Take-a-Break

FMF: RESPITE

17:20

The word respite took me straight to a specific time and place in my life – that of the blessing of occasional respite care for my mother.

Let me explain:

Mammy had early-onset Alzheimers. She received her diagnosis in her early 50s and was already just turned 60 when we moved her in to live with us.

It was a momentous undertaking for all of us – for mum to leave her beloved Orkney Island home; for my husband and children to have this needy stranger suddenly living with them; and for me, to become a full-time carer for a mother that I felt had rejected me.

It was a sacrifice and a privilege that I am grateful to have accepted.

However, as anyone who has been a carer knows, one needs to be super-careful not to overdo it!!! When one is looking after another 24/7, one tends to forget to look after oneself.

I was caring for my mother, but still had to attend to my husband and 2 young teenagers! There was little energy enough for them, so self-care was neglected.

This is when I discovered the benefits of respite care.

Respite care means taking a break from caring, while the person you care for is looked after by someone else. It lets you take time out to look after yourself and helps stop you becoming exhausted and run down.

The dictionary describes it as RESPITE: ‘a short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant’. But I describe those breaks from caring as necessary breathing spaces for sanity to resume, for me to see my children and myself uninterrupted; time to go away for a few days together and do the sorts of things we used to take for granted, like camping, hill-walking, or meals out, without constant risk-assessment and stress.

Of course the word comes from ‘respire’, which means ‘to breathe’. It also has an archaic meaning which is equally relevant here – ‘to recover hope, courage, or strength after a time of difficulty’.

Jesus invited me to take frequent respite with Him.

He invited me to come to Him, casting off my cares and leaving them in His care; resting in His loving embrace; resting in His Peace. He knows that when I do this I too will recover hope, courage and strength in my daily experiences and battles.

He invites all of His children to come to Him and receive His peace and that turbo-charge that we often so desperately need!

Respite care at that time of being a full-time carer, was a real God-send for me. For Mammy it was mixed; sometimes she would be delighted to meet people and equally delighted simply to see us come to fetch her home again, whence she immediately forgot where she had been; at other times she would spend the time away feeling abandoned and grumpy.

But for my sanity and ability to care – and therefore ultimately for Mammy’s well-being too, we used respite care whenever we could afford to just take a break by ourselves.

We would resume caring refreshed and appreciative of Mammy and of each other.

To read a little more on our dementia journey and the book we published, read in https://dawnfanshawe.wordpress.com/books-2/

If you would like a copy of the book, message me and I’ll give you options of how best to purchase it, according to where you live.

Image of front cover of Lost Down Memory Lane – painting by Michael Tolleson Robles

Spoilsports

Spoilsports

Have you ever known any spoilsports in your life?

You know, the ones who wouldn’t and said you couldn’t. The ones who disallowed the fun, who poured water on the flames and sent you home, or early to bed without your supper!

I grew up with so many of them! I think now that I created many of them too!

I am so happy to confess that I have recently repented for judging many people in my life as spoilsports – especially early in my growing up years – parents and family especially, but some teachers and even some sensible friends!

I felt that they really just wanted to spoil my fun and wanted me to be boring and miserable.

I chose to secretly rebel against authority and strict parents, but others would interfere, trying to control my life and my behaviour and so I would rebel in my heart instead.

Of course then I would have a pity-party.

“‘They’ were the spoilsports for not letting me ‘have fun’”.

I was the victim – ‘it’s not fair’!

Poor me.

I think I rented a room at the pity party.

It was my secret excuse to justify my personal bad habits and weaknesses.

“You’d be like this if you had to put up with what I have to put up with!”

If ‘they’ were the controlling spoilsports and I was a victim, I could excuse my bad behaviour to my conscience.

As they say in AA – ‘Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another one!’

I am so grateful to Jesus for showing me the way out of those destructive patterns and for enabling me to break those strongholds, by the power of the cross.

They were bitter judgments and subtle lies from hell itself.

I have repented of my judgments and renounced them, the lies and expectancies.

God has put the axe to those bitter roots and, by His grace, is showing me how to live a new way, in His truth, and free from the stronghold of those bitter roots.

By God’s grace I can now rename ‘spoilsports’ as ‘good, mean friends’ or ‘grace-growers’.

Thank God for those He allows to walk beside me to bump into me and knock off the rough edges!

