My First Christmas without the boo (Jabez)

 

Jabez, the cat, was born on March 20, 2000.  That year I bought my annual Christmas tree ornament at a little shop in Seaport Village, San Diego, California.  This is a picture of it, front and back.

The Story of Jabez, the Cat

Jabez was born March 20, 2000.  He was brought to the Helen Woodward Animal Shelter in San Diego, California.  On May 20, 2000, I went to the animal shelter to adopt a cat, preferably a kitten.  When I first saw Jabez he was sleeping peacefully in the arms of a stranger, a young handsome man whom had been pulled toward him in his quest for a cat for his girlfriend.  She was insistent on getting a Persian cat, but Jabez, then called Samba, by the staff at the animal shelter had settled into her boyfriend's arms while he waited for his girlfriend to choose one of the several Persian kittens that she was looking at.  As I walked through the door I saw Jabez in this guy's arms and said a little prayer to God that I really wanted that cat.  For me, it was like if I didn't get him I would not walk out of there with any other cat.  The girl friend made her decision and one of the staff took Jabez out of the guy's arms and put him back into the cage with the other kittens.  Jabez went to the food bowl to eat, and another kitten took a swipe at him and got its claw stuck in to the skin of one of Jabez's ears.  Instead of Jabez fighting back he just crouched down and meowed, while waiting for the worker to rescue  him and put him in my arms.  He cuddled into my arms and I was enamored for life.  I was certain he was a four or five month old kitten but was told his day of birth and the story of what she knew about how he came to the shelter.  It seems Jabez was the product of a tabby mix cat and some unknown wild cat that had gotten her pregnant.  The staff named him "Samba", but I named him Jabez.

My daughter was still living at home when I first brought Jabez home and she knew that I was going to get a new cat that day.  When she came home after school, or work, she asked me, "Well, did you get it?"  She didn't see Jabez at my feet.  So, I bent down and picked him up and said, "Jennifer, meet Jabez."  To which Jabez replied with a big "MEOW."  Jennifer was astonished at how beautiful and cute he was.  I think she even commented on the size of his paws.  It became like a game to see which one of us he would come to first.  One time she came home and he was sleeping peacefully next to me as I talked to an old friend on the phone.  As soon as she saw him, she quietly called him to come to her, and he got up and came right to her with me scowling at her for making him move.  It was all in good spirits though, we both loved him so much.

That first night he came to my bedside and meowed and I put my hand down to grab him to pull him into bed with me but he leaped with such power and grace that I said, out loud, "Wow!"  For a two month old kitten he was remarkable in his prowess.  My bed is pretty high off the ground and for a kitten that age to jump that height was uncommon.

I took him to the local vet and she told me that based on this teeth he was just two months old but was going to be a very big cat.  And how big did Jabez get?  He grew to eighteen inches tall, with ears that were two inches long and a tail that was twelve inches long.  At one point, he weighed over thirty pounds but I put him on a diet after finding out that he was diabetic.  He had Type I Diabetes and required twice daily shots of insulin which I administered to him until the day he died.  I even purchased a Glucometer to test his blood sugar.  He was a high maintenance kitty but he earned his keep in sweetness of spirit and companionship to me.

In a time of recovery from the death of my husband, Jabez was a comfort to my soul and a source of great pride.  He was a beautiful feline and gentle spirit.  When he was a kitten he would play a game with me when I would come home from a long day at work.  After I shut the door behind me, he would jump onto one of the dining room chairs and hide until I played what I called the "boo game."  I would play peek-a-boo with him and he would bat my face with soft paws when I would peek around the back of the chair.  This became a routine for us until I moved out of that apartment.  I lived there for five years and Jabez was four when I moved out.  I came to call him Boo in that apartment and while I had registered him as "Jabez", he knew that "Boo" also meant himself.

He wasn't very happy about the first move either.  Part of it, I'm sure, was due to the fact that my living room had been left in relative upheaval.  A couch was left standing on its side when found it wasn't going to fit into the tiny one bedroom apartment I had moved into.  Jabez kept vigil by sleeping atop the upended couch making sure he could see me sleeping in my bed.  As soon as I awoke the next morning he was all mews and meows vocalizing his discontent at the disorganization of his new home.  We settled in though and he finally got used to living in a smaller space than he was first brought into.  He also survived a move eighty miles northeast to my daughter's house.  He was in heaven in that house.  He had a big three bedroom house with a front and back yard to roam around in.  It was a struggle to keep him out of her kitchen cabinets and off her counters.  He was used to a full reign of his living quarters and like any other feline, he was curious. He became accustomed to moving but I could tell he really liked the condo I moved into in 2008.  It was as big as the first apartment I had when I first brought him home.

In that home he would regularly get on the desk when I was on the computer and basically want to sit on the keyboard in front of me.  As if to say, "Hey, you should be paying attention to me not that silly screen."  He would try to bat at the mouse on the screen but eventually learned that it was not something he could actually touch and I'm sure he never understood why he couldn't catch that little pointer.  So, in our new home I purchased in 2008, I was working at the computer and he jumped up and laid across the desk like the way he did in his first apartment and I knew he felt at home.

One thing he was good about was the litter box.  I didn't have to worry about this guy squirting around the home, he always used the litter box.  While he had numerous incidents around his litter box at the end he was still a cat you could depend on to not just go piss in a corner somewhere, or in your laundry basket.  It was only toward the end of his days that I had to start cleaning up messes outside of the litter box and that was usually vomit and never urine.  He was really sick by then.  His diabetes was still a prominent issue and he had acquired cataracts, heart disease and gall stones.

