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ornaments for orphans
We started learning about OSSO many years ago and have been supportive of its mission to help children in Ecuador. Going to Ecuador and serving there has been in the back of our minds for a long, long time. We have a good friend, Lisa, who travels to Ecuador several times a year to serve in several orphanages down there. Our good friends, Cameron and Paula, are in the middle of adopting older children from Ecuador and we are cheering them on and doing what we can from the sidelines. Blythe intends to go work in the orphanages sometime in the next eighteen months before her mission. Lots of talk of orphans circulates around our home. We have been donating our hearts and a wee bit of our money to these orphanages for awhile and have been tickled pink to play a small part in alleviating suffering. Last week Lisa posted a challenge on Facebook called the Ornaments for Orphans Club and said they were going to not give presents to their teens and adults and would instead be donating the money they would have spent on gifts to Dando Amor. Her challenge percolated in my heart and we started talking to the children about it. The first night we talked to them there were a few outbursts of “no presents!?!” but we asked them to think about it and come to family home evening ready to share their thoughts, pro or con, about this idea. Last night we had our discussion and oh, boy, these amazing children of mine! I am so proud of them. They all voted to give up their presents from us and give that money to the children at Dando Amor. Their one condition is that they be allowed to give each other homemade presents because they love that part of our tradition so much.
So it is final. This year our Christmas money will go to children that need it much, much more than we need it. Our Christmas presents have always been on the simple side since we do three gifts per child, something that will help them spiritually, something that will allow them to develop their gifts to bless others, and something that will help them in their learning. This year we will learn new lessons in love and service. Wahoo!!
Anyone want to the club with us? If so, let me know and I will give you Lisa’s contact information. She leaves in a few days to go to Ecuador and she is going to have an ornament signed by the orphans for each child that gives up their Christmas presents.
working up some courage to try again
I am a researcher. I crave information and love to solve puzzles. I have spent the past 21 months researching my hip injury and trying to fix it. I have come to a few answers along the way.
1. I can’t fix it.
2. God can fix it.
3. I have good days and bad days.
None of those answers have been complete. They have been part of the puzzle. I have had to accept that I can’t fix it so I would stop making myself crazy with trying to fix it. I had to decide to truly believe deep down in my little toes that God can fix it in order for hope to burn brightly. So I have kept researching and trying to make sense of it all. Sometimes I stop all research and try to move to a place of acceptance and being okay with it all, but that doesn’t feel right either. I feel most centered when I am in a place of acceptance emotionally and a place of searching, trying new things, and being open to the possibility of healing answers.
Well, in the past few months, the passing out and shaking episodes have increased, the dislocations have increased, and my ability to cope has decreased and I have decided to start researching again in earnest. I started studying the autonomic nervous system and learning more about how the sympathetic and parasympathetic system work. I started using a blend of lemongrass and lime essential oils to strengthen my parasympathetic systems ability to calm me down. Then I started studying connective tissue in depth and searching endlessly for something, anything I can do to build healthy connective tissue. I have studied the pudendal nerve, the femoral nerve, collagen, fibroblasts, fascia, cartilage, ligaments, nutrition, DNA, energy medicine, acupuncture, exercise, more on the sympathetic nervous system, and gobs and gobs of other topics – down more rabbit holes than I can count. Now, I think I have a somewhat clear picture of what is going on and how to approach it.
I have three major problems that are all tied together and impact one another: first, defective collagen systemically, second, a specific hip injury – labral tear, damaged pudendal nerve, damaged femoral nerve, tight IT band, inguinal ligament trying to hold it all together, and muscles that spasm constantly, and third, an overactive sympathetic nervous system that has developed from the femoral nerve being in freak-out mode for the past 21 months, an allergy to the Procaine in the Prolozone injections, months of pain and stress, and the faulty connective tissue that is sending all sorts of wonky messages to my SNS.
