Personal

Yesterday was testimony meeting at church, where members can get up and talk about their feelings about God and Jesus and the church. The old man sitting next to me who is meeting with the missionaries and who I drove to church compared it to "witnessing" at his own church. I told him it was the same idea.

I thought about getting up because maybe I had something that others would need to hear. But I knew if I did, I would start crying and it was debatable whether I could get it out. I was having a hard time not crying just sitting in the pew. So maybe someone will read it here and get something from it.

My mom is sick, which I think most of you know. She has been sick for a long time. Whatever tense mother-daughter history exists between us, the fact is, she's my mom. And she's sick.

Saturday night I talked with her and I found out that there's a new issue that has cropped up. Well, it's not really new, it's just the first time a health professional has actually listened to what my mom was saying and taken her seriously. After her bones and joints and cartilage and stomach and kidney have rebelled on her, now, it's her heart.

My grandma is flying up to watch over my mom for the next week or so while my dad is at work, until my mom can get in to see her primary care doctor about this. I asked when they found out and my mom said 2 weeks ago. I asked why she didn't tell me and she said she didn't want me to worry. I had to tell her that I always worry about her. Always. Every day.

She said she thought maybe if I didn't know the bad news, I would think everything was fine. I told her that I know everything's not fine. It hasn't been fine for a long time.

Sometimes she's really good at being positive and upbeat, sometimes she's not. Saturday night she expressed her frustration and sorrow at being stuck in one room for years and years. At not being able to go to the beautiful places she reads about or sees on TV. At not being able to live her life. She's 53 years old and she's been in a wheelchair for 15 years and in bed with the inability to go anywhere for more than 3 years.

She cried and I cried with her. I cried again as I told Jason about it. I told him, I don't even know what to pray for anymore. For years I have prayed that things would get better, or that they would at least stay the same and my mom would be able to cope and find happiness in that. But the degenerative nature of her diseases means that things don't get better and they don't stay the same. I find myself at a loss when I open my heart to God because I don't even know what to ask.

Jason said, Maybe you should ask for God to take care of it.

His words struck such a chord with me. I know it's an old concept, captured in trite phrases like Let Go and Let God, but it was what I needed. I can't take care of it. Heaven knows, I would if I could. But this is an unsolvable problem. There is nothing I can do and I feel alternately guilty and frustrated and sad because I can't do anything.

I can ask God to take care of it, and I feel peace in that.

Happy September!

We're about to start my favorite season of the year. I'm so excited and looking forward to the changing leaves and the apple picking and the pumpkins and spices and crisp, chill air.

I wanted to post a picture Jason took of me this past weekend, sitting on a blanket in the backyard, fashioning my Autumn wreaths. Only when I tried to download it last night directly off the camera, the camera stopped working. Just pffft, nothing. One minute I flipped the front down and it turned on and I scrolled through the pictures. Then when I plugged it into my computer and tried to turn it on, nothing happened. We tried a new battery, I tried the old trick of blowing on the battery contacts, I jiggled the cord at both ends to make sure it was really connected, we tried a different cord. Nothing.

Anyone have any idea why a Nikon Coolpix S70 would just suddenly stop working? Jason would really like to know.

Well, I'll post pictures of the wreaths once I hang them up.

In the meantime, it's supposed to be 94 degrees today. And apparently we have a hurricane headed for us.

But Autumn will be here eventually.