Spring is here and Easter is coming!

It may be blustery and rainy here this week, but spring is here....daffodils are blooming, I have hyacinths coming up in my yard, and I hope to get over to get an Easter Lily this week (and also one to take to my mom's house as we are going over there for Easter dinner). I love tulips, daffodils, lillies, hyacinths....all the spring flowers.

Today, I am thankful for Jesus. I am thankful that He lives in my heart and that He through His holy spirit can guide and direct and communicate to me....that He can prompt me to pray for certain people or situations at various times, that He helps me when I feel weak and without peace, that He knows me and all my flaws but loves Me with a deep and everlasting love. And He feels this way about everyone He has created. When I stop and turn off all the distractions and just focus on the Lord and loving Him and thanking Him, my life flows so much better and with peace. I love Jesus! I am thankful for Easter! I am thankful that He gave His life on the cross and took all my sins and nailed them there. I am thankful that God's word in the Bible is true. Today, I stand on His word and I thank Him for it. I was just thinking when I was at church the other day how glad I was to be able to have the freedom to go to church and worship the Lord and hear His word being preached. So many around the world don't have that option, to worship Him in public. I am glad to live in the United States, where even if many things seem to be going haywire and contrary to God's word and plan and purpose in our society, we still are free to choose who or what we will worship. Some places in that world don't have that option. I read a story the other day about a small village in India where the Christians bamboo huts were burned down by radical Hindus. I thought about what would it be like to have your house burned down and lose everything you own because you are a Christian. We don't have that level of persecution here. And yet, sometimes I can be afraid to talk about Jesus to certain people or tell about His goodness. I don't want to be that way. I want the Lord to change me and make me brave to follow Him and speak and love how He wants me to, to whoever He wants me to.

Thoughts for today

Rainy day today in the Pacific Northwest. Cold and windy. March is going out like a lion.
Work was super busy today. Lots of client drama and trauma. So much of today I felt so ill-equipped....we had a client threatening suicide, another one who is 140 lbs overweight and needs knee surgery but it won't be authorized unless he loses weight...he is in pain and depressed and calls all the time time, very challenging individual to deal with. Sometimes I really think God has placed me in a job that is so so very hard and so what I do not want to do. Many times I just want to run away. I envy people who LOVE their work, I do like many aspects of my job, but sometimes dealing with the actual clients is so challenging and I just don't think I can or want to do it anymore after almost 30 years of it!
Our newly formed church knitting group met for our second meeting at my house last week. We had eight people, all women, one man! Half of us knit or want to learn knitting, the other half are crocheting. Our group goal is for each person to knit or crochet two baby hats by June to donate to the either one of the local hospitals or to New Beginnings, which is a local home through Youth With A Mission who help single pregnant young women with shelter, food, studying God's word, and helping them decide options in either keeping their babies or possible adoption. The group is a lot of fun so far...our token man is married and brought his wife last week...they are Asian and a very sweet couple, probably in their late 20's and the wife is pregnant and due in October. The husband works as a pharmacist in a local hospital. He wanted to learn to knit to make some beanies for himself and also make a few baby hats and items. He is finding it really relaxing and after two lessons is really catching on and knitting well. His wife wanted to learn to crochet and is doing well with learning that last week too.
I also have a friend from high school who I have reconnected with who lives a few blocks away who I have been knitting with every few weeks or so, taking turns going over to each other's homes for a few hours after work. She's coming over tomorrow night. I am presently working on an antique white baby blanket for a co-worker who is pregnant and also baby caps and a shawl called a 'gratitude shawl'. I also have a mint green baby blanket I started a few months ago I am working on. It is normal for me to have at least 3 or 4 knitting projects in the works!
I saw an orthopedic surgeon a few weeks ago for my first opinion about my hips. He said that at some point he predicts the Celebrex I am taking won't help as much and I will lose more range of motion and will need hip replacement surgeries done. He said it's genetic (my maternal grandmother had hip replacements but not till she was almost 80). He said he wouldn't do them at the same time. My primary care doctor feels I can make it for awhile functioning as I am before needing surgery. Walking and stretching will help. But I am struggling because walking hurts (muscles in my groin and butt from the arthritis in my hip joints pull and radiate pain) and stretching hurts. But I need to push past the hurt, to a point, as I know trying to keep limber and flexible is crucial. It's a choice I make daily, to walk or not, to stretch or not. I am going to see another ortho surgeon in a few weeks just to get a second opinion which I have been advised to do. I am thankful I have a good healthcare plan through my husband's work to be able to get these opinions, medication, etc. I am also praying too and asking the Lord to heal me. I have been looking up a lot of scriptures in the Bible on healing and bones...there's a lot in there about the bones...refreshing the bones, dry bones, moistening the bones, etc.

Lent

I pretty much failed last week sticking to my 'no unnecessary shopping-give up for lent' pledge. I bought some Easter cards, some birthday cards, a bracelet for $12.99 for myself. I also bought some baby sport yarn to make hats....but I really didn't 'need' to buy the yarn last week, even though it was on sale. The cards I can 'justify' as they are for others, but the bracelet I couldn't resist. There's a cool little drug store near where I live, that has the cutest cards and candles and pretty things....and they just recently got a shipment in of these cute stretchy bracelets...they are kind of antique-looking, like something you would see in Victoria Magazine. I bought a purple/pink butterfly one a few weeks ago, and when I went there again last week to get a birthday card (which I didn't need to do as I have birthday cards at home) I saw some more cute bracelets they had put out, so I caved and bought a pretty blue sparkly one with a big morning glory kind of flower on it. Yes, I could have resisted and walked away, but I didn't. It was payday, I had just been to the bank, and had to go into the drugstore to mail in my passport renewal stuff at the little post office inside. That's when the bracelets captured my attention again, I remembered them from when I was in a few weeks ago.

Already today I have been tempted to buy a book I saw on the Proverbs 31 website and a top at Ann Taylor Loft at the Mall. I saw the book at the link of a daily email devotional I get, so I just wrote it down on a list of 'wants'. The top which is a cute silk sleeveless one in a big roses pattern looked really cute for spring/summer but I checked online to see that it is $49.99, way too much. I will write it down on my list. It is interesting to kind of watch myself with my reactions...when I first saw the book this morning I wanted it immediately, and when I saw the top while walking this morning I started thinking about coming back over to the Mall at lunchtime to buy it. But I didn't. I realize I am very much an impulse buyer and it's a bad habit I need to break. I need to trust the Lord to be my provider and to help me be a good steward with what He has given me. One more top in my closet and one more book isn't being a good steward when I have a balance owing on two Visa credit cards. I really really need to pay those off and it isn't going to happen if I keep buying stuff I don't need. Clothes, costume jewelry, accessories, books, cards, stationery, cosmetics, shower & bath goodies, lotions, etc. are all big impulse weaknesses for me. All of that is stuff that depreciates so I need to be mindful of what I really need and what are just wants, which most of it is. I need to stick with my Lent plan this month of March, I figured I will start over today since it is the first of March. This is a harder fast for me than to give up certain kinds of food, which I have done before.

Tomorrow I go in for my appointment with the ortho surgeon about my hips. I am very curious to find out what he will say. I am praying and trusting God through it all, although I do feel a little anxious in thinking about what will I do if I need to have hip replacement surgery at such a young (52 almost) age. I have never had any major surgery and it is kind of scary to think about.