I bought him a big dog bed to sleep on and it took him a while to get used to it but the very first time I saw him sleeping on it I took a picture because he looked so sweet:

The last year or two of his life, if I didn't see him on one of the couches or laying next to me, I usually found him on his bed fast asleep:

I nursed him back to health on a number of occasions but the heart disease, cataracts and gall stones  were not something that would go away without some serious medical intervention.  I spent over one thousand dollars one time when I overdosed him on his insulin.  After that incident, I bought the Glucometer and monitored his blood sugar before giving him his insulin.  If I would be late on giving him his shot, he would come and sit by me (I was usually on the computer) and meow up at me, as if to say, hey, you forgot something.  Then I would remember, uh-oh, I forgot to give you your shot and he would lead me to the kitchen where he would wait patiently in front of the refrigerator until I administered his shot.  Then he would go back to one of his many spots he chose to chill out in or wait by the front door for me to let him out.

He didn't have to meow at me to let him out, although on occasion he would, but I always made sure I knew where he was.   If I saw he was sitting by the door,  he would turn and look and me and I would then go open the door for him to go outside.  He never stayed out long.  And would wait patiently at the door until I saw him or if I was busy in the office, he would meow, as if to say "let me in!" In the early days of our residence in the condo, he would be gone for an hour or so and I figured he was out patrolling the complex and getting his bearings.  Toward the end, he stopped "asking" to go out and instead he would lie on the back of one of the couches and look out the window.

So, while I miss him dearly, I know that his suffering has ended and if our pets really go to heaven, I will see him again.   He is in a better place now.  I will never forget the special bond we had as owner and cat.  He will always be remembered as "my boo" because even though I named him Jabez, everyone in the family called him Boo too.   There will never be another cat like Jabez.  He would often roll onto his back and chill out for a while.  A sure sign he was content.

You may wonder where I got his name.  In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 4:9-10, states:

Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name
Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying,
“Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your
hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause
pain!” So God granted him what he requested.
 
I kept running into sermons and women's meetings where the story of Jabez was recounted as a lesson on prayer, contentment, and/or obedience during the period of time from 1998 until after 2000. When people would ask where I got the name Jabez from, I took delight in being able to tell them I got the name from the Bible.  So, he was kind of like a ministry tool.  However, no one could pronounce his name right.  I pronounced his name like JAY-Bez, but people had all kinds of ways they would pronounce it.

To me, Jabez was a gift from God to assuage my hurting heart in the aftermath of the loss of my husband, Alfredo, and my impending empty-nest era.  He was always waiting for me when I came home and soon established himself as the king of the roost, which he basically ruled until he died on December 8, 2012.

I will never forget him and will always miss him.  He was my constant companion at my home.

I got a couple of sympathy cards from the vet and the hospital and the following poem was included in one of the cards.

The Continuing Saga of Jabez, my boo

So, Jabez has stopped eating - again.  It's been almost two hours since I got up and all he has done is drink a bunch of water.  Instead of forcing two pills down his throat, I decided to crush them up, add a little water and fill a syringe with the mixture and squirt it in his mouth.  Well, he doesn't like that any better but at least I don't have to struggle to keep his mouth closed and at the same time stroke his throat to get him to swallow.  He's such a big cat and it's really difficult for me with my carpal tunnel syndrome and the pinched nerve problem I have with my neck.  I got the job done but he has absolutely no interest in food.  He has just been looking out the window and now that I'm on the computer he is laying about 2 feet away from where I sit.  

Yesterday, I broke down a couple of boxes that the food and the syringes came in, and put them down on the floor, because I know he likes to lay on cardboard and papers.  So, he is laying on top of those sleeping at the moment.  The vet wanted me to measure his respiration so, yesterday, it was 48 when he was awake and about 32 when he is sleeping, and that's pretty much what it is today.  Normal respiration for a cat is 24-40, so it's a little elevated when he's awake.  Forty-eight was what it was in the ER and that's why they want me to monitor it.

I tried calling a pet sitter to get the Christmas holiday set up so I could go spend some time with my daughter and her family.  One sitter was already booked and the other hasn't returned my call as yet.  It'll cost me a couple of hundred of dollars to pay the pet sitter and I wonder if he'll make it until then.  He probably will because I'm taking such good care of him.  I tested his blood sugar and it's 384, which is high, so at least he is not going into diabetic shock, which is what happens when your blood sugar is too low.  

There is a condition called "ketoacidosis" which is what happens when your blood sugar is too high.  This can also cause a diabetic coma but is usually referred to as a ketoacidosis coma.  Left untreated, ketoacidosis is fatal.  So, I'm back to questioning Jabez's quality of life.  If he won't eat and I can't give him his regular dose of insulin ketones may stay in his blood and cause ketoacidosis.  If I give him too much insulin, like giving him his regular dose of insulin, I could cause the same thing that happened back on 2007, which nearly killed him. 

He had been not eating, much like he is now, but I was continuing to give him his regular dose of insulin, and this went on for two or three days.  So, one day when I came home from work (yes, I actually had a job then), I found him basically comatose on my kitchen floor.  He was vocalizing, which sounded like screeching, when I pulled up in the driveway and I could hear it and wondered what the sound was.  So, I found him nearly dead on my kitchen floor and picked him up (he was very cold) and he seemed to rouse a little, and put him in his carrier and hustled him off the to ER.  They saved his life and I purchased the glucometer at that time.

So, having been through all that I am really careful not to overdose his insulin injections.  I don't check his blood sugar daily because I hate it as much as he does, except he is the one who is getting stuck with the lancet.  Plus, sometimes I am unsuccessful at getting enough of a blood droplet to form so I can test it.  This really pisses him off and if I try to poke him again he is SO done with me that he usually really fights me if I don't get it   the second time.  So, I never poke him more than twice, therefore, sometimes I am unable to test his sugar levels.  Today, however, I was successful and got the aforementioned reading of 384.

