.....in His time....

My Condensed Story Of The Past 12 Plus Months

So yeah, where do I begin?  I am really not sure, so I will start somewhere.  A lot has happened since my last blog post and I really do want to write more for the rest of this year.  I will start here and reflect more over the past 12 months plus in other blog posts.

The past 12 months plus has had some highs but a lot of lows and challenges, too and the stresses continue, but I am pressing on with God's help each day; sometimes I take it one hour at a time and sometimes I take it one moment at a time.

Timeline to give you some perspective of my story. My Dad passed away very suddenly Aug 2011; my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer early 2012 and her Mom (my Grandma Mason) passed away May 2012.  Mom underwent horrific chemo and radiation treatment and mastectomy of one breast and the chemo left her heart damaged.  Mom maintained an amazing attitude as always and recovered from her surgery and treatment and we thought she had beat the horrible disease.  My family and I (husband Peter and step-daughter Chasely) travelled to Canada in December 2013/January 2014 to visit Mom and family and friends and later in 2014 Mom learned that the cancer had metastasized to her liver, kidney and blood.  Not the news Mom or our family wanted to hear.  Mom had a couple of chemo treatments but these were to go on for many weeks and the odds of remission very low and had made her very sick in a very short time frame, so Mom opted for quality of life.  What an incredibly brave woman our Mom was and to her dying day.

I flew to Canada early Feb 2015 which enabled me to spend some quality time with Mom and those memories will always be so precious to me.  I am so grateful for the time I was able to spend with Mom and the opportunity to be able to help her in the days leading up to her passing.  A friend gave me some great advice and that was to journal about my visit with Mom - precious writings, indeed.  Many special moments shared.  Another friend encouraged me to video Mom, too along with the photos I took and one of my projects is to create a movie of Mom (but I think I will need to invest in a new computer to do that - my faithful notebook/laptop that still uses XP is close to calling it quits I think).

My beautiful Mom and I - we had lunch with her Red Hat Mama's.

Jessie & Jake Wish Memphis A Happy 1st Birthday With The Help Of SendOutCards

As is indicated in my "about me" paragraph at the top of my blog page, my husband Peter and I have two puppy dogs - Jessie and Jake who are Kelpie/Cattle Crosses. We love our puppies a whole lot and they are, in essence, our 4 legged children. Peter has a gorgeous daughter, my step-daughter; but we do not have any children of our own (not by choice per se); however, I do not want to get off topic.  I have written about the puppies in the past and some of the challenges we have had; e.g. neighbours complaining about them barking and finding rental properties that are pet friendly and adjusting to our dogs being outdoor pets.

Jessie and Jake

Although my puppies will always be my favourites, I love most any dog and a lot of animals; e.g. cats and horses and I came across a couple who live in Michigan, USA who have Siberian Huskies and they share their lives with their puppies via various social media networks - YouTube and Facebook just to list a couple.

I started to follow them over a year ago I believe and they lost their eldest puppy Shiloh in Jan 2013. Shiloh was gorgeous and she was the eldest in their pack of 3. Last year Jessica and Jamie decided to increase their pack size to 3 again and acquired an adorable girl Memphis who just turned 1 on the 4th of April. Because I appreciate the time and effort and smiles and laughter the whole pack bring to me (& even Peter sometimes), Jessie and Jake and I decided to create a special birthday card and video for Memphis's 1st Birthday and used the helpful online service of SendOutCards to make it happen, complete with a tasty gift of dog treats for Memphis to share with her siblings, Shelby and Oakley.

Front cover of Birthday Card

The inside of card complete with code to scan to view video!

The Siberian Huskies are called Gone To The Snow Dogs and you can view them on their YouTube channel and in the about section when watching a video, click more and it lists all of the other websites they have up and running, too; including a channel Without The Snow Dogs.

They posted a video of Memphis opening up her presents on her birthday and Jessie and Jake's gift arrived in time to make the video and if you do not wish to view the whole video, you can go directly to 3 minutes 10 seconds that shows the card and gift.

Happy watching and Gone To The Snow Dogs were pretty happy to have reached 50,000 subscribers on YouTube just  prior to Memphis's 1st Birthday - How cool is that?

If you are a pet owner and reading this blog article, make sure that you give your pets an extra hug today and let them know how much you appreciate them; after all, they give their unconditional love to us daily, an analogy of God's love to us!

The Man In The Moon

While I was outside tonight in the backyard with the puppies, I looked up to the horizon and there was a beautiful orange haze along the edge of the sky. The sun had gone to bed, but it was still leaving its mark behind; out of sight, but not out of mind you could say!

I love sunsets, sunrises, clouds, birds, the ocean, sand and the sky. Whilst I believe that God is all around us, omnipresent, and not up in the sky or heaven as some would call it, there is a calm that the sky brings, in the evening light with its twinkling stars and it makes me ever more aware of my Heavenly Father and He is afterall, the creator of the sky.

So my eyes wandered upward just a wee bit and there he was...."The man in the moon." About an eighth of him was visible to me tonight and hey, not a bad shot with the iPhone. Alas, I really do need to invest in the tripod to get some good night shots.

No, I do not think of 'the man in the moon' as God; in fact, I do not even know where the expression originated from. I remember the saying from my childhood days and it immediately came to mind tonight when I saw the moon. Pretty cool how the angle of the earth rotating around the sun is what gives the moon its glow in the evening sky; whether it be an eight, a quarter, half or even full moon. I have never really studied the moon and stars alot, but I do believe that the next time we see a full moon will be Easter weekend.

Not sure why Easter is scheduled around the full moons, but it is pretty cool that whilst we over here in the Southern Hemisphere do not see the same stars (the Big and Little Dippers are not visible to me during the day and similar the Southern Cross is not visible during the day in the Northern Hemisphere), we see the same full moon.

The Big Dipper

The Southern Cross

The Southern Cross on the Australian Flag

I have said it before and I will say it again and keep saying it - How cool is God that He created all of this - How majestic is He! In light of my challenge to myself this past weekend, in which I am going to get more in touch with my creative side and write at least one blog article a week, I thought hey, this is a good opportunity to start.

100% Will Paralyse You

To live 95% life, instead of striving for perfection; disables and paralyses us because we always fail.

I have often been told I am too hard on myself and also have too high expectations of others.

I was reminded of a couple of very important things last weekend from a very wise friend.

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind and Cast every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and speak positive words every day, not only to others, but also to myself!

I believe I speak positively and am a relatively positive person, but I need a daily affirmation statement to speak to myself each day and that includes reminding myself that I do an excellent job at what I do and whilst striving for the best, I am not letting God down when I do not achieve 100%.  Paul says he strives for the finishing line of the race, but I do recall reading that he says he must be first!

I worked with a lady who gave me some good advice which perhaps I need to revisit even in my current job as things appear to get busier and busier with less people.  It went something like "do my best, but do not become pedantic about making a mistake and double-checking everything."

I also had a bit of an overwhelming day one day this week and had a mini-meltdown in front of someone and they immediately did not know how to respond to my emotions; do not let work upset you or take things personally, etc.  Alas, we are all unique individuals and we handle stress and stuff in different ways and then I was reminded of another valuable statement I learned a month or so ago at a Grow Together In Marriage weekend my husband and I attended, "Feelings are neither right or wrong."  Brilliant!  So, depending on which side of the above conversation you find yourself in, remember all of the above.