The Placebo Effect

Day 3 and I feel fantastic.  Right now.  I can't speak for two hours from now, but RIGHT NOW I feel fantastic.

Fantastic is such a great word.

I'm QUITE sure that this is all attributed to a little thing called "the placebo effect".  I have never heard of an anxiety medication actually helping in only 3 days, so again - I'm pretty sure my brain has taken over.

At least this time it is using it's power for good instead of evil.

Brains are an amazing thing.  This whole struggle with anxiety has made me MARVEL at the wonders of God's creation of our minds.  The fact that something as simple as a little headache can turn into this:

chest pains, hard heartbeat, dizziness, rapid breathing, fuzzy eyesight, nausea....

simply because my MIND decides it's worse than just a little headache.  Wow, our minds are powerful things.

God created them that way, and knew that we needed to guard them.  How many times in the Word does He tell us to guard our minds?  We always seem to see the "heart" part of verses and miss the "mind".  

Phillipians 4:7 tells us "Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."  Oh how we love to quote this, claim it and hang on it for dear lives when things are not going well.  But, if you see a "then" at the beginning of a verse you really need to look back a little...Phillipians 4:6 "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done."

His peace will guard my mind, if instead of worrying about things I PRAY about everything.  If I will tell God what I need and be thankful for all He has done.  

I tend to pray ALOT......after I've crashed.  I need His peace....after I crash.  I'm pretty sure that means I've got this a little backwards. 

Thank you for the prayers, friends!  I completely attribute to this FANTASTIC feeling to the goodness and grace of GOD and the prayers of my friends!  

Authenticity and a little pill....

I value authenticity.  I do.

Not the kind that let's me in on things I have no business knowing, but authenticity that let's me know who you really are.  In real life, as well as in my "virtual" life I have little interest in surface relationships.  This is something I've realized over time about myself.  I have lived in MANY different places, different cities, and different countries and there have been times when I had no authentic friends around me.  For the longest time I thought I was just introverted and had a hard time making friends. But then I realized that I just had no interest in friendships where I do not know the REAL you and you do not know the REAL me.

You can tell right off the bat.  More than likely, after the first time being around you, I have a good idea if we will be lifelong friends, or "hey, how are you?" acquaintances.  I think both are needed in life.  I don't think everyone I meet SHOULD be my lifelong friend, but I more than likely won't waste time trying very hard to figure it out.  Basically I am just selfish in my friendships and want to save myself up for people that I know I can show my crazy to (and vice versa...), and will still love me.

I'm entering a 12-step program soon....

I am the same in this virtual world.   For the longest time I read ALOT of blogs - homeschool blogs, ministry blogs, missions blogs, lifestyle blogs...the list goes on and on.  But do you know what that did to me?  Depressed me.  I found myself comparing ALL THE TIME.  I can't do the homeschool things she does - my kids aren't as well behaved as hers - why can't I think of awesome things to do with all my mason jars - blah blah blah.  People blog the GOOD stuff, and leave out the "I'm so tired of all this I'm hiding in my closet crying" stuff....(not that I ever do that, I actually have no closet I could hide in.  I know, I've looked).

So, if you're going to get actual "Pieces of Amy" then you take the good and the bad.  (who's humming right now?)  Some days I will ROCK the homeschool world, have mason jar lights strung up all over my yard, AND have super polite, well behaved kids.  Some days I will be searching for a closet...

All that to say this:  I will be blogging my newest journey into the world of Panic Disorder.  A three day long episode + feeling God impress on me he wants to heal me through medication + a great friend's loving rebuke have led me to filling a prescription.   A prescription I was supposed to fill a month ago, but I was feeling better..... I am so easily duped by my own mind.

Today is day one, and I'm a little nervous. Not because of the actual taking of medication, I'm all about it if it will help.  I'm afraid of side-effects.  I did not have that problem a year ago, but now I've been the one in a million who have weird side-effects (my vision problems are ongoing...) and I know it's all not just words on paper. 

This is one of the difficult pieces.  BUT, I have been reminded the last few days that if I did not have this "piece" then I would not be likely to fall at the feet of Jesus as often as I HAVE to.  Makes me think of a story of Paul and the thorn.......

Linked Up With:
A Mama's Story, The Better Mom, and Working Kansas Homemaker
A Holy Experience

Wasting Time

Well now, that's the fifth Lego I've pulled from my foot. Did the creator of Legos secretly giggle when he realized all the parents that would one day be cursing his name? Five Legos and my feet have had enough.

Passed the Legos, but now it's the dirt. The grit from little feet that have come in from the pool and strewn bits of summer all over my floor. I walk by, coffee cup in hand and think "I'll have to sweep later...." as I head for my comfy chair by the window.

