A year ago I couldn’t make myself get up and dust the TV!

Today I took the living room apart and tackled vacuuming behind, underneath and all around. Chasing spiders and setting furniture free!

Nine months ago I tried to do intermittent fasting but I could not figure out how to get all my food eaten in 6-8 hours.

God has mad a way for me to put off eating until after 5:00 P.M.! He has shown me I am able to do hard work digging up weeds and cleaning out the flowerbed or running 6 miles all without eating.

I believe this started last December when I realized I needed to build muscles to run rather than running to gain muscle. It was after Christmas 2024 I started to do at least one minute plank on the floor and at least 12 push-ups.

When I started doing the push-ups my arms were so weak I could hardly bend my elbows to go down a few inches. It took a few months but eventually my arms grew strong enough to go all the way down. At this point my muscles are able to do 30 push-ups.

Ten years ago at my peak, I was able to do 10 full body push-ups and finish the rest from my knees. I am not ready yet to do a full body push-up but hopefully soon.

Today is the first time in almost 10 years to run 6 miles!

The most exciting part of running 6 miles is the 2 miles at 15mm! I am getting stronger! God is so Good!

The last 2 miles I have dogs. Charlie is no longer the fast runner. Sam likes a soft jog.

For the last 40-50 years my body needed food especially protein to function. I ran on the food I ate because of the void of so many core muscles! After being cut in the surgeries, the nerves refused to grow back until God stepped in the 15 years ago and started them growing back!

I have heard more than once It looks like you can’t hold your head up. Or it looks like you can’t sit up. I had a rod to hold me up but no muscles.

But God does make changes and He wants us to do the work. I have to run. I have to dig. Also the muscle building in my lunges, planks, and push-ups to keep me strong enough to do everything!

The one thing I do is try to encourage people of all ages to exercise and build muscles. It is so important to enjoying life and live a long healthy life. God Bless each of us to move and build muscle!

GOD IS SO VERY GOOD GOOD GOOD!

God sent me to clean up what has already been done.

My goal for today was to wake up early and work in the flower garden. There is so much to do and not much sunlight, warmth, or dry weather to keep working.

I try to get all the roots but there are many little pieces of dead looking roots that come alive!

My desire is to clean up the mess that is thick with grass, but God obviously wants me to go after the small bits of grass roots to really clean the area

Arriving at the edge of the garden that butts up against the driveway I find it has become a 10 lane highway for the roots to travel! Some of the roots actually dig into the concrete!

God works in us is do a big clean up feeling like everything is new and good.

After a while He starts doing some detailed work that goes after a precise root that needs to come out to bring more freedom. It may take many passes to finish and keep it maintained.

My whole life I have overcooked meat until it is dry more often than not.

God is showing me is a memory of the 8 of us on the run in a house with a cathedral ceiling and an huge open space with a fireplace and a kitchen. We kids sleep upstairs in one room all 6 children on the floor in separate sleeping bags.

Something in that house was not cooked well or maybe it was the eggnog but I remember being very sick from something we ate and being questioned about who made the mess?

I have been set free from this before but it seems to have returned and I have a ham to figure out how to moisten it so we can eat it.

The fear might have returned after reading a book about a missionary who got trichinosis from wild hogs. She almost died but it leg to the natives learning to cook the meat well.

Hopefully, this root is pulled for good and there is nothing to regrow. We will see. Moist meat is more enjoyable to eat.

God Bless us all with The PEACE OF GOD FILLING OUR SOULS DAILY! AMEN!

GOD IS SO VERY GOOD!

Today, I woke knowing the setting sun is happening fast!

Getting dressed for falling temperatures and heading out to run, feeling good. I dressed well but it was getting chilly as the sun set.

My body is getting in better shape! My Runkeeper app clocked me at 14:31 mm at the start.

It is interesting, I’m not ready to run the whole thing without stopping  but I am getting closer. Today I took a different route and wasn’t sure if I would make it all but I did!

Doubling up every row running 4 miles by myself and ending with speed and filling my lungs deep with oxygen to the bottom of my lungs.

As my lungs were being filled deep, my mind went to my back surgery and the full body cast I wore for 9 months. The doctors gave me blow bottles to exercise my lungs.  One bottle is filled with water and the goal is to push about 2 liters of water to the other bottle. My brother and I made a game of it. Who can do it first and the fastest. We had to fill our lungs to push it all in one breath!

Ending my run with the two dogs. They each got 1/2 mile

It is time to dig out my winter items to cover my ears and neck, the temperatures are dropping. My run ended up with 3 of my 5 miles at 16 mm, pretty good.

I will leave you with some pictures I took.

God Bless each and everyone with heat as the temperatures drop and the desire to get out and move even in colder weather.

GOD IS SO VERY GOOD!

Unusual hours!

Bed at 4:53 A.M.

Awake at 8:13 A.M.

Church at 9:15 for choir practice.

Church service 10:00 A.M.

This October we are showing episodes of The Chosen season 5 after church with discussion time and a meal afterwards, to discuss what we watched. I really enjoy watching and talking about The Chosen, it has changed my life for the better.

Home 2:00 P.M. and to bed. Yeah, I get 4 more hours of sleep!

Waking up at 6:45 P.M. It takes a bit for my body to switch from laying down to sitting up with scoliosis, especially after sitting at church for 4 hours.

At 9:00 P.M. I am deciding it would be good to make a salad with boiled eggs. It takes me an hour to make my salad most days and up to, two hours to eat it.

Do you appreciate one size over the other of the picture?

This one is medium and the other is large at the bottom of the page. It is a big difference to me. I wonder what small is?

The other question: Do you like my salad?

At 10:00 P.M. I started to eat this salad and needed to lay down so the salad went on hold.

