Hi friends:
Enjoying the outdoors is just so relaxing! Thank God for nature and fresh air, and gardens...! I just love to look at the sunset, or just follow a butterfly in the garden... It does the soul such good! For me its just a great blessing to spend some time outdoors!

This is so interesting. I had dinner with my "church ladies" the other night. Some of them are involved with our Bible Camp that's going on this week.

Our church owns a couple hundred acres in the country so every year we take the kids outside for Bee Tree Bible Days. They spend days in the fresh air. It's a lovely setting. There are pavilions, open fields, streams for walking, and trails to hike.

It's always a very spiritual week for the kids and adults.

My friend commented that she belives it's the outdoors that moves everyone. It's such a rarity for the kids to be outside today. WE decided it wouldn't have nearly as much meaning if we did it in the church building.

Get outside, feel the fresh air, see God's creation, and give thanks. It's rejuvinating for the body, mind, and spirit.

You know Dots, that is so true. Sometimes when I get so bogged down that I'm overwhelmed, I go outside because I know that smelling the air, feeling the OUTSIDENESS (yes, I know this is not a word) just has a way of splitting the inside woes in half. I usually just dabble, but it is therapy...amen to that.

Julie, when my children were small, I somehow would manage to find the time to lock myself in the bathroom, fill up the tub with really hot water, take a glass of wine or a cup of hot chocolate (depending on time of year and mood) and just lay in the soothing water and think...sometimes I would take a tape recorder and record my thoughts, other times I would just say prayers out loud and have a good old heart-to-heart with God, jawjaw style, and then sometimes I would just play classical music and listen and try and pick out a particular instrument and follow it, like a flute...okay, so you didn't know the Queen here likes classical eh? some of it...anyhooo...the point I'm trying to make it that the TIME was TOTALLY mine even though it may have only been 30 minutes or so, it was MINE...that help me to not loose ME. Make sure you don't loose the ME...

I am trying really hard to be outside or go to the tanning salon. I am very depressed right now, and wonder when things will start to feel normal again?

Sherri

Sherri hon..give yourself some breathing room and allow your emotions to just be. Don't deny them like I did. I was under the impression that if I actually let all the tears out that I had been holding back since Daddy died, then it would be like saying goodbye and that would be the end of it. It was almost like I would be breaking my last tie with him and his memory if I cried. But cry I did, feel all the pain I did, and BE DEPRESSED I was...and you know what? Besides all of this terrible English I am writing here, I need you to know that I did start feeling better and the depression started seeping away...just a tad at a time, but at least...at least I could tell I was sensing some "normal" in my emotions...so go ahead, feel what you want to feel, but keep the outsides and the tanning things a part of your everyday life...your Daddy would want that, would he not?

Hugs, JJ

Sheri, I agree with JJ. I have written this before, but it so greatly impressed me that I must remember it over and over. Sigmund Freud said that it is not emotions themselves that cause us pain, but our fight against them.
I have certainly found that to be true.
Sometimes tears are deep within us and not yet ready to come, but when they do, they cleanse our spirit and strenthen us anew.
It is not wrong to hurt and the pain will be over in its own time. Allowing the times of sorrow to draw us closer to God is all that we can do.
smile

[ July 01, 2004, 03:40 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

Dear Jaw Jaw, it's so glad to hear you sounding like yourself again. Sherri, it will take time but you will too. Promise.

JJ you hit the nail on the head - I'm looking for some quality ME time but maybe it is the mental space I need, to re-establish WHO that is? As a mother of a 18 yr old and a 3 yr old, I feel like neither fish nor fowl, just de-categorised and disconnected. I don't belong in the "Young Mums" (what a derogatory depersonalising term that is anyway, as if that is all they are) and all my own age group are doing the mid-life stuff with the smell of freedom in their nostrils.

Ahhh...but Julie my dear friend...are you the lucky one? You get to experience both perspectives! The "Young Mums" as you put it, and the boomer's.

We, on the other hand, only get to talk about our menopauseness...

So see? You are already one up! So enjoy both sides, but keep Julie in the middle, and declare that 1 hour on Thursday night (for instance) THE JULIE HOUR and whoa be unto anyone who intrudes on that sacred hour...capice?

Hugs, JJ

Julie, I know you're a faithful woman and I wonder if you've talked to the big guy upstairs about your feeling of being neither here nor there. I know You are not in this position by any accident of His. Please try to embrace your uniqueness.

Lynn may be able to shed some light on this because she has an older step child and a 5 year old. Lynn, where are you?

I remember a time when I was so wrapped up in being a mom that when I was frustated and needed to get away for a couple hours, I didn't even know myself well enough to figure out where I could go that would meet my needs. How's that for needing some "ME" time?

All of life is a stage, and this too shall pass.

Meantime, wrap those loving arms around yourself and share a hug from us.

This is but an ironic topic here. Just today at the hospital during the long delivery of my sister's child, the trio of us privied to be at her side were asked to leave for a few. One third is this trio was a 15yr old pregnant young lady. The other, dear hubby.

Well, this young lady is very depressed about her condition, with good cause since she has no money and very limited education. The way she'd been tending to these sad feelings were to stay locked up in her room. She wanted to go into the lobby to wait. I insisted that we went outdoors. Of course she didn't understand my persistance, but once we were out, I explained the medicinal benefits of 'outdoors.'

As basic as I could get with her (a few other consderations too) I explained the sun. I explained that it helps her body absorb the nutrients her body needs to sustain. I explained the her need for fresh oxygen...and so forth.

As I explained this to her, I realized that I don't get enough of the same myself. I sat out today and sure enough, I left a few problems right there at my patio table.

Sugaree