I can’t do a whole lot for the defective collagen. It is how I was made. My DNA is messed up. I can eat lots of animal connective tissue and hope it makes a difference. I can eat bone broth. I can eat red meat and chicken cartilage, but the harsh reality is my collagen doesn’t work well. The connective tissue and other body parts made up of collagen are all impeded in their function by the faulty collagen. It doesn’t reassemble amino acids properly after they have been broken down in the intestinal tract. It makes ligaments that are like taffy instead of super strong rubber bands. It isn’t holding my blood vessel walls open very well. It doesn’t send accurate messages to my sympathetic nervous system. The fascia throughout my body is weak and causes hernias, tight muscles, loose joints, and piles of other problems.
I am working on healing my hip. Jeremy, my manual therapist is amazing. He is helping all the structures of my hip to work better together and for the most part my hip is improving. I need to build back my muscle strength that has wasted away while I have been injured and spent so much time inactive and in bed and we are slowing figuring out ways to do that without injury. It will be a slow road, but my goal is to have physical therapy every single week and give it my all and see what happens.
Right now, the sympathetic nervous system seems like the most pressing issue because if I could stop shaking and passing out everything would seem a lot safer in my world. The challenge is it is completely tied into the defective connective tissue and the hip injury. The defective collagen caused the initial hip injury and continues to cause multiple subluxations and dislocations every day. It causes the joints of my body to break down, the synovial fluid to leak out, and osteoarthritis to develop. The connective tissue matrix is on information overload sending messages of shifting joints, stretched nerves, and overtaxed muscles. All these messages have put my body into a constant state of fight or flight and at any given moment it can become too much, I start shaking and then pass out. Which stresses my body further and the cycle seems almost impossible to break.
I am hoping beyond hope that I have found a solution. I happened upon the MELT Method nine days ago, read everything I could on the website, ordered the book, and am now devouring the book. It is mind blowing! Did you know every blood capillary in your body has a sympathetic nerve attached? That explains a lot about my blue hands, my heart rate shooting up to 140, and the endless numbness I experience. There are actual nerve endings in the capillaries so when a joint is out of place and those nerves start firing, it makes perfect sense that my blood flow is restricted and I pass out. Maybe you knew that, but I sure didn’t. Sue Hitzmann, the creator of MELT, is convinced that her methods can heal the connective tissue matrix. I don’t know if they can heal my connective tissue problems since they are rooted in my DNA, buy I am hoping that they can help my faulty tissue work at its best. She claims her exercises calm the sympathetic nervous system down, increase the work of the parasympathetic’s restorative functions, help the fascia to send happy messages instead of completely stressed out ones, and live without pain. The MELT Method has a protocol for people with connective tissue disorders that is easier on those of us who aren’t put together with stretchy rubberbands. I ordered my tools last week and they should be arriving sometime in next couple of weeks. Then I will get started on the exercises and see what happens. If Sue is right, this will help my connective tissue, my hip injury, AND my overactive sympathetic nervous system. Just the thought of it makes me grin from ear to ear.
And yet, I am scared. Silly, huh? My book came on Wednesday and I was scared to open it. Scared to get my hopes up yet again. Scared to give it my all and then find it doesn’t work at all, or worse yet, it doesn’t work for me because my body is too defective. I have been battling these fears all weekend. I would read a page or two and then put the book down and have to battle a new set of fears. Richard has been doing energy work with these fears and last night I was finally able to read without running away from the information. I want this to be THE answer and I will be totally thrilled if it is AN answer, one piece of the puzzle of building muscles, nourishing my body, letting Jeremy work his magic on me, and waiting on the Lord for strength, courage, and healing. But I am scared and need courage to move forward with hope to try again.
Please pray for me to be guided to answers and to have the courage to act on the ones I find. Please pray for me to have a heart full of hope AND peace. I need both. Please pray for me to find a way to build muscles without injuring myself. Another big injury at this stage of the game may be my undoing. I just don’t know how much more bedrest these muscles can handle before they don’t have any strength to hold me together at all. It’s a viscious cycle – weak muscles lead to more dislocations, but building muscles is a precarious road often fraught with injury and setbacks.
