Opinions from Life Experience

Warning: Hot sports opinion coming up.

The last couple months have been new and challenging for the world. And, as time marches on, we face new challenges in trying to get life back on track. Two and a half to three months ago everybody started using phrases such as “social distancing”, “safer at home”, “flattening the curve” and “immunocompromised”. At the beginning of all this it was scary and we were in the “fog of war”. We didn’t know much other than we should be very afraid. The world shut down. But then an amazing thing happened… people came together. For many people, their neighbors became an essential part of their lives. We went from a world where we pulled our cars into our garages and quickly closed the garage door before we even got out of the vehicle to a world where people would get out of the house and go on walks and would smile and talk from the other side of the street. Kindness abounded. People looked out for each other. Communities grew. And then as time went on things have increasingly become political and emotionally volatile and angry and opinionated. It’s now “you don’t care about other humans if you don’t wear a mask” vs “It’s my freedom to not wear a mask”. It’s “we need to open everything back up” vs “we should still be terrified and stay at home”. It’s “protect the immunocompromised at all costs” vs.”people need freedom to live life”. It’s become an argument.

Like everyone else on the planet, I have opinions. And that’s a good thing. I like to listen to people with differing opinions because I might just learn something. One thing I have learned in life and feel that we would all do better to learn is that I/we don’t know it all and I/we can actually be wrong. Shocker. I know.

Opinion can be based on many different things. What we read. What other people say. What we see on the news. What we read online. How we were taught as we grew up. But, one of the most powerful ways to form an opinion is hard core life experience. If you don’t have life experience regarding an issue, it would be wise to talk to someone who does. For example, many people have strong opinions on raising kids. They feel they know exactly how to do it and are often quick to point out how others are doing it wrong….the problem is many of the strongest opinions on child rearing come from people who don’t have children. And then God with His fabulous sense of humor places those precious little rascals in their lives and they realize….we actually know nothing about raising kids, we are not as smart as we thought we were, maybe that lady who gives her kid candy is not a horrible mother…. and we experience it for ourselves and we learn.

I have a life experience that I would like people to consider during such a time as this. I am not currently immunocompromised but I was from August 2018-February 2020. During that time I was forced to become a warrior…. kicking breast cancer’s ass. I went through chemo and radiation and surgeries and I still have more surgeries to go. During that time my white blood count tanked hard-core. Life had to suddenly change. I didn’t have a phrase for what my family and I had to do, but basically we naturally started social distancing.

I gave air hugs before air hugs were cool, y’all.

I even hugged my precious little carrier monkey nephews with my legs so they could hug me but didn’t wrap them up in the big huge hugs I was desperately wanting to give them…because….you know…boogers and cooties. I even hugged my kids less especially if they were not feeling well (this shredded my heart). I wore masks sometimes. We washed our hands a lot. We used Lysol. I took/take supplements to boost my immune system. Yes the flu and colds came into our home. And we dealt with by distancing even more at home. We did all the things that other healthy humans have had to learn how to do over the past 2 months. I reduced my contact with the outside world to a few chosen places and people. My family and very close friends and I did what we needed to do to keep me safe.

But, I never asked the rest of the world to stop. I never even thought about it.

I never thought of asking my kid’s schools to shut down so my kids wouldn’t get sick from other kids. I did ask my kids not to drink out of the public water fountains and made sure they had water bottles. I did ask my kids to wash their hands immediately when they walked in the door from school.

I never thought of asking the airlines to shut down so my husband wouldn’t get sick from other passengers. I did ask my husband to wear a mask and/or move to another seat if he was sitting next to Snotty McSnotterson on his airplane ride home from a work trip. I never asked him to ask the person next to him to wear a mask.

I never thought of asking my church or my community or our parks or the stores or my little town or the city of Denver or the state of Colorado or the United States to shut down to keep me from catching the flu and colds and the stomach virus and all the other viruses that travel quickly from person to person.

Yes, watching the world move on around me was hard. It’s lonely even when you do have as many amazing friends who checked in on me and brought us food and came with me to chemo. It’s hard when your life suddenly changes and you can’t do all the things that you want to do and other people can do those things. It’s hard when you are used to being an incredibly healthy person and suddenly you are “the sick one”, “the bald one”, “the one with cancer”, “the immunocompromised one”.

