Janet's Blog

Lately, when people ask me what I do all day, I am somewhat embarrassed to give an answer because, some days, it seems like all I do is self care. I often long for those mornings, long ago, when I could hop out of bed, throw on some clothes, eat a leisurely breakfast, brush my teeth, and head out the door for school, all in half an hour. Those days are long gone. Now, I wake up at a reasonable time in the morning, but I often find myself adjusting the bed to a comfortable reading position and turning on the built-in massage feature while I catch up on some reading and play a game or two on my phone. Realistically, I'm just putting off that inevitable morning routine that seems to take forever these days but, in reality, takes me 30-40 minutes in the bathroom before I can even think about sitting down for breakfast. (And, if I take a shower, that adds even more time, because those long, hot showers soothe my aching joints.) Getting dressed is the easy part, although I fumble around ...

I was seventeen or eighteen when our traveling ministry group sang at a nursing home in Oklahoma or Minnesota, or some other state on one of our three-week-long journeys. I remember seeing a sign that stated "Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life." Another popular sign urged the residents, and perhaps the staff, as well, to "Bloom Where You are Planted." Our Traveling Ministry group, Wheels of Faith . Pictures like this make me grateful for recent, digital photography. I don't know why I hated those signs, and their implied meanings. They make perfect sense now. But then, I probably thought they didn't really apply to me, since I was sure I had my whole life ahead of me. Perhaps it seemed like it was asking too much for nursing home residents to do anything meaningful with the remainder of their lives. Or, maybe, the signs just seemed like clichés, even then, when the sayings were new. Now, I know differently. I've had an active ...