He is basically exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of ketoacidosis, drinking lots of water, urinating a lot, lethargic and I believe his stomach does hurt him based on the way he lays down.  So... I'm back to the question of euthanasia.

Please pray...

Jabez, my boo. Part 3

So, I guess that idea I had was from God because I got a can of the wet MD diabetic cat food that he used to love and he ate!  I just put a little bit in his bowl and he was very interested and actually ate most of it, so I gave him a little bit more and he "ate" it.  He's still really not eating but just licking all the juice off of it but that is still more than he has done in the past two days.

So, I might go back tomorrow and get a few more cans if he continues to eat it.  I didn't want to buy a lot of it in case he refused it and I'm not adverse to going back to the vet to get more.  It's just a shame I can't get it at a regular supermarket.  Oh well, for now, I'm happy and he is now sleeping a few feet away from me.

Praise the Lord!

Jabez, my boo. Part 2

Ok, so I've taken my cat to the ER twice in the past week and can only get a vague idea of what is going on with him.  He absolutely refuses to eat.  This is not good for a diabetic, kitty, or human.  I thought for sure I was going to have to put him to sleep last night but when we got to the ER he rallied around and started acting like his normal sweet self.   All they can offer is nausea medicine and an appetite stimulant.  And of course more diagnostic tests.  Ten years ago when I was making mucho dinero I would have gone ahead and let them run all the tests they needed to get at the problem.  Now?   I'm not making that kind of money anymore and what's more, the money I am getting is not permanent and can be stopped at any time by the work comp insurance.  Anyway....

So, today he is just laying at my feet as I sit here without anything to eat or drink.  I got an idea when I woke up this morning to get him some of that wet food that I used to feed him for diabetics.  He loved that stuff and got up to 30lbs when I was feeding him that.  So, I thought I'd go to the vet and get a can of that and see if he'll eat that.  I'm not sure what the next few days will reveal for this kitty who is diabetic and won't eat.  I just couldn't make the decision last night to euthanize.  Especially since he started acting like his normal self in the ER.

So, here we are again.  Please pray for this situation.  I really don't want to euthanize him.  I just want the Lord to take him without my help.  It's so hard.  This kitty has been a part of my life for the past 12 years and has provided so much companionship that I have come to love and depend on.  Shouldn't that make God want to take him?  I mean, it seems like God takes away things from me that I love and depend on, so it makes logical sense to me that He will take Jabez away too.

Our God is a jealous God and He doesn't want anything between Him and me.  I wonder if that includes school?  I can't seem to start studying for the finals coming up next week.  Like here I am writing this blog instead of studying......

Pray for me and my boo.

Jabez, my boo

So, I finally took my kitty into the ER and found out that not only does he have diabetes, but he now has cataracts, gall stones and heart disease.  The vet said that with medication he could probably live like another year or so.  I was struggling with the idea of putting him to sleep and they offered to do it right there and then but I just couldn't do it.  He has been such a great little companion to me the past 12 years and the idea of just ending his life like that, so suddenly, seems really callous and ... fast.

So, I brought him home and have been giving him lots of love and pandering to his constant begging for food.  The thing is he is not really eating his food, he is just licking the gravy off the top and then sitting at the refrigerator door looking soulfully up at me.  Since he is a type 1 diabetic, for him to not eat is not good, so I have been opening the same number of cans of cat food daily but he is only eating a fraction of the food and just licking the gravy off the top.  I've had to cut his insulin dosage down because I almost killed him a few years ago when he stopped eating, like he is now, but kept giving him his usual dosage of insulin.  I came home from work one day to find him basically comatose on my kitchen floor.  I rushed him to the hospital and some thousand dollars later he recovered.  That's when I decided to buy him the glucometer.  Yeah, they have one for cats and dogs.  It's called an Alphatrak and works pretty good but considering his size, and my negatively correlated size (I'm a small person), it just isn't practical to poke him once a day to test his blood sugar.  So, based on the vet's recommendations, I am to give him only 2 units of insulin if he eats less than half his food.

He's lost a lot of weight and I can feel his back bones which had previously been covered with a layer of fat.  I just hope the good Lord takes him home (where ever kitty home is) and I don't have to actually put him to sleep.  I think I might have nightmares about that.  Especially, since my mother had a not so pleasant experience putting her cat down.  I couldn't even listen to her tell me about it because it freaked me out so much. 

Ah well, such is trials and tribulations of having pets, I guess.  Every day I leave and come home I'm half expecting him to be ... not with us anymore.  But so far he is hanging in there. 

Post Thanksgiving 2012

I just came back from a three day sleepover at my daughter's house in Perris, California.  It was an extended Thanksgiving Day dinner party.  Then, I came back to my sick cat.  He has been throwing up for a sold week now.  He constantly sits at his bowl and cries for more food yet his bowl is full of food.  He just licks the wet food until it's basically dry and drinks water.  I think he needs to have another ultrasound of his tummy.  His digestive system is ... well, something is wrong with it.

So, I wanted to know if he was continuing to throw up because I could have taken him to the vet on Friday.  But PetPals text-ed me that he ate and was a "happy guy" with "no barf."  So, I thought cool.  Then Saturday morning  I couldn't get the company to text me back about how Jabez was doing and so I hung out with my daughter and her family.  I had a great time but I had forgotten all my medicine at home.  So, no thyroid pill, no antidepressants, no anti-inflammatory or pain pill.  I felt all out of sorts and nervous.  I knew part of it, if not all, was due to my sudden stoppage of the ADs.  You're not supposed to cold turkey the anti-depressant medication.  There are side effects with sudden withdrawal and I didn't know if I was having that or something was really wrong back at home with Jabez.