And it was amazing to me how little I actually knew about how many people live immunocompromised lives and what those lives look like. I just had no idea. I had no clue what it really meant to have to be careful. But I didn’t have the experience for myself so why would I have known?

And now, here we are. In the world of COVI19. And for the first time, almost the entire planet has been given the gift of understanding and experience of what it is to have to live like a person who is immunocompromised.

But now we are arguing over it.

So here’s my two cents worth from my chemo brained experience.

We started social distancing and wearing masks and quarantine and and and and…..to flatten the curve. And we have done that. Yes, we might have a second wave but no one knows what the future holds. More and more studies and research are coming out every day. Last week it sounded like you could get COVID from a shopping cart that someone touched 3 weeks ago and this week now the CDC says it doesn’t spread that way. Hindsight it 20/20….usually because we get more info as time goes on. It doesn’t always mean there is some huge conspiracy. That might be true, but more often than not we just need time to learn more about what we are dealing with and how to fight it and win.

So here I go….I’m putting myself out there. Be kind. My opinion is based on my own experience. Yes, you can disagree with me but no you have no right to tell me that my experience is wrong and I don’t know what I am talking about. The majority of people I have known in my life have never ever been immunocompromised. I have. The world did not stop for me when I was immunocompromised. I never expected it to. My world changed. The people who were closest to me made changes because they love me. But never in my wildest dreams would I have ever asked everyone else in the world to stop because my life changed.

Would it have made a difference? What I mean is, would I have been less sick if everyone around me stopped living their lives to protect mine? No, I don’t think it would have. My family and close friends and I did what we could to keep me as healthy as I could be. However, I also chose not to live in fear because if I got sick and died….well, I know this fella named Jesus and I have His peace and His hope.

(Side note, if you are scared and don’t know Him, I would love to introduce you to Him. He’s amazing and not at all like many church folks trapped in Pharisee-like legalism make Him sound. He’s all about love and joy and peace and freedom. He’s not a cosmic kill-joy. I lived in fear for a long time. Not any more. Freedom from Heaven baby….it’s amazing).

You can die a lot of other ways before you actually die physically. I chose to live while immunocompromised and continue to choose to live the one life I have been gifted.

So…….No, I don’t think everyone should be forced to wear masks to protect the immunocompromised. But yes, I do think we need to be more aware of actually how many people in our world are immunocompromised. Yes we can be loving and helpful and caring and serving to these who need our help. Yes we can choose to not judge people who wear masks. They may not be scared at all but may love someone who is immunocompromised. Yes we can choose to not judge people who don’t wear masks. They may be claustrophobic or don’t want to wear one because no one they love is in the at risk group. Yes, we have to have empathy because now we have had a little couple month glimpse into their lives. It sucks. And now we all know it and can relate a little.

No, I don’t think everything should remain shutdown. There are too many other bad side effects from health to emotion to economical to many other things that will creep up on us if we stay locked away.

There are so many sides to this debate. Some people are scared. Some people are angry. My prayer however is that we can have our opinions but be able and willing to listen calmly to others. My prayer is that we can not jump down the throat of or give the stink eye to someone not wearing their mask at Home Depot. My prayer is that we make sure and research random videos and articles on both sides of the argument to make sure there is true validity to them before we post them and start a fire storm of idiotic social media fighting. My prayer is that we can stop being angry and crazy and hateful toward people who don’t share our same opinions. My prayer is that we can use our new experience of the last two months to love each other more.

It’s all about love y’all.

And for the love of all that is glittery and pure…..wash your damn hands! 🙂

Lessons in the weeds

If you’ve ever read any part of the Bible you are bound to have come across something having to do with planting or gardening or working the ground or growing things. Apparently God thinks there are lessons to be learned about life that can be found in the outdoors, specifically gardening or growing plants and food. Yeah….once again….and as always…. God’s right.

Last night and today I spent time performing one of my least favorite tasks in the history of all tasks. I pulled weeds.

I despise pulling weeds.

I love gardening, planting, enjoying food or flowers I have grown. I like digging in the dirt. I don’t even mind mowing and edging so much….but I HATE pulling weeds. Even my super cool, amazingly helpful weed yanker on a stick, the weed hound, doesn’t make me like pulling weeds.

