Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I like having my mammogram in October, as my local facility gives away special goodies during the official awareness month. I will be going Monday. In the past I have received a pink and white notepad, a pink ballpoint pen, a black tote bag with the pink ribbon motif, a keychain.

With several family members who are breast cancer survivors, I encourage you ladies to regularly monitor your breast health and have your mammogram each year unless you have been told to do it less frequently. You can donate to the cause of overcoming breast cancer by clicking on the website button daily and your recorded click results in a donation by sponsors. Much good information on this site as well.

 Think pink.

Change

Some seasons subtly blend into each other, but autumn shouts look at me with its bursts of color. Here in northern Indiana we have distinctive seasonal changes. We experience changes as we travel through the seasons of our lives as well.

Recently, I finished reading  Turn Toward the Wind: Embracing Change In Your Life. I don’t know about you, but I find it disconcerting when my favorite lotion is “improved” by the manufacturer and doesn’t seem to work as well as before or the brand of socks I love is discontinued. Embracing is not a word I would use to describe my natural response to change.

We establish routines, set up schedules, and make plans deluding ourselves that we can somehow avoid disruptive changes. But disease, an accident, the death of a spouse, a Great Financial Recession inform us that we have very little control over changes in our lives. Losses especially remind us that we are not as in charge of our lives as we might think.

What we can control with the help of the Holy Spirit are our responses to change. Somebody once said, “God is not nearly as concerned with what we go through as He is with our response to what we go through.”

Do you ever feel like God is using a megaphone to amplify the message He has for you? For me, He brings the little book Turn Toward the Wind into my life; next, someone donates a book by Carol Kent to the GV library and as I peruse it, there are 2 chapters on change and lots about response; then Sunday, my pastor starts a new sermon series on prayer by looking at Hannah, and he states that difficulties allow God’s power to shine thru our weakness and let us place our trust in God’s goodness and sovereignty. Changes are opportunities for growth. Hmmm.

One thing that does not change is God’s steadfast love for us. James 1:17 says “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father … who does not change like shifting shadow.” The never-changingness of a faithful God gives us confidence to trust and to find our security in Him.

Of course, that phrase from James is echoed in the well-known hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness.

Great is they faithfulness, O God my father, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, they compassions they fail not; as thou hast been thou forever wilt be.

Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

New-to-Me Blogs

I am tiring of some of my regular reading blogs. I am looking for some new ones, especially ones dealing with living the Christian life from a woman’s perspective. Sarah Bessey's suggested list has been a good starting point. So far, I am sticking with Diana Trautwein and Nancy Franson though it has only been a couple of days since I started with them. I glanced at a few others suggested by Sarah, but I have not even clicked on many yet. Do you have favorite blogs that fit into this category? Other blogs oriented on decorating, food, simple living? I would love to learn of them.

My Newest Footware

I am proof that garage/yard sales can be injurious to not only your budget but your body. Way back on June 21st I injured my foot. I was getting ready to purchase my items from a yard sale when I realized that there were more items in the screened-in porch. As I asked the lady to set my intended purchases aside for me, a man dropped a heavy piece of equipment (lawn edger?) on the bottom step and wandered off to the side yard with its tables of wares. I didn’t want to lift a heavy item but I also didn’t want to wait for him to return. I turned my body sideways to the flight of steps, lifted my right leg in a somewhat awkward position to step over the obstacle and onto the second step. As soon as my right foot touched the second step there was a terrible pain. I purchased my items and limped back to my car. I limped for the next 2-3 days (though I didn’t do much walking). The pain finally became a dull ache. The problem is that it never went away and occasionally there would be a slight stabbing pain on the side of my foot when I moved it certain ways.

 My foot really ached after walking the hills and steps of Old Quebec. When I arrived home, I called my doctor’s office, but the soonest I could get in was September 23rd. My internet reading makes me wonder if I have a fracture of the 5th metatarsal, but nothing showed up on the x-rays, but x-rays of the foot are often not very good for diagnosing problems. I am wearing a post-op shoe to immobilize and support the foot some. If that doesn’t help in 3-4 weeks, I will be referred to an orthopedist.

 

The strange thing is that my foot had no discoloration and minimal swelling. Most acute injuries do have bruising. Still, my foot is not “normal”, and I cannot do walking for exercise purposes without pain. Beware the dangers of yard sales.