Turns out, the big guy is still having problems.  He  may not have thrown up in the living room, dining room or kitchen, but he puked all over his bed in the office.  Plus, he puked at least once in the hall and three times in my bedroom.  He keeps getting on my lap, which has gotten considerably smaller of late, and he's kind of overwhelming.  If I'm sitting on the couch, he wants to be in my lap.

 So, NOW, it's 11:00 pm on Saturday night I know that what he needs, or rather what the vet will say, he needs an ultrasound of his tummy.  I can tell his stomach hurts him.

If it's his time to go then I will be very sad and dread making the decision to put him down or have surgery done.  I should have had that tumor removed way back in 2010 but I didn't have the money back then.  I think it's invaded his digestive tract.  So, maybe I need to stop thinking about putting him down and just pay whatever the surgery costs, or at least negotiate the cost.

We've gt a 24-hour veterinary hospital in San Diego.  I called and they are really busy right now so let's see how we make it through the night.  Poor baby.

Better to wait til morning at home instead of in a cold hospital ER.   I don't want him to suffer any more but I'm pretty wasted right now after the long drive and running around with my grand-kids for the past 3 days.  I did all the laundry after I got home, including his bedding, and everything he has thrown up on in the past week.

I think I need to get some sleep and call it a day. My bed is calling me now.

Good night.

~godstrongpatty

Thanksgiving 2012

I decided to switch purses for Thanksgiving.  It’s part of my “outfit”.  It’s funny that I automatically think of what I’m going to wear whenever I know I’m going somewhere.  Anyway… I found my old cell phone case and it is PERFECT for my new iPhone.  It’s got an outside ID holder for my bus pass, and slots  for credit cards and a little pouch where I can put my stamps and coins.  It goes with the purse because it’s orange and my purse is a darker orange, like a pumpkin color. 

I’m so happy because the little case I bought (from Korea!) didn’t have enough space for all my  IDs, credit cards and bus pass.  I’m just bummed that I forgot about the orange cell phone purse I have had for  at least ten years and bought the case from Korea.  I'm not sure what it will cost to return it but really not sure if it's worth the bother.  It was less than $20.

So… I didn’t start this piece with the intention of talking about my silly little purse.  The point is that I found something, well, a lot of things, while I was switching from one purse to another.  I found this little paper that had all these, basically, negative affirmations, but titled “False Beliefs.”

I must meet certain standards to feel good about myself (the Performance Trap).

I must be approved by certain others to feel good about myself (Approval Addict)

Those who fall (including myself) are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.  (Blame Game)

I am what I am I cannot change. I am hopeless. (Shame)

And I thought, “What?” Why was I carrying around these negative phrases?  Then I  turned the card over.  There were positive affirmations on the other side.  So, the point of all this is that if I fill my mind with the positive instead of the negative,  my thought life will be much more peaceful.  Maybe this way I can show the love of God to everyone instead of the uptight, neurotic mess I usually am.

So those “false beliefs” become:

I am therefore completely forgiven by and fully pleasing to the Father.  I no longer have to be perfect.  Romans 5:1

I am totally accepted by God.  I no longer have to fear rejection.  Colossians 1:21-22

I am deeply loved by God.  I no longer have to fear punishment or punish others.

1 John 4:9-11

I am a new creation in Christ.  I have been made brand-new and complete in Him and no longer need to experience the pain of shame.  John 3:3-6

Today. I am thankful for my loving, heavenly Father who watches over me and holds me, with all my issues and shortcomings, in His holy hands. 

Praise the Lord!

For updates to my blog please go to godstrongpatty.com/GodStrongBlog.html

On The Right Path

I've been attending a small home group through my church, Journey Community Church, for about four weeks now. I started this group in an effort to become more connected to members of this church because I have been attending Journey for about four and half years now and know few people. What sparked my interest in this particular group is that they were doing a study on Bill Hybel's book and study guide, "The Power of a Whisper". The sub-title of it is "Having the Guts to Respond." For the past nine years since I had to stop working as a computer programmer I have been trying to figure out what it is that I really want to do when I grow up.

In addition, since I got laid off from the laboratory job in 2009, I have been searching for what my true heart's desire really is in the way of a career or employment. I tried pursing a career in biology, and thus the laboratory job, but my math deficit was a huge barrier to progressing as rapidly as I wanted or needed based on my age. In addition, I really hate math so why would I pursue a career where I had to frequently rely on math skills to do the job properly? No, that career path was more about impressing others with my oft-longed for respect from others for my intelligence. I guess since I always felt that the people in my life didn't think I was intelligent, I wanted to prove that I really was.

What I have discovered is that the problem is not whether I was intelligent or not it is that I had a pride and arrogance problem. The over-the-top arrogance of the scientists at the laboratory job showed me what arrogance and pride is in it's extreme form. It also showed me how I was also prideful and arrogant. I learned a lot about myself and saw how some of my words and actions were not only arrogant but disrespectful, as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that God had to break me down so He could build me up. He had to expose the parts of my personality that were preventing me from obtaining the very things I was striving for. In the years since I was laid off from the laboratory job, (two years, seven months now), I have been diligently seeking God on what I'm really supposed to do with my life. I've asked him to break my heart for what breaks His. The cool thing is that this small group was all about listening to the whisper of God and stepping out to do His will for my life. It was a four week study, one of which I missed because of the wedding in Knoxville, Tennessee. We watched a DVD of Bill Hybel explaining his path of listening to the whisper of God. Then the study guide would ask leading questions to get us to not only listen to the whisper, but to act upon the whispers.

One of the questions was "What reality about our world at large troubles you most these days?" This was a question posed to the group before we watched the fourth session on the DVD. What immediately came to my mind was the abuse and neglect of children, animals, and other individuals without power of their own, like disabled people and elderly people. When the DVD was played and we watched Bill Hybel speak about his own journey of listing to God, he spoke out on helping children and racial reconciliation. It was confirmation for me that I'm on the right path, I've listened to the right voice and God is leading me in the direction He wants me to go.

