Live Essentially Well at Home

It is nearly 4 am and I have been awake for a couple of hours.

In my last post, I shared some deeply personal insights of a spiritual nature. I feel prompted to share similarly tonight, or rather this morning! I haven't written this week because there has been so much going on, and it has been a bit overwhelming.

I have another friend who is working on making the transition from this life right now as we speak. His situation is different than Tony's. This friend is a WWII vet. His body has been gradually failing him over many years. His wife is one of my closest friends. I met her nearly 14 years ago at church. She would sit in the foyer during the church service because of her bad back. I was in the foyer because of a crying baby. We became fast friends instantly and are as close as family.

As I have been in this home, serving my friends, I am again impressed with the sacredness of life, of death, and of God's hand in our lives. There is so much we can't see. As I/we walk in faith we can be given just enough to know to continue going on.

So I woke up a couple hours ago, and had music playing. The power of music to touch our souls is great. It is quickly becoming a recognized form of therapy in the mental health field. While the answers are not completely scientifically understood, the truth is that there is great power in music, for good or ill.

As I lay here listening to songs including Carrie Underwood sing How Great Thou Art, and David Archuleta sing Be Still My Soul, the tears flow.

Not because I am sad, but because I feel so much love for and from my God.

Several times I have asked God in prayer what He thinks of me, what He feels about me. If I am good enough. I know He loves me because I have felt it so many times. Yet the question still has been in my heart. And in the middle of this personally sacred experience this song played:

Beautiful for Me

I can't put into words what I felt or was thinking, but I can say it was an answer to those questions.

There is so much more to us that what meets the eye. It is obvious when you look at the body of someone who has died. That body doesn't look right. It resembles the person, but it is obvious that they are no longer there. For us, it is an unknown, but the reality of it touches us sometime. The longer we live the more it touches us. It changes us and deepens our searching for meaning. As my dear friend Erica said in her latest blogpost regarding what she is experiencing right now, "Grief is essential to our spirits, just as much as love is. There have been moments where the grief seems unbearable, where I want to cry out in pain as I feel my chest collapsing in sorrow. That's how it feels to me, and I hate when it comes crashing in. But I am thankful for this deep emotion as it's a reminder of how deeply I love Tony, how full and enriching our marriage is, how we were really able to connect "as one" over the past decade. I would do it all over again a thousand times to be with him forever. I will welcome the grief to continue to have all this love. We will be together again, and until then I never want to forget how Tony makes me feel as a wife, mother, and above all, a daughter of God." I had never thought of grief in that way, but it hit me as true.

I apologize that this is another deep post. It is what I am surrounded with right now. I feel like I am undergoing a spiritual growth spurt experience. The emotions are deep and real and life-changing.

There is much that I do not know. I do know, however, that there is a God. He loves us deeply and personally. I have always known that. That knowledge deepens with time and experiences such as these. I am so thankful for that knowledge and to have the chance to share.

A couple days ago, my friend/brother Tony died. There is a hole, an emptiness in my world. In fact there are a whole lot of people who have a hole in their world that they are trying to figure out what to do with. Tony is the kind of person that turns every person he meets into his brother or sister. His wife Erica is right there with him. So much of what I say about Tony includes Erica as well.

Tony has in a sense been living with the reality of cancer his whole life. He had a genetic abnormality that made dying of cancer at a young age the most likely scenario. It became serious last October when he was diagnosed with a glioblastoma.

While cancer was very much a part of his life, especially during the last year, it did not define him, but he used it as a vehicle to become so much more. How a beautiful pearl develops comes to mind.

Erica wrote a tender blog as they both were anxious to share their experience with their loved ones, but also to share the lessons they learned with as many people as they could. If they had to pay such a great price for the lessons learned, they wanted to maximize the learning from the experience. I will not even try to start to tell their story. If you feel so inspired, click on the link below.

Moments and Miracles

So, my blog here is a health and wellness blog. Why am I sharing this? Remember how there are multiple facets to wellness. If all are not addressed, you can't find balance. Today's post touches just a little on the under-acknowledged facet of spirituality. Not only that but wellness does not have to mean perfect health. No matter what the physical state of your body, or condition you may have, you can work towards your own best level of wellness. My definition of wellness is different than yours is, because it is unique to me.

So today, I would like to share some lessons I have observed/learned from Tony and his family (warning...they are not a few):

• When you view every person you meet as your brother or sister, you love them instantly
• Tell people you love them
• When you tell people you love them, it warms their heart and they love you back
• Families really can be together forever
• Forever Families start with how we treat each other right now. It is not something that happens later
• The Gospel of Jesus Christ is real and it is here on the earth
• Patience is possible, even if it is hard
• The ideas popular in our culture just don't matter. What matters is following the inspiration you receive
• Tony and Erica have a large young family despite what our world would say they should do
• God the Father is real and He is very much a part of our lives
• Jesus Christ is real, and He knows us individually and intimately 
• The healing power of Christ's Atonement works
• Note: This was very important to Tony. As the end grew close, his main message he wanted to share was if you have tried everything and nothing works, then give the Gospel of Jesus Christ a real chance. He knew the healing it gave his heart and he wanted to share that with everyone
• Grief and pain can be overcome-you do not have to become embittered
• Not only did Tony have to face the reality of his diagnosis, but when he was a young boy, his mother died of cancer. He has known other loved ones as well who due to this genetic abnormality have died of cancer
• Grief and pain can help you understand and help others who also are trying to get through their own grief and pain
• Hard things can be overcome with help from above
• A lingering death does not have to be feared. There is so much that is missed in a life that is euthanized
• Look for the tender mercies...they are miracles in disguise
• Gratitude for life's blessings makes life full of wonder and beauty
• Prayers do get answered, even if they are not answered in the way we want them to
• Talk to your kids about things of great importance
• When we turn our will over to the will of God, He will heal our hearts 
• As our hearts are healed, we in turn can help others to find that healing
• Smile and laugh lots
• Make others smile and laugh
• Despite the fact that life is hard, life is good
• It is possible to have impossibly hard times and to face them with faith, not fear
• Roll with the punches...we really have very little control of what happens in life. What we can control is how we face life
• What perspective/vision you have makes all the difference - We need to remember that each of us are are more valuable and important than we can even comprehend.  Our value isn't based on money, but on our individual worth as spirit children of God, our Heavenly Father.  My husband and Tony had many talks about how we are each spirit children of our Heavenly Father having a physical experiences.  With the knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father that will never leave us, it makes it a little easier to endure today's trials with hope and faith that these trials are only temporary, and don't last forever.

I look forward every year for this month. This is how I get my Frankincense!

So I promised I would share my experience with the Serenity supplement and oil blend. If you missed the initial post, here is a link:

Wired!

It worked beautifully. It was a very gentle experience. I rubbed the oil blend on my feet and also put it in the diffuser next to my bed. Serenity has such a relaxing smell. I immediately started to mentally wind down. I took the supplement about 20 minutes before I went to bed. I lay down and focused on relaxing peaceful thoughts. The oils were soothing and within about a half hour I was asleep. Normally in this frame of mind, I could be awake for hours no matter what thoughts I was trying to impose upon myself.
When I woke up the next morning, there were no hangover-ish feelings. I was alert, rested and ready for my day.

All in all, I found it to be quite helpful! I am glad to have this tool for nights like this.