My plan for now is to figure out a way to go to therapy every week, do the exercises in the MELT book, eat lots of meat and drink lots of bone broth, and ride an ElliptiGO.
enough
I spoke in Sacrament meeting yesterday on Doctrine and Covenants 104:17.
For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves.
I had a thoughtful, inspired week preparing my thoughts and am grateful for the experience of pondering the concept of enough. I came to some pretty strong conclusions. There is enough food. There is enough water. There is enough God. There is enough healing. There is enough love. There are enough trials and learning opportunities to become who He created us to be.
There is enough. God created this earth to be exactly what we needed. He didn’t send us somewhere that didn’t have enough.
Our perceptions of lack create fear in us that there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough money. There isn’t enough friendship. There isn’t enough time. There isn’t enough food. There isn’t enough healing.
But lack is not reality. The earth is full. Full of goodness. Full of food. Full of producers. Full of potential friends. Full of courage. Our perception of lack is reality. Our fear based on that perception is reality. The lack is not reality.
When I am most scared, most overwhelmed, most confused, it is because I start believing in lack. I start believing there is not enough money, not enough time, not enough anything.
Those are lies. There is enough. With God all things are possible. Remember Gideon and his army of 300? Remember how it felt to repent and be cleansed by the atonement of Christ? Remember how a child was healed? Remember the peace that has flooded your soul? Remember the money that showed up in your life? All of these things and millions more testify that there is enough. God is bigger than all of the fear, all the tragedy, all the pain. He is enough. And because He is enough, there is enough.
Well, somehow these muddy thoughts came together in a talk and I hope my congregation got something out of the tangled mess. I was a tad concerned about passing out at the pulpit and asked for everyone’s prayers at the beginning. I got through just fine, but my hip started hurting from muscle spasms and I had to finish a bit earlier than planned. Throughout the rest of the meetings, the spasms got stronger and stronger and I really should have gone home, but I love church and I wanted to make it through all the meetings.
I ended up collapsing to the floor near the end of the last meeting. My hip dislocated and when I came back to the land of consciousness, I found myself crying from the pain. Once again a team of super amazing helpers converged by my side to rub out the charley-horses, calm me down, and get me home. Two of the men did their darndest to get my hip back into the socket. It had to have been rather awkward for them, but I wouldn’t have been able to put any weight on that leg if they hadn’t worked to hold me together.
I am so grateful to have had this experience. Coming face to face with pain and dependence on others AND not being healed just after testifying that there is enough healing could have made me doubt my words. But I know God can heal me. I know His power is big enough to heal me. I know He loves me. Even though the healing hasn’t come in the way I want it to, I know He is guiding me, supporting me, placing people in my life to help me, and loving me. He is giving me enough to get through this.
After a long day in bed and lots of ice packs and heat packs to get the muscles spasms to calm down, I am ready to face another day with my chin up. Its time to read with my little ones and start another week of adventure.
this world is full of suffering
There is a whole lot of pain in the world. Piles and piles of pain I can’t even begin to imagine. Today my heart strings are being pulled out to all those who are suffering.
Hunger for food, hunger for love, hunger for acceptance.
Regret.
Rejection.
Unfulfilled dreams.
Fear.
Loss.
Heartbreak.
Divorce.
Anger.
War.
Rape.
Abuse in all its many twisted forms.
Exhaustion.
Wayward children.
Hopelessness.
Guilt.
Shame.
Terror.
Confusion.
Loneliness.
Physical pain.
Deception.
Lack of trust.
Sorrow.
My heart fills with heartache at the pain people are going through. The person next to you at the grocery store has a story of pain and suffering. That cute little family next to you at church has a different story. That child whimpering with hunger pains in a back alley of Ecuador has a story all their own. And yet, every story is hard. Every person needs our love. My love.