Laying down 10:35 and waking up at midnight. Fitbit gave me another hour sleep, up to 8 total.

I finish eating the salad at 2 A.M. and feel exhausted. The need to lay down returns but this time I am asking God.

God, “I don’t know how I am going to write a story or do anything to get myself to bed.” 

Usually the salad wakes gives me energy but not tonight, I lay down to rest.

Suddenly I feel hungry

Realizing the hunger is for milk and a granola bar and nuts I get up and make my snack. What happens next is amazing!

Strength and energy are rising up in me!

I don’t understand it but often when God suggests something it doesn’t seem normal.

Here I am finishing this story at 5:30 A.M. and getting ready to go to bed.

Prayer meeting is at 10:00 A.M. Today I believe I will ask God to wake me if He wants me to go.

I believe God wants me to write daily because it is how I live my life talking to God all the way through it. Sometimes He gives me hunger for something like today or pictures in my mind as I ran yesterday.

It is a learning process to find how God will relate to us. He knows we all function uniquely.

It is a wonderful relationship when we take time and invest in it.  

God Bless You with The Peace of God in Jesus, Amen.

GOD Gives and GOD Takes away

Job 1:21b The LORD gave and The LORD has taken away. Blessed Be the name of The LORD.

I think, “God doesn’t take, He gives and makes broken things whole, as He is doing in me.”

In life stuff happens. We have to deal with what is in front of us, but IN JESUS we are able to deal with life differently. We have a HOPE to KNOW that in the end that JESUS WON! We are walking it out but we know this is not all there is. Also we have the Joy of The LORD in us giving us an inner Hope to carry us through the stuff of life.

Over time I start realizing that sometimes God needs to take something we are holding on to, to do a good work in us.

The need to take the tree down breaks my heart. It would not be good for the a branch to fall on a person or our house but I love our tree. My husband decides to buy a wood insert to replace the gas fireplace that we have never used, a blessing? YES! A great Blessing!

Our neighbor takes the tree down int the Spring of  2014 and he allows me to sort through the wood to keep what I want and throw what is too small for burning. Lifting the wood is great for building muscle so I choose one log to lift for arm muscles and extra weight while doing lunges! It also does this thing when I lift it behind my head, it pulls me upright and settles my spine somehow. This is a scoliosis thing with a rod.

                     I am in awe of what I am able to do.

Two years earlier, God gave me the miracle of 5 brand new vertebrae and nerves connecting the muscles giving me the ability to gain muscle and start running. For perspective I was ready to get a cane to help me walk because I could no longer hold my body upright, But God moved.

I am sitting on the steps looking at the work, but my body isn’t ready to respond. It frustrates me that my body won’t function until 4:00 P.M.!

But God reminds me,

“Be Thankful and Patient with your body.” (growing strength and endurance  isn’t like the instant miracle of the new bone it is a much slower process.)”

It is easy to become greedy to want more than I am able to do at this time. When remembering just a few years ago my body could only do one hour of work for the day and maybe the week. But now I am able to work five hours lifting logs! One thing I tried is five hour energy and it did help me to do more for five hours.

Can you tell how much love there is for the tree?

Do you like what the tree has done to my beautiful flowerbed? There are tulips under the logs!

I am learning how to adjust things on my blog! Finally the pictures look as expected! Loosing more fear of computers and the blog!  They look better!If you look closely there are some tulips blooming under the tree limbs.

We loved the tree so much we put the trunk in our back yard and I do climb on it often! It brings joy even laying sideways in the back yard. Maybe I will have a good picture of that next time.

I learn to plant many different kind of flowers, no more shade plants!

God is teaching me, He is covering me even when I am in the wide open spaces, especially if I feel naked out in the open.

The strength gained by lifting logs has given me the ability to keep the flowerbed and yard in order, even adding a few more flowerbeds. I am in awe of what I am able to do!

My running grows to five miles a day and ten miles once and a while. I buy my skinniest pair of jeans a size six!

Wow, I am able to keep going for 10 days without my body shutting down and needing a day of rest. I am in Awe of What God is doing in me!

THEN MOM DIES! 

GOD IS STILL GOOD!

I went for a run on Friday but I was interrupted by a beautiful sunset.

Do you appreciate?

God Bless You! Enjoy the Good things! Amen.

Water bubbling up in the flowerbed… trouble!

While weeding the flowerbed I find water that doesn’t belong. I’m not watering anything! The front of the flowers are getting flooded.

After contacting the city they inform us that they will need to dig in my flower garden to repair a broken pipe. They will shut off the water main so we should fill the tub for flushing the toilet and other containers with water to drink while the water is off.

We have lived here for 10 years and are thankful for the Maple tree with the flowers surrounding it. Thankfully we have time to save the a majority of the flowers. My wonderful husband helps save the flowers.

I watch the city workers take a backhoe to my flowerbed, and as they dig down to the broken pipe I hear him say,

“Oops, I hit the tap root!”

They way he said this made an impact! I had no idea what it meant but we soon find out.

This big massive tree is taken down by one little root being hit.

Big or small the root feeds the tree and the importance of that root shows up as our tree cries out in pain while dropping her limbs one at a time.

Thankfully all branches fall facing the street away from the house.

First on June 25, 2013, our daughter’s bug was smashed not long after she bought it.

Again in November 21, 2013 the neighbor’s vehicle was in the wrong spot as the branch came down and totaled the pickup.

Throughout the winter three more branches fall into our yard during a storm.

This shows us we have to take our tree down. First we call a professional to see if it can be saved, but we realize it has to come down.

Job 1:21b The LORD gave and The LORD has taken away. Blessed Be the name of The LORD.

We are thankful to have had the tree for as long as we did and now the process of taking it down starts.

God is Good no matter what is happening He is Always Good.