While He hasn't completely laid out the path and plan He has for me, I am comforted in knowing that I'm on the right path, that my philosophy of putting one foot in front of the other until God shows otherwise, is exactly where God wants me. I also heard Him whisper that my fervent prayers about how I can help these troubled people will be through the healing process, of which I plan on pursuing a career in, dance therapy. Dance therapy was the career I was going to school for in 1979 at Point Park College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the end of the spring semester in 1979 I had changed my major from dance to psychology. A psychology professor had told me about this "new" field and I thought it was a perfect match for my love of dance and my interest in psychology. I went home after the semester ended and within a month or so I was pregnant with my daughter. So, that career path stalled until my daughter was successfully raised and I had the maturity to deal with difficult emotional and physical issues. The truth is that God needed to do some serious house cleaning in my psyche before I could be any way ready to tackle this challenging new field. Today there is the American Dance Therapy Association and an educational plan to work towards.

So, it's taken me about thirty-one years to get to the point where I can heal enough to actually look at my issues and admit some responsibility for my attitude. I'm encouraged today knowing that I am moving in the right direction and that I am on the right path. The path that God has ordained for me, and trust in Him to let the pieces fall into place and just be open to His healing touch. I serve a Mighty God and trust Him to redeem my life out of the shambles I have made of it in the past thirty-one years.

Praise the Lord!

My New Best Friend

I put my trust in God for the approval of the appeal to the denial of eligibility for financial aid for my course work at San Diego State University. And God came through once more. I was notified of the approval of the appeal while I was in Knoxville, Tennessee last week for my nephew's wedding. So, I guess God really does want me to continue on my path to get a bachelor's degree in psychology and realize my dream of being a dance therapist. Praise the Lord!!

I praise Him again because of the awesome time I had in Knoxville with my sister and her family and my family. It was filled with easy camaraderie and laughter. I had not seen my sister and her family since 2002. Since then all but the one nephew, whose wedding we were there to attend, had gotten married and produced grandchildren for my sister. I had been praying for this nephew to find a wife for many years. He had come to California a couple of years ago and while I had intermittently prayed that he too would find a mate, my prayers became regular after his visit. So, I am amazed, although I don't know why, that God answered my prayers and provided such a compatible mate for my nephew. They even look like they belong together.

And while the days leading up to the trip had been filled with anxiety for me due to past personal issues with some members of the family, it turned out to be just God-blessed in a huge way. First of all, I was able to visit my sister's new apartment and see the fruits of her labor. God has recently blessed her with success in two businesses that she has built. This is a woman who was born deaf, had been married for 29 years, and had never supported herself financially. The past several years had been especially hard for her since she divorced the father of her children and struggled with all the issues of being a single woman, mother and grandmother. My prayers for her have also been answered since I have been praying fervently for her for more than a decade.

Because of our troubled childhood and her deafness,there had been many fights and misunderstandings between us as we grew up. She is the oldest of the four children in my immediate family and I always looked up to her and wanted to be close to her. The age difference between us is four years, so add to that her birth defect, the loss of our father when we were toddlers, and the turmoil of being raised by a single mother in the 60s and 70s and the circumstances did not lend itself to a warm and fuzzy relationship between us. But thankfully, we have finally gotten past all that and are building a brand new relationship. Indeed, my daughter has even begun to build a relationship with her aunt Susie.

I told my sister that she is now my new best friend and am looking forward to many more visits and maybe even vacationing with her. Like the fabled phoenix rising from the ashes of a fire long since burned, I am building a new relationship out of a troubled and painful past.

Satisfactory Academic Progress

Apparently, just maintaining a good grade point average is not enough for San Diego State University. Despite the two Bs and an A I got this past semester and a cumulative grade point average of 3.17, I have not maintained "satisfactory academic progress." San Diego State University emailed me that I have exceeded the maximum allowed units required for financial aid eligibility. Because of the thirty plus years I've been taking college credits and the fact that I've changed majors three times (from dance, to computer science, and now psychology) I have earned more than the number of credits one needs to graduate from college. One hundred and forty seven credits I have earned throughout my college career and I guess San Diego State University objects to that. I do have an appeals process I can utilize, which I have done, but I'm really getting sick of college. I used to love school and I still enjoy learning new things but I am so sick of the arrogance of college professors and now this slap in the face. So, basically, what it all means is that I will have to pay out of pocket for the remainder of the time I need to graduate from San Diego State IF my appeal does NOT go through. I expect it to be approved however, since it's very clear that I still need thirty-nine college units to complete my bachelor's degree in psychology. It's a power struggle between the "professional student" and the college profs who want you to complete a course of study their way and not your own way. Yeah, well, I've always been one to insist on doing things my own way. I managed to graduate from high school without courses like calculus and physics because of the number of credits I had in other courses and I just needed to take a general math course to fulfill the math requirement for a high school diploma. It's been thirty plus years of skirting the math anxiety issue that I have. I actually believe that I have a math learning disorder, which is a real thing documented in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. I've never had the test for learning disorders but I know that it takes me twice as long to grasp mathematical concepts. I eventually can learn them, I'm just really, really slow at it. I mean, I got As in Algebra but never took a Geometry course and College Algebra was way too fast paced for me and I eventually dropped the course before it would show on my transcript. The math issue is one of the reasons why I didn't continue in the computer science degree. Of course the bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome was a big factor as well. The professor in the college algebra course assigned vast amounts of homework and my grade was partially based on the homework completed. I, physically, could not do all the homework because a)hand writing is painful after five minutes, and b)it was all on computer and clicking a mouse for more than 2 hours sent me over the edge of pain management. So, I was stuck between a hard place and a rock. My brain requires extra time on math problems but my physical body is too broken to accomplish what I need in the proper amount of time. I had gotten to the place in my education where I had taken all the courses I could before the prerequisites required that I complete a calculus and/or a physics course. I didn't place high enough on a math entrance exam to take a calculus or physics course because I had skipped all that in high school, and the higher level computer courses required calculus and physics to have been completed. So, I switched to psychology and have been taking the classes required for that degree and here comes SDSU and shuns me for having too many credits. Oh well. The way I look at it is this: if God is really in this decision of mine to get a bachelor's degree in psychology, then He will make a way for it to get done. Whether it is by an approval of the appeal of the "satisfactory academic progress" standing or just financial resources to pay my tuition, I will remain trusting in the Lord and keep putting one foot in front of the other towards the completion of my educational goals. I remain God Strong.