Through this injury I have come to see the world through different eyes. Eyes of more compassion…not always, but more than I used to. I am coming to see that my very public injury, my very public showings of weakness and pain are visual demonstrations of the human condition. We are all weak. We are all hurting in some way. We all have secrets in our closet we don’t want anyone to uncover. This injury puts my pain front and center in people’s minds and yet, I still try to cover it. I still try to reassure people that I am okay. I still try to carry on my normal life and grin and bear it. We all do. And there is value in that, don’t get me wrong. We need people to work and love and serve and fight for the truth and live for God. But we also need to be real. We need to let our weaknesses show and share our pain so that others won’t feel alone in theirs. We need to allow our humanness to connect with others’ humanness and build relationships built on the realness of me and the realness of you and not some sideshow we put out there as the truth of our lives.
Every time I collapse in public and need to be rescued I am learning lessons. Lessons of being real, of allowing others to serve me, of being completely dependent on the person next to me to take care of me while I am unconscious. It is scary, but it is also valuable. I am learning it is okay to be weak. It is okay to need help. It is okay.
I want to wave my magic wand and erase all the pain in the world. I want to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the broken hearts, but I can’t take it all away. The suffering in this world is bigger than any of us can hold, any of us can comprehend. The only antidote is Christ. He is enough. His love is enough. And some day, the healing will come. Until then, let’s be His hands and let’s be real.
war and peace
My two middle children have decided they are France and England in the 1300s. One of those children is determined to be king. The other one is almost content to let the first be king, but is hoping for a kind and benevolent king. Unfortunately, the sibling king is more in line with the tyrannical dictator model.
Even with the Hundred Years’ War flaring up from time to time between these two, they can play chess for hours on end. They go from waging war and retaliating to giggling themselves silly all in a matter of minutes. I don’t understand it, but I sure am grateful for the magic of our chess table to calm emotions and put these two on friendly terms.
tapestry
When I think back on my life and the weaving that has already been done, I am filled with gratitude. I am so grateful for the bright yellow threads of family get-togethers at my grandparent’s home. Playing hide-n-seek for hours, running all over the yard and up and down trees, jumping over the rhubarb patch, climbing the metal pole on the back porch and then swinging around it on the way back down, then being called in by grandma for a delicious family dinner with far more choices of what to eat than I ever had at home, kneeling down for morning prayers around the breakfast table and at the couch in the evening for nightly prayers, watching my grandmother work in the kitchen from sun-up to sun-down and then reading her scriptures late at night at her metal kitchen table – these rich experiences of family life were gifts of immeasurable consequence.
The angry red threads of parents’ fighting, the black threads of hopelessness, the purple threads of being taught I am a child of God and choosing to really believe it, and the green threads of becoming a mother and growing into that role are all in my tapestry as well. There are turquoise threads of fun times, lots and lots of brown threads that represent the healthy soil God has surrounded me in to help me grow into the daughter He created me to be, and pink threads full of laughter and joy.
So many colors. So many experiences. I am grateful for them all. Especially the threads being woven right now. I am learning so much about Him, about me, about how very, very flawed I am and how much I need Him to teach me, to rescue me, to love me.
Life is But a Weaving
Corrie Ten Boom (The Tapestry Poem)My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned
He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.
a morning cup of gratitude
I have decided I desperately need to focus on gratitude to keep my heart and mind in a feel-good place.
God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Evelyn Underhill
With that in mind, here are a few things I am grateful for today.
- My foot is feeling quite good! It is amazing how much stronger it has gotten in just the past few days.
- My car is really struggling with shifting and misfires, but it is still getting us where we need to go.
- I am so, so grateful for a washing machine that works. This morning I had a big pile of stinky rags in the sink and I was able to toss them in the washer and they will come out clean and smelling great.
- My femoral nerve was firing like crazy last night and this morning. I put a new oil on it, Vallee by Butterfly, and it is feeling so much better. Wahoo!
- This morning one of my children was struggling to be kind. God gave me the vision to see this precious child as His child and not just as a contention causing problem in my life. I was blessed to speak patiently and not get drawn in to the drama and somehow even give a hug.