 Sitting in my chair I have the perfect view of the block tower that my son has built. The coffee table has been pushed to the side to make room for creativity, blocks strewn everywhere with the look of complete chaos - but I know better. Where I see chaos, he sees a helicopter landing pad or log cabin vet clinic.

Sighing, everything in me says I need to get back up and clean this crazy house. But the still small voice inside says no. This house speaks of life. There is life being lived in every corner and life is messy.  

He loves me. He loves me enough to remind me that a quiet moment in the chair with Him is not wasting time. It's never a waste to rest in His arms, to listen to His voice, to read His letters to me.

He is never a waste of time.

Summer Plans and JFFF Link-up!

 

Ahhhh, Friday.  The end of the school week and the end of the school YEAR!  Is anyone else excited about lazy Summer days??  I am!  We're taking the month of June off and then kicking back in for some Summer learning in July (I know, I know....what a bummer Mom - but we got SO behind this year!) This break could not have come at a better time, it is MUCH NEEDED!!!

The kids and I sat down last week and had a talk about figuring out ways to spend our summer serving other people.  We have developed a very bad habit of sheltering ourselves in our home and living in "survival" mode.  I think that there can be a time for that in our lives, but it should be a short period.  That period for us is at its end and it's time to start living and being the WORD to the world around us.   In light of that, there are a few things this summer that I'm really excited about.

The first is a Read-a-thon that our kids are starting this week.  I remember having Read-a-thons every Summer when I was a kid and LOVING them.  Our library has a Summer reading program that we will sign up for, but I was bothered by the fact that everything the kids would read or do was just for THEM, to win prizes and such.  There is a place for that (and we're signing up, btw...) but in light of how we want to spend our Summer I knew we had to find a way to make it about others.   So, in an effort to keep our kids reading all Summer, and to have them learn the meaning of working hard for OTHERS, we made up our own Read-a-thon. 

We've titled it "Kids 4 Kids Read-a-thon" and all the proceeds will go to the Fort Smith Children's Emergency Shelter.  The CES is a home where foster kids go when they are taken from their homes but there is no foster home available to place them in.  Their website has a whole list of needs and wants, so we're going to pool our money at the end of the Summer and let the kids pick things from the list to buy for them.  So far there are several families participating.  If you're in the Fort Smith area and want to jump in, facebook me and let me know.  If you're not, I encourage you to find a way to reach out to your community this Summer.  It doesn't have to be something official, remember we made this up ourselves!   You can make up anything!

We're also joining in with a group from our church to minister to a local nursing home/assisted living facility.  The kids will spend one day a week loving on some Grandmas and Grandpas and learning the meaning of caring for others.  I"m sure there will be some bumps and whines along the way, but reaching out to others is like a muscle that you have to use to grow stronger.  Our muscles atrophy if we don't use them, think about what a metaphor that can be for ministry as well......

Personally, I'm going to spend the summer studying the Proverbs 31 woman.  I shared in an earlier post how I've joined in with the Good Morning Girls to dig into this woman's life and learn how to be a more godly wife and mother.  It's only been a week into this study and God has already really used it to encourage and rebuke me.  It's going to be a Summer of breaking and re mending and I'm looking forward to the process.  

Deep breaths.  That's what I'm doing right now after typing all of that.  Why?  Because I am an introvert who loves to do nothing more than sit in my home with a book and shut out the world.  That is not what God has called me to do, and it's not the way I want my kids to spend their lives.  Relaxing has it's place, but it should not be the ONLY place.  Stretch me, Lord! 

What about you?  Do you have any plans for the Summer?? Traveling, family, camps, studies, I want to know!  

Now, it's your turn to link up!  I would love to read your favorite post of the week, whatever it was about!  You can link as many posts as you like, but please remember to link back so that we can continue to find each other.  Feel free to snag the button on the right so that others can find the link-up page and join in!  Have a great weekend!!!

A Dead Woman's Shoes

I'm hitting my stride and it feels good.  My legs aren't burning like they usually are, I'm pushing harder and going faster than normal and NOT feeling like I may die at any moment.  These new running shoes are amazing, they fit my feet perfectly and take a lot of pressure off my back.

I wonder if she ever got to wear them before she died?

Yep, I'm wearing a dead woman's shoes.

Maybe I should start at the beginning...

I live in an upscale neighborhood.  See, I can say that without any hesitation because I decidedly do NOT live in an upscale HOME.  In fact, my friend Treva refers to our home as "The Servant's Quarters" because amid all the grand and over-the-top houses in our neighborhood, this one is quite normal.

And in one of those grand and over-the-top houses lived a woman who has recently passed on.  I was tipped off to this by all the giant "ESTATE SALE" signs, cars lining the roads for MILES, and people carrying out random lion coffee tables or antique looking chairs.  Just for fun, to see what it looked like in one of these homes, I decided to attend the affair.  Of course, I went with reinforcements in case I decided that I needed one of those lion coffee tables (someone had to talk me out of it). 