Christian Homosexuality

It’s not a coincidence that Friday, May 25, 2012, I had the strong urge to not miss a pastor’s testimony that I knew he was going to give because I’m on the pastor’s prayer team. I had been praying for this guy for two weeks and wondered why I could feel the anxiety from this man about giving his “journey” to the congregation. Even though I had had a long, difficult day of public transport and less than ideal weather I could sense a strong prompting by God to not miss the service that night. So, as the pastor started his story and he got to the part where he reveals that his son is gay, the light clicked on and I understood why God didn’t want me to miss this “My Journey”.

The pastor has written a book about the unconditional love God is calling him to have for his son despite his theological training regarding homosexuality. What makes this all so significant to me is a great number of things. First of all, I grew up with a brother who is gay. It was evident to me as a small child that my brother was a little different from other boys and that he liked boys as much as I did. So, when my brother came out to me when we were both in our thirties it was no big surprise.

Recently, my brother visited me for my birthday and his partner had come to visit as well. I have always been close to my brother and we enjoyed our time together as usual. His partner was a storehouse of information from plants to early Christianity. I learned about same-sex marriages in early Christianity times and discussed the fact that I believed in the inerrant accuracy of the Bible. So, the following days I contemplated our discussions and resolved to spend the summer researching the subject of same-sex marriage, homosexuality and Christianity. Then, two weeks after my birthday celebration, I heard the pastor’s story.

I’m currently a student at San Diego State University studying psychology and have been struggling with defining my future career path. In addition, for the past two and a half years I have been struggling with my role in God’s kingdom and crying out to Him to show me the way He wants me to go. I had tried sticking my toe in the proverbial water a number of times in different ministries but had not felt a good “click” or fit. I’ve been taught by more than one Christian leader to step out in faith concerning where to serve in the kingdom of God. So, I began contemplating that maybe loving homosexuals and leading them to Christ could be the path God was calling me to walk.

So, I purchased the book written by the pastor and found that the day he found out his son was gay was the day before I had been laid off from my job. I worked steadily for over thirty years with never a lay-off or firing from any job so this was a huge blow to my ego and finances. I do not believe the timing of my lay-off and the timing of this man’s son revealing his sexuality are a coincidence either. In addition, this same pastor was the man who delivered a wad of cash to me as a result of my call for help to the church two years earlier in response to my unemployment. I believe it is also not a coincidence that ABC aired a repeat of its show “What Would You Do?” that Friday night. This particular episode was based on situations where people are shown responding to various types of stereotypes such as homosexuality.

It all seemed to clear to me. God is calling me to show the love of Jesus to my brother and others like him. As I finished the pastor’s book it became more evident that God was calling me to step out into this very controversial subject as I read the similarities in the pastor’s walk with God and my own journey. I am a fighter and sojourner and the prospect of being involved with a ministry that would ruffle a lot of feathers in the Christian community is not only challenging to me but VERY appealing. I’ve walked with God for many years and I have always felt that there were a lot of people within the Christian community that just had it wrong. From the Baptists and Catholics to the Pentecostals and Mormons, I believe that we all only have a slight glimpse of what Jesus is really about. There should be no arguments over whether dancing or drums should be banned from church services and no one should be shunned from a church where Jesus is preached as Lord and Savior. He said that the greatest commandment of all is to love God and then to love your neighbor. Well, guess what, our neighbors include homosexuals.

Jesus said that there is no marriage in Heaven. Matthew 22:30 says that the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking him about whose wife a woman would be when she died and went to heaven. If she had been married multiple times and had been widowed the same number of times and all her husbands were in heaven with her they asked Jesus whose wife would she be. Jesus says very clearly that “in the resurrection, they are neither married nor given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.” So really, what does same-sex marriage matter? None of us will be married to each other in heaven because we will all be angels of God in heaven. That is if you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Right-wing Christians like to argue about the “sanctity of marriage” yet Christians have an even higher divorce rate that secular people. Is that sanctifying marriage by getting a divorce? Abuse and infidelity happens in Christian marriages just as much as non-Christian marriages so why are Christians so vocal about the “sanctity of marriage”? Is it sanctifying to abuse and/or be unfaithful to your spouse? I think not.

So, if the church keeps kicking out and shunning all the people who are homosexuals how can they get to know Jesus as Lord and Savior? And those who actually do profess a faith in Christ, where can they go to worship and fellowship with other believers? Most Christians are too busy thumping their Bibles, pointing to the books of the Bible, Romans, and Leviticus, and wagging their fingers at certain people to the exclusion of them from the body of Christ. Jesus says we are to love one another. We are to do to others as we would want others to do to us. Jesus ate with “sinners”, the tax collectors and prostitutes and other groups of people who society had shunned. He loved them all. He didn’t say you have to change who you are to follow me. He just said love me and love others.