New eyes. That is what I am praying for. Eyes to see His will AND be okay with it. Will you join with me in prayer that I will be blessed with eyes to see His ways?
big, fat alligator tears
I had a really rough day yesterday. Menstrual cramps + painful physical therapy + bad news delivered at PT = a bawling mama unable or unwilling to look on the bright side.
I cried a lot.
I yelled in frustration.
I cried some more.
I attended a three hour board meeting for iFamily and did my darndest to serve this organization I helped create and love so much.
I laid in bed with ice packs.
I cried some more.
And then I put on my big girl panties and went downstairs with my ice packs for Family Home Evening with my kiddos and sweetie. We watched an inspiring film about a man of great faith, humility, and generosity. He sacrificed all for the kingdom of God (If you want to watch it, it is called Treasures In Heaven, The John Tanner Story). It touched me deeply and softened my heart towards the God I love. I began to see that I need new eyes. I need to somehow accept that I might not ever stop hurting, that I may continue to lose strength and ability. At the same time I need to do all I can to build strength, to feed myself spiritually, physically, and emotionally. I need to allow God to shore me up.
This morning I am more calm, more peaceful. There may or may not be answers out there for me. I may or may not get better. I may or may not ever get my old life back. But I am not alone – God loves me. Jesus loves me. Richard loves me. Our children love me. My friends love me.
And I love them.
tidal wave
I am lying here in bed on this early Thursday morning and my head is swimming with everything that has happened in the past three weeks. I need to process it all so I can move on with a calm, hopeful heart.
I also want to record it so my children can read this when they are adults and know that when they have a string of weeks like this, they are not the first, nor the last, to be hit with a big ‘ol pile of junk.
- Three bad nights of passing out, being rescued, and wondering where on earth my healthy body has gone.
- Battery acid exploding all over the Subaru and needing to be replaced.
- Twentieth anniversary trip cancelled.
- Fisher dislocating his shoulder and getting a hairline fracture in his humorus.
- Sitting on the couch reading to my children when a flood of water starts dripping in to the basement
- My wrist dislocated and stretched or pinched the radial nerve causing the same sympathetic nervous response as when my femoral nerve gets stretched too far.
- Going out many mornings and having ANOTHER flat tire.
- Finally replacing all four tires on the subaru for a pretty penny.
- Richard’s car being dead to the world and needing a new battery. Replace the battery on a Tuesday, car seems fine. On Wednesday the whole car won’t work, windows won’t go up…and are stuck down, has to get towed in the middle of his work day, find out the main fuse is blown and many other fuses are damaged. Replace all of the fuses for more pennies than I care to even think about. He went to pick up the car up a few days later and once again it won’t start. Then the alternator needed replaced. And the battery. Again. Many, many, many pretty pennies later, we finally have his car back and are hoping it will keep running.
- Keziah hit the reflex point on my knee several times during scripture study the other night and once again the sympathetic nervous system response kicked in. My nerves are not happy one little bit.
- We got home from iFamily last night and had another big flood from the upstairs toilet. This time we were able to figure out more of what is going on. It didn’t overflow like we thought. There is a crack somewhere that is leaking.
- Sadie has thrown up in the house three times in the past twenty four hours. I’m pretty sure it is because she ate all the crumbs from my very crumbly cookie project the other night. It took me a few batches to get the flour consistency right. One of the children measured the flour and must have not been quite as accurate as was needed to get cookies to come out in one piece instead of a frillion crumb piles.
- Richard has spent HOURS and HOURS on the phone with the IRS and at the local IRS office trying to fight a bill from our failed 2007 business that we didn’t know we owed and don’t have records to prove we don’t owe. He is conceding the fight and paying them piles and piles and piles of pretty pennies today because another fine goes into effect tomorrow. Unfortunately for us, we had a large disagreement about it last night into the wee hours of the morning and harsh words were spoken and we had a very sleepless night. He thinks we should pay it, I think we should keep fighting them. The only good thing to come out of it was a long, squishy hug this morning and some tender “I love yous.” I am grateful that in spite of all my ranting he still believes I love him.
