I am a mess maker!
My bedroom, where I've been "officing" since my husband's entire office got sent to work from their homes more than 15 months ago, was becoming so piled with stacks of notes and open research books that I could no longer safely walk through it. I should have taken some "before" pictures for you. It was truly atrocious.
I've spent all morning making some order out of the chaos, organizing an old milk crate as my bedside bookshelf. I'm not done yet, but what I have managed, I want to share both in celebration that I can now easily find my resources, and as documentation of how the puzzle can fit back together next time (hopefully not as soon as next week, but that's very possible) I let it grow so out of control again!
Both my Bible study and writing habits are MESSSSSSSSSY! I get so wrapped up in what I am learning, and in turn sharing with my friends, that onlookers might think there is no way I could be learning anything amid the clutter. I love my happy little mess-making life, but I've often described myself as a "frustrated perfectionist" because I love everything looking all neat, tidy, and accessible, but my books and paperwork still have not learned to put themselves away yet.
As a note of encouragement for those drooling over my collection of research books (that are two layers deep, so you don't see them all here), this set didn't happen overnight. It has taken about 30 years to build our collection. A few books are retained from my husband's Bible college days. The closing of a Christian bookstore early in our marriage afforded the clearance-price purchase of others. The rest have been slowly acquired with proceeds from
Hannah's Hope sales. I am no "super-Christian," just a sinner humbly hungry to know my Savior. The more I learn, the more I become aware of how much I do not yet know. Dig deep into your Bible and find a bottomless feast in the amazing grace of Jesus.
I didn't realize how dusty my little red nightlight lantern, in the bottom right, was before I took this picture. I guess tomorrow's (or Friday's) project is dusting! (As a stroke survivor, with a handful of other chronic illnesses, I typically can't manage more than one major project per day. I'm very thankful to be stable enough right now, that I can reliably do something like clean every day or two now.) I would also appreciate your prayers as I meet my endocrinologist at a long-awaited appointment tomorrow, where we can hopefully address a battle plan to tackle my crazy symptoms from this year.
My co-author, Carolyn, and I are so very eager to unpack Jesus's "I AM" statements from the Gospel of John with you, considering how the truth of Jesus's words speaks to our culture today, helping us spot and break free of deception and false teaching that is sneaking into so many churches. Here is a sneak peak at my book-project-specific box of current research reading.
I have to applaud Carolyn for her patience and faithfulness in co-writing with a strokie (stroke survivor). I have been working my way through these books for many months and still have not fully finished a single one yet. (Though I am part way through all of them!) I'm a great researcher, but slow reader and even slower writer. I've been working on one chapter of
our book for as long as it has taken Carolyn to research and write her parts of four chapters!
Part of my slowness is due to single-handed typing, but mostly it is because I lack the cognitive function required for rapid reading (there are many days where reading 3 Bible chapters takes me ALL day long) and because my short-term memory is still significantly challenged, so that even once I have read something, I cannot retain the information well. As evidenced in this post (that has taken me nearly 5 hours to write up to this point, requiring tons of scrolling back and forth to re-read and find out what I have already written) my organizational skills are shot too - thus Carolyn is the reason my scattered scribbles will ever again reach book form! Highlighters, notepads all over the house, the notes and alarm features of my phone, and doggedly attempting Scripture memory (I'll do a whole post on Bible passage memory soon) are my tools that, along with strength and power from the Holy Spirit, are how I function as a writer, and simply in everyday life.
Doctors said I couldn't live. When God proved them wrong day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month, at first I was slated for a nursing home to live out my remaining days "vegetative," then I was coming home with round-the-clock care and was "never to walk again". (I came home from the hospital just shy of 2 months after my first two (of 6) strokes, in a wheelchair, to a hospital bed parked in our living room, with frequent nurse visits, but my amazing hubby was my only caregiver. We ditched the hospital bed within 2 weeks, moved the kids back home from grandparents at 6 months, I was fully transitioning from wheelchair to walker within 10 months, and I could start showering independently by 2-3 years.) New doctors who meet me now, 9 1/2 years out, just shake their heads when they see my brain scans after already interacting with me, unable to reconcile my level of awareness and interactivity with the devastated brain in the pictures they are reading. As one doctor put it, "For as little brain tissue as you have left, you are doing remarkably well!"
Carolyn and I both continue to persevere and know we will keep going for as long as it takes us to get this book written, because God has given us such a heavy passion for this project. Please be praying with us that God opens the right doors to connect us with the agent and publisher and distribution channels He already has planned, in order to put this book in the exact hands of those He wishes to read it.
Update: The fire is over 40% contained, fire crews are still tending a few "hot spots" in the scarred landscape across the freeway from their home, and my parents are no longer considered to be in danger nor on evacuation standby. Thank you so much for your prayers!
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P.S. I just received a call from my mom. My parents and their cats are on standby for potential fire evacuation due to a wildfire raging very close to their home in northern Nevada. Currently winds seem to be charging the fire away from a powerplant and most homes, but the fire is close enough Mom and Dad can watch out their windows and see water duping out of the massive buckets carried by fire-fighting airplanes. Thank you to all the firefighters battling these wild blazes in this heat! Our skies (southern Arizona) have been orange with fire for several days and we faced a few fire evacuations when we lived in Reno, so I feel for my parents, know the anxiety well. Thank you for your prayers for their peace and protection.
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Update: The fire is over 40% contained, fire crews are still tending a few "hot spots" in the scarred landscape across the freeway from their home, and my parents are no longer considered to be in danger nor on evacuation standby. Thank you so much for your prayers!
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