Contemporary preachers interpret that to mean that what follows is a change in people, therefore, once you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior that you will stop sinning. Really?! How many “Christians” have sex outside of marriage, get divorced, hurt other people, cuss or steal property from others or worse? Are we supposed to shun them as well? Some “Christians” will say yes, we are to shun them. But they are wrong - Jesus did not shun anyone so neither should we. It’s about L-O-V-E. Love Others Very Equally. (Yeah, I know the acronym is kind of silly.) But the message is not - love others equally. That includes homosexuals and Christians.

I remain,
godstrongpatty

Walking to Church and Friday Night Trolley Music

I like to attend Friday night service at my church and last Friday I was especially blessed by the comfort of knowing God and then after church I heard live music on the trolley ride back home.

I took the trolley to the transit station that is closest to the church I attend. As I walked the nine-tenths of a mile to church I realized that I have been walking to churches throughout my life. When I was struggling through adolescence in high school, I cut school and walked the seven long miles to my church. Years later when I was struggling through my second marriage, I walked to a neighborhood church alone, seeking answers and peace about the rocky relationship. More than a decade later after I had gotten divorced, moved to California, remarried and then widowed and was alone again I clung tightly to God and sought solace in church.

During the recent trials of unemployment and soul searching I walked up the hill to the Pentecostal church that is minutes away from my home and again sought God in the local church. One Sunday I heard worship coming from a tent in a parking lot nearby and walked again to that church service seeking comfort in the company of believers.

I enjoy my lone, solitary walks to houses of God and He blesses me with safety and special blessings on my journey. Like last Friday, as I boarded the trolley back to my home and found an empty booth right away, I noticed a guy strumming a guitar and singing softly. The trolley wasn’t crowded and the guy with the guitar continued his serenade for the small crowd. He was pretty good and asked the people aboard the trolley whether we enjoyed his music. Everyone agreed that he was good and enjoyed his music.

Someone must have asked him his name because I heard him say “Some people say I look like Jamie Foxx”, so he calls himself “Fox Washington”. I turned around to look at him when he said this and he really did look like Jamie Foxx! I asked him if he was sure he wasn’t Jamie Foxx because this guy was a dead ringer for Foxx. He laughed and said, "No, I'm not Jamie Foxx, I guess I just look like Jamie Foxx." He had longer, curlier hair and glasses but even after a long, second look at him he still looked like Jamie Foxx. One guy said, “Now do a rap song.” He obliged and did a short rap string and continued entertaining the trolley crowd as he brought smiles to those around him.

He continued his serenade and I was kind of sorry I had to disembark at my stop but was filled with joy and gratitude at my Friday night trip to church and back. Those feelings and special blessings are why I continue to seek out God in the company of believers and why I remain God Strong.

Happy Valentines Day

On February 14, 2012, I would have celebrated nineteen years of marriage to Alfredo Loy. To this day, I still miss him and remember his love for me. I remember how he could calm me with a gentle hand on my knee and a quiet “clam down, my love”. He would always recognize when I was spinning off into a fit of anger. He was the only one in my life who could calm me down and reassure me that things were going to be alright. His favorite nickname for me was “my love” and I miss hearing those words dearly.

One specific example of this I remember clearly was when we were unexpectedly visited by a local pastor of a Baptist church we had attended for a short time. Indeed, it was just this unexpected visit that drove us away from that church and to Maranatha Chapel where our faith grew and we were surrounded by God’s love. It was a late afternoon visit, or was it a mid-day visit? I’m not sure. I do remember I had been out shopping and came home to find the pastor sitting in my family room talking with Alfredo. This was the second type of unexpected visit to our home and I was more than a little miffed that it had happened again. Not that I had anything at all to hide from this man but just that I cherished my privacy because it had been so violated in my past. (The previous unexpected visit from an associate pastor, who just happened to be the pastor’s son, had occurred on a Saturday morning when we were having breakfast. My husband had turned the man away with a stern warning to call before he wanted to come visit us.)

On this day, I remember going to the kitchen to deposit my purchases and the pastor coming into the kitchen, extending his hand to mine and then gently pulling me towards the family room where Alfredo and he had been sitting. I acquiesced and sat down next to my husband who gave me a kiss and a knowing look that I was not happy with the situation.

The pastor was there because he had heard through the grapevine that we were not happy with his leadership and church family. As we talked, I grew more and more agitated as this man tried to justify what I felt were “un-god-like” doctrines he was preaching from the pulpit. I don’t remember exactly the words that had pushed me to the point of anger that precipitated Alfredo’s calming touch but I remember being instantly reassured and comforted by his hand on my knee and his quiet, loving voice.

It is that simple effect he had on me that I miss today. I can be pretty headstrong and back then I was pretty explosive but I do believe I have mellowed with age. It has been fourteen years since this love of my life left this earth. It is in the quiet moments where I am calm and open to the Holy Spirit that I remember him so much. I have the hope of an eternal life where I will see Alfredo Loy once again. I will rejoice not only in the presence of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but to see my husband once again and walk arm in arm with him on streets of gold.

Adventures in Public Transportation

Well, it's been over a month now of traveling by bus since the voluntary surrender of my vehicle. For the most part it's been hassle free and I'm thankful for the decrease in my stress level. It's interesting to watch people on public transportation. I've learned why some people wear headphones and listen to their own music. There can be some loud, intimidating people on the buses and trains and listening to my music keeps my stress level down. I keep my MP3 player in my bag and usually take along an interesting book to read as well.

I must say the rumors I've heard about the people who travel public transportation have proved true. The first day I encountered many individuals who most likely have schizophrenia, lots of working class folk, children, and some really scary people. I was happy to see the trolley stations staffed with police officers who were really helpful with my questions. One time, two armed security officers boarded the trolley and checked everyone for having a ticket to ride or a bus pass.