- I need to be given worst mother of the year award for the all the mean things I have said to my 17-year-old lately. I really hope someday we can look back on these years and laugh at them the way my mother and I can, but at this point I just don’t know if that will ever happen. I fear she may grow up, leave home, and never want to see me again.
- My ugly, repulsive bathroom sink is clogged. Again. And no amount of baking soda and vinegar is doing the trick this time.
- My doctor keeps using the word “disease” and while I guess it is, it feels like a knife stabbing into my soul every time I hear that word.
- Unbeknownst to me, one of the members of this family put away the rice cooker several weeks ago full of rice. Which is now moldy and disgusting and stinky. Good thing Keziah found it this morning so we could get that awful stench out of here.
- My Make It For Maggie website has been hacked into and I have to find some time to fix it…now. Quite frankly, it is time I don’t have.
- We have three broken violin bows, Keziah needs a new violin because she has had a huge growth spurt, and Blythe needs a new bow. Desperately. Right now she is borrowing one of Jennifer’s and I was working on coming up with the $$200 – 400 for a new bow, but all these broken bones, x-rays, and car problems have killed that dream for a few more months.
- Someone we dearly love has just been diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time and is preparing for a double mastectomy, but she doesn’t want to talk about it and I don’t know how to support her or the other people who are involved when we can’t talk about it.
- I have been out of my boot for a little more than a week which is FANTABULOUSO! Unfortunately the shoes I have to wear for the next many months cost us piles of pennies.
- As a sign of how much pressure we are under, Richard actually yelled yesterday after the two hour IRS visit. Yelled. This man does not yell. And yet he did. Then, when he discovered the flooded bathroom last night, he swore. This man does not swear. And yet he did. I think the months of taking care of me, of holding this family together with his steadiness, calmness, and good humor, and the long, long hours he works have finally wore him down.
I know that all this will pass. I know that these things are just part of life. In fact, my heart is full of gratitude that Richard is working and earning money and he got a decent paycheck this month that allowed us to go grocery shopping and buy shoes. He had to cash out his measly little retirement account he had from working with the school district to pay the taxes, which still makes me madder than all get out, but I am grateful to have had a way to pay them. But I am tired. Tired AND grateful, but tired nonetheless. I don’t think I can handle another thing going wrong or breaking or flooding for awhile.
There are also many wonderful things that have happened in the past three weeks. I have been able to be in the temple twice. Many other people have been working in the temple for me as well. At least one hundred endowments have been done in the past few weeks. I have been kept safe when my tires were flat. Fisher’s arm is doing well and he is out of his sling at three weeks. We had enough towels to clean up the mess last night and thanks to the amazing Kat we have a new toilet to put in when we find the time to do it. We think we need to pull out the flooring and replace the subfloor that has been ruined by these floods. In the meantime, we have two other toilets to use – big gratitude there, right?
Is it possible to see the good and the bad and the hard and the wonderful all at the same time? Because that is where I am at. I am full to the brim with gratitude. I can see the blessings of God. I know he is watching over us. I know He is guiding us. At the same time, I want to have a breather. Maybe I need to reread my quote from the other day and realize maybe the breather is not what I actually need?
And tonight my Richard will get a massage. He needs to have all this stress rubbed right out of him.
fall has arrived in my kitchen
You never know what will happen after getting out of a walking boot you have been in for months! Tonight I felt so good, I ventured into the Land of The Unseen, otherwise known as the kitchen and whipped out something delicious for my family! I was reading King Arthur with Fisher when I started thinking about the cans of pumpkin in the pantry and all the yummy fall treats we have been missing out on.
It has been so, so long since I have had a day without mega foot pain and/or mega hip pain and/or passing out. Today I had no foot pain AND no hip pain and no sign of passing out, so I decided right then and there it was high time to get on my feet and get to work.
So, I made two tried and tested favorites. My mother-in-laws Zucchini Soup and the Pumpkin Chocolate Cookies Kat helped me develop a few years ago.
We are swimming in yumminess tonight!
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