Myself, Treva and her Grammy (who seemed to LOVE the people watching) filed from room to room looking at knick knacks from another's life, books on someone else's shelf, Christmas decorations that might have meant something to her but to us just looked like kitschy junk, and sitting on her expensive overstuffed furniture.  The house was beautiful, expensively decorated and HUGE.   Someone spent a lot of money on that life, and now random strangers were wondering around, opening drawers and buying their breakfast dishes.

At one point we sat down in her living room, on her chairs and I stared for a full (at least) five minutes at a giant vase filled with 10 foot tall bamboo poles.  Two thoughts kept swirling in my head: 1.  Who has this in their living room?  2. When do you get to the point where you will spend that much money (my guess was at least $500 on the vase and the poles...) on such a ridiculous decoration? 

And then, in the middle of that expensively decorated living room, I saw the shoes.  Super cute, brand new running shoes that were exactly my size.  I needed new running shoes, as mine were falling apart.  And for $4.00, her shoes became mine.

As I slipped them on that evening I couldn't help but think about her shopping for new shoes.  Looking through different stores to find the perfect pair to help her get back in shape.  I'm sure she had no idea she wouldn't wear them.  No idea that today she was shopping for shoes, and tomorrow random strangers would be buying them at her Estate Sale.

Which brought to mind a little story in the Bible that we don't hear much about.

^{Luke 12:15-21}  And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.  He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’  “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.  And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’   “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” 

Now, I didn't know this woman.  She may have been a great Godly woman who used her wealth to bless others all the time, this is NOT a condemnation of wealth.  What I'm saying is, it made me think.  It made me think through how fleeting life is, how so often our priorities are things and status, and how one day you die and that all means NOTHING.  Nothing.  Nothing.  It made me sad for her.  Sad for anyone who thinks peace and happiness lies within those things.   

Let's not store up things for ourselves.  Let's live a life that is rich toward God.   

 Linked Up With:
A Mama's Story, The Better Mom, and Working Kansas Homemaker

Just For Fun Friday Link-up!

It's Friday!  I'm so excited about this day because I get an ACTUAL weekend - like one where my husband comes home tonight, and then stays home tomorrow!  I know, it rocks my world too.  

I hope you're having an amazing Friday and looking forward to a great weekend ahead!

It's time to link-up our awesomeness.  With so much extraordinariness (I'm pretty sure I made that up...) in one place, we just might crash Blogger.

Your turn!

I love her...and hate her.

I have had a love/hate relationship with this woman for years.  There have been days I look at her and want nothing more to BE her and emulate everything she does -and then there are days I want to never ever hear her name again.  Whole seasons of my life have been taken over by this one woman.  Why does she create such tension in my life?  Why do I care who she is or what she does?

Because apparently God wants me to.  I mean, He's the one who wrote the Book. 

photo credit:aeshaonline.com

By now I'm sure you've guessed who "She" is.... the Proverbs 31 woman.  If you've never "seen" her, then you should.  She is a sight to behold.  She is the epitome of what a woman should be, according to King Lemuel's mother.  The woman to look for, the ONE.  And because I personally believe that all the Bible is the inspired word of God, and it tells us itself that all of it is useful for teaching  - then I believe there is a reason that God let us eavesdrop on this teaching moment between mother and son. 

I don't believe this is a mirror we should be able to look into and see an exact reflection.  That would just set us up for failure and bitterness, and I don't believe our Father sets us up for failure and bitterness.  I believe it's more like goal setting, like a hobby that you work on your entire life to one day become an expert.

Like Tiger Woods at 2 years old, just swinging his first golf club.  If anyone showed him a video of himself 30 years into the future and said he had to be that good RIGHT NOW, then he'd probably have dropped the club and picked back up his hot wheels cars.  Proficiency takes time, learning doesn't happen in a day or a year.  It happens over a lifetime, and I think that's what Proverbs 31 is.

I share all this to let you in on the Summer semester Proverbs 31 Book Club that starts today over at Women Living Well and Good Morning Girls.  I've been wanting to start studying HER again, so this was all just great timing for me.  I would try to explain the logistics of it, but I did that with a friend yesterday and completely confused her, so go visit the websites and it should be very simple to figure out.

Have you been looking for a Summer Bible study?  This one is low-key, easy peasy, and doable anywhere.  We will be traveling quite a bit this summer (go figure...), so this will be good for me because it's not dependent on where I am.  Anyone in with me?  Check it out!

Linked Up With:
A Mama's Story, The Better Mom, and Working Kansas Homemaker

Still here!