Grace-growers help to perfect our patience, to practise forgiveness and to grow in us humility and the grace and gift of unconditional love.

Every Friday, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is SPOIL.

I do read through my script afterwards to correct my mistakes; to check scripture references and to find an appropriate image to illustrate the topic.

To read other FMF posts on this subject click HERE

FMF Writing Prompt Link-up :: Spoil

Grace is your Superpower

This is such a powerful audio – full of powerful truths about the power of grace and what we have been given to move the mountains and strongholds in our lives.

Listen and enjoy this blessed lady’s anointing.

Grace Is Your Superpower

How Jesus treated women in Patriarchal Judea.

I love how Susan has studied and writes about women in the New Testament. Through her blogs and books, I have so much more awareness of Jesus’ nature and counter-cultural attitude to all men and women.

This is a lovely post and she includes an excellent quote from Dorothy L Sayers, which is also worth a read!

Enjoy and have a look at her other posts on this fascinating, ever relevant topic.

Jesus’ Engagement with Women

What do we do with the rubbish?

FMF: Waste

Every Friday, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is WASTE

I do read through my script afterwards to correct my mistakes; to check scripture references and to find an appropriate image to illustrate the topic.

To read other FMF posts on this subject click below.

https://fiveminutefriday.com/2024/02/01/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-waste/

17:59

I’m not sure I can even begin to address the subject of waste as it affects me and my house-hold.

I think it was the way I grew up and the fact that I do believe we are to be good stewards of all we have been given.

I believe we are to look after the earth that God created, as well as the people in it!

But growing up, we were quite poor – certainly by British standards.

In our house nothing was wasted. Anything that could be eaten would go into a stew, anything that could not be made into something else, would be composted, or burned for fuel, or recycled. Old newspapers would be used to draw the fire, or made into bricks for fuel. Compost would enrich the soil for the vegetables and fruits that we grew.

Clothes would be bought from jumble-sales – they were a big thing in my childhood. Those clothes would be altered by Mammy and then handed down to me, after my big sister had had her wear of them.

Even water would never be thrown down the sink, but dishes would be washed from the cleanest to the dirtiest (pans last) and all excess water would be thrown onto the garden for the plants.

I’m sure there were other wonderful ideas that folk wouldn’t dream of doing today.

But the truth was, if it broke, you mended it, or turned it into something else.

As you know, the world is very different today.

But I am not.

I reuse anything I can, I still compost kitchen things and I shred garden waste for mulch. I dry out and burn what can be burned in our wood-burner.

My husband is perhaps even more fastidious than I and will strip wires from dead electrical goods for recycling and separate materials carefully for recycling. Of course it means we keep a lot of things to fix and reuse and turn into something else.

‘You never know if it might be useful one day’ things.

Some might say we are eco-warriors, but most people say we are hoarders and that it is an undesirable thing to be a hoarder.

They may be right. But what should we do with things that are broken and nobody wants?

We live in a world where people buy something today and throw it out tomorrow. I think they must just have a LOT more money today than we used to have.

People since the 70s expect to have more stuff – more gadgets, more clothes, more of everything and the latest model.

Things are no longer made to last anyway – so many gadgets and new tech become obsolete in a short time and the latest model becomes essential.

But what do we do with all the unwanted stuff? What do we do with the waste?

I work in a charity-shop, as you may know.

Lots of people take bin-liners full of things regularly to charity shops for people to clean up and resell as second hand goods to others.

One man’s waste can become another man’s treasure.

Over the last couple of years, the amount of donations coming into charity shops has become overwhelming. There is more stuff than we can use. The value of things has dropped.

We make the donated items as good as possible – though many donations are new, unwanted gifts. But what happens if nobody buys it? Some of the unwanted things can be recycled – metals have a value and can be recycled. Clothes, shoes, books are also recycled in a variety of ways.

What I hate to happen is to see things end up in land-fill.

Mountains of landfill of waste.

Did anybody ever read that book ‘Dinosaurs and all that rubbish’ – (by Michael Foreman) that is what comes to mind. We are raping our planet for all of its valuable resources and then burying the land in landfill and toxic waste.

Okay, that’s 15 minutes already of my little rant!

Image from ‘Dinosaurs and all that Rubbish’, by Michael Foreman

Do you think we should be taking care of our planet and not wasting things – wasting resources, money, time?

Tell me what you think.