For the most part it has been quite pleasant. I spend a lot of time waiting around, either for buses or trolleys. I also spend a lot of time walking from one stop to the next. For my weekly chiropractors visit, I have to take three buses one way. Then I walk about two miles to the chiropractor's office. The bus drives along Harbor Drive and I get to look out on San Diego's harbor and even get to see the Star of India on my travels to the chiropractor. Any day I can see my beloved ocean is a good day. That day instead of going straight home, which would have only been a four to five minute walk to the appropriate bus stop, I went back to the stop I got off of and took it all the way to Ocean Beach.

I walked through OB to the beach and walked along the sand. Every year they build up sand hills to block the beach from the winter ocean so, in order to really see the water you have to go over these huge sand mounds. Thankfully, that day there was a ramp made of sand and it was breeze getting over that sand hill. The huge surf we had last week was completely non-existent (wouldn't ya know) but I loved my walk along the water. There were several other people walking along and hanging out and I always wonder at the different ways we Californians dress. Some of us, like me, had on sneakers, capris and a jacket, while others were barefoot and short sleeved. Also, I noticed several homeless people with hats and gloves and heavier coats. There is a big homeless population in OB, it's practically famous for it in San Diego, and I encountered my share of those folk too.

On this particular day, it seemed that I was too late for a street fair as booths were being torn down but the streets were still cordoned off. No matter, by then I had had enough of walking, and I found a bus stop and decided to wait along with four or five young men that were hanging out by the benches. They were eating and I couldn't actually sit on the bench but I stood at one end and sat on the arm of the bench to wait for the bus. While I waited I must have heard the word "sketchy" about thirty times. Things like "it was getting kind of sketchy last night at {someone's place}." That was the first time I had heard that particular slang but I guess that ages me doesn't it?

Anyway, you can send a text message to MTS (Mass Transit System) with the stop number that is posted at each bus stop and MTS will send a text message with the next arrival times/buses for that stop. So, I did that but I wasn't getting a text message back from MTS and was getting kind of nervous around the guys hanging out, so I decided to walk up the street to the next stop. I had to walk about three or four blocks and sent another text message to MTS but just wasn't getting a call back. I finally walked to the next one and waited until the bus came rolling along about fifteen minutes later. I hopped on and it took me back the way I had been walking past the stop where the guys were but they were gone from the bus stop by that time. Then the bus went, I don't know half a mile, before the bus stopped and the driver went on break.

I had to get off the bus and ended up walking across the street to wait at the bus stop across the street. Then I realized that I had been waiting on the wrong side of the street for the bus. This is in addition to walking half a dozen blocks in the wrong direction that I needed to go. It figures. I'm really directionally challenged. Seriously. I need to wear a compass on my wrist. Actually, that wouldn't have really helped me then. I knew I was walking north but the street I was looking for was south of where I was walking. It's that kind of challenge that I almost always have problems with. If I think it is right then it's usually left. But sometimes I try to second guess myself but that never seems to work out either. I don't know...

Last week, I was coming back from somewhere and got on the wrong bus and jumped off at the first stop and walked back to the trolley station to wait on the right bus. Today was an especially adventurous day as I took the trolley downtown to visit my lawyers office. I had planned out what station I needed to get off of last night and that was Americas Plaza trolley stop. Then this morning, while looking at the map, I decided that the MTS Trip Planner had instructed me to get off at a stop that I thought was farther from my destination. What I had neglected to do was enter 402 WEST Broadway and instead entered 402 Broadway. So, I decided I would get off at the Civic Center Trolley stop instead of the Americas Plaza stop.

Then I followed the directions I had constructed as to which direction I needed to walk to get to my destination from the trolley stop. It turned out that the Civic Center stop may have been closer to 402 East Broadway but about five blocks south of where 402 West Broadway is. So, I made it to my appointment with ten minutes to spare and listened to my lawyer layout the gloomy details of my financial bankruptcy. When I left the building, I went out the opposite door than which I had entered and found myself right in front of Americas Plaza trolley stop. Sigh!

I needed to go to another courthouse to check on another piece of personal business and this is where my adventure truly began. I had to go to F street. Well, San Diego, in all their wisdom, has put a couple of condominium complexes in the middle of F street. So I couldn't just walk to F street and find the building I was looking for. No, I had to walk around the complexes and of course in my directionally-challenged mind, I ended up walking in a huge circle and down a few blocks before I found the building. Which, as it turned out was literally two blocks south of where the lawyers office was.

In my desire to appear business-like and professional, I had dressed in business casual attire which consisted of dark blue denim jeans, a grey camisole and a short black jacket with short sleeves. Because the jeans were a little long, I needed to wear somewhat of a heel so I had chosen my red pumps with a one and a half inch heel to make the outfit pop. Well, it had been some time since I had worn anything but Ugg-style boots, sneakers or sandals and on the way to the lawyer's office, my ankle kept giving out and I would stumble and jerk myself into staying vertical. On my circuitous route from the lawyers office to the other court house, one of my toes started really hurting and I finally took my shoes off to discover that I was developing a blister on one toe. So, I walked barefooted to my next destination carrying my red shoes that made the outfit pop.

So, after my errands I walked the two blocks back to Americas Plaza trolley station and boarded the train about five minutes later, after putting a band-aid on my toe. However, once the train started rolling about three stops down the track, I discovered that I had boarded the train at the point when it was going in a circle and coming to its last stop. SIGH!!!

I got off the trolley and walked several yards to the Twelfth and Imperial Trolley Station and waited another ten or fifteen minutes before the right train arrived. While waiting I was entertained by a lady singing "Jeremiah was a bull frog..." and pacing back and forth in front of me. Then she said something about thirteen and that is "code for marijuana" and "if you want some of that I've got that too, just ask". Oh boy!

I eventually made it safely home and immediately took off my red shoes, my professional business attire and changed into sweatpants. Ahhh, sweet relief!