Just a quick word to say I didn't QUITE fall off the planet....just somewhere in backwoods North Arkansas.  A family reunion in a place with no cell service or Wifi prevented me from our Just For Fun Friday link-up party!  I'm SO SORRY!!!! 

I will make it up to you, somehow. 

Maybe this random picture will suffice.

Ding, Ding..Round 732

Well, I gave it a good try.  I did.  I have to keep telling myself that.  But there is a time for trying, and a time for medication.

I'm pretty sure it says that somewhere in Ecclesiastes.

Two months free of medication, ups and downs and panic and normalcy.  I know that no ones "normal" life is good all the time, so it's not a "feel good" thing.  It's just very hard to parent with the constant symptoms and worry that they induce.  My children are much more important than my strange need to be non-medicated.

I told myself to wait until after Nashville, and now my own deadline has come and gone.  Today I call up the doctor and we have a talk about which way to go next.  I'm dreading the ups and downs of finding the right med for me, but I know that it is a short period of frustration compared to actual LIFE after.

You know what convinced me?  If you've read me for very long you could probably guess..... I can't drink coffee without chest pains and a racing heart...AGAIN.  And yet, I drink the coffee.  I believe it's called addiction.

Hello, my name is Amy, and I am so addicted to coffee that I will wreck my whole day knowingly just for the beautiful black liquid.

Have any of you ever gone through the ups and downs of finding the right medication?  Have you figured out what will work for you without medication?  And I don't mean super-Christian-just-pray-alot-more methods.  I've tried them all and finally concluded that the genes my parents passed down are just laughing at me.  My parents also passed the genes for diabetes and I don't think any less of my Mom for taking her diabetes medicine every day.  I sure hope no one has ever told her to just "pray more".

So, I guess I'm back to swallowing down my peace with a little pill and somewhere deep inside I have become okay with that.  My prayer now has become that I find the right one quickly and don't have crazy side effects.

Although, crazy medications could make for some very interesting blogging....

A trip to Nashville and JFFF Link-up!

It's FRIDAY! Just for Fun link-up!

Happy Friday, everyone!  I hope you are reading this blog at the end of a good week, ready to relax and have some quality family time or even quality ME time this weekend!  Make sure the link-ups at the bottom of the page are part of your relaxing weekend.  I always find such interesting things in the link-ups, I'm loving finding new people to get to know!

This week I am in Nashville at the National Collegiate Ministry Summit enjoying some down time while my husband goes to lots of meetings.  I've made a few appearances, but mostly I've gotten to hang out with good friends and lay around in a hotel room - BLISS. 

Me, Kaye, Mrs. Kathy, and Angie

The maid-of-honor in my wedding, one of my favorite people ever created by God lives in Nashville.  She and her husband moved here less than a year ago to work at Lifeway, he's a new Lifeway Vice President bigwig.  It's kinda funny to me because I still feel like we are all 19 year old kids and NONE of us should be old enough to write books and be VP's of companies and know people I only know from the jackets of books. 

Another highlight of my week was this picture on the right.  This was a night I got to sit around a dinner table with some of the funniest, most interesting people I know.  Kaye and Eric who have been pastoring in Miami for years and now are at Lifeway, Todd and Angie who are are Collegiate Ministers in Louisiana, and Mrs. Kathy - the woman who changed all of our lives.  For real.  We were all together at the Baptist Student Union in college (what WE knew it as, now it's BCM and a daily part of my life!) and Mrs. Kathy was our director.  She was our mentor and is still the one I will run to when I need HELP!  Just being around this woman will change you, she is the Proverbs 31 woman I aspire to be.  It is terrifying to think that I am now "Mrs. Kathy" to the college students we work with.  It's alot to live up to! 

I don't know if you remember the last time I left my children to go away with my husband, but I don't do it easily.  I did have a panic attack on day one, spent the day of driving here in a panic-sick haze and hating that I can't control my dang bodily reactions.  BUT, God is good and it has lessened as the week went on and I am having a great time.  Even though my daughter is at the doctor right now with my Mother, has had a fever all week and is going to miss her first ever sleepover at a friends house.  I am fine.  I am.  FINE. 

What's on the agenda for today?  Lying around the hotel until noon, meeting all the Arkansas Baptist Collegiate Ministers for an amazing lunch and then shopping with the wives all afternoon.  Back to the room to nap, then a date with my husband in Nashville!  It's gonna be a GOOD DAY!!!!

Now it's your turn!  I have plenty of time to lay around and read what your week was like!!!  Link-up your favorite posts from the week, as many as you like!  Make sure you link directly to that POST and not just to your blog so that we can always find it.  Link back here so we can keep the party going!  Feel free to grab the button (it's hangin out on the right of the page, just waiting for you...)and share the fun.