Why do I hate weeds so much?

Well, it’s a lot of reasons. They are pokey and thorny and invasive and grow insanely fast. They try to act all pretty with their little yellow flowers or white globes of floating fuzzies but really, it’s just putting lipstick on a pig….they are still weeds. But I think the main reason is, you can clear your yard of them one year and the next…there they are again. Popping up overnight to say hello. Laughing at you as you war against them. I have spent hours and hours spring after spring pulling weeds and no matter how many I pull out by the root, the next spring, there they are again. Sometimes they are less than the year before….but they are there.

They are relentless.

And this morning, as I’m out with my trusty weed hound engaging in the battle, God gently nudges my mind and gets me thinking about the lessons in the weeds.

Life has weeds.

It just does. Each and every one of us has something(s) we battle. Something that we know is just not right. It may look pretty for a bit….like the flowers on the weeds…..but it’s just lipstick on a pig. Or it might be ugly….thorny….it pokes other people and leaves thorns in them.

Weeds are those things in our lives that keep creeping up on us and we just really don’t want them there. Habits, addictions, actions, words, thoughts, emotions…..many different things can be weeds in our lives.

We often choose to work and work at pulling the weeds in our lives and just as often, it is exhausting.

If we struggle with uncontrolled anger, we work so hard and pray so much for anger to be gone. If we struggle with fear, we work so hard and pray so much for fear to be gone. Food addictions, porn addictions, gossip, hatred, pride, worshipping our jobs, worshipping money, keepin’ up with the jones’s….it’s all just weeds and try as hard as we do and struggle as hard as we do….often they just keep coming back.

Have you ever struggled with something in life? Yes, I know it’s a dumb question. There are dumb questions and that is one. We have ALL struggled with something in life. Also, many of us have also felt at one time or another like we got victory over one or more of those struggles.

And then we go dancing through summer, and fall and winter. Life is grand. The summer flowers are blooming. They fall colors are gorgeous. Christmas is sparkly and perfect. Winter is cold but beautiful with blankets of snow that covers everything in a white freshness. And we come into spring feeling on top of the world. Nothing can stop us. The world is fixin’ to bloom. Spring is here! We have dealt with our issues and life is awesome…….and then those freakin’ weeds pop up again. And we are mad and frustrated and grumpy and a few other ill-tempered dwarves from Snow White. And we just don’t understand why those stupid, invasive, time sucking, soul sucking weeds are back.

Weeds suck.

Life struggles suck.

So today I noticed some similarities between weeds and life struggles…..

1. You have to work hard to pull up the weeds.

You can’t just look out your window and be mad at the weeds and wish they weren’t there and make them disappear. You can try just mowing over them and make them go away. And for a day they will look like nice freshly mowed grass. But the next day they are back with a vengeance and have spread their demon weed seed everywhere and then their buddies start growing. And you were worse off than you were just a couple days ago. You can use Round Up. You can use vinegar. You can try to poison them, dry them out, mow over them….but the ONLY way to get rid of a weed is to pull it up…. root and all.

The same goes with struggles in life.

You have to be brutal. Banish that thing. Rip it out of your life….root and all. You can’t wish away your struggles. You can’t ignore them. You can try to cover them up for a while but they are usually going to come back worse. You can try a thousand self help ideas to try and poison them out of your life. But they only way to get rid of them is to pull them up…root and all.

Oh…and pulling weeds is HARD. The root always breaks on me when I’m doing it by hand. But when I have my trusty, awesome weed hound…up it comes, root and all. The weed hound and I work together. I can’t deal with my struggles in my life alone. I may work on it and work on it but I will miss getting the whole root of the struggle. I need a weed hound! Y’all…… God is my weed hound!!! 😉

2. You have to go out every spring and pull those mean, nasty, ugly, evil, stupid weeds up. If you worked hard the year before, you will likely have tons less to deal with…..but those pesky stragglers are there. Maybe the root broke off last year. Maybe it was tiny last year and I just missed it. But there it is.

The same goes with struggles in life.

You claim a victory once but that doesn’t mean you are necessarily done with it. An alcoholic is never again not an alcoholic. They are a recovering alcoholic. The cancer patient is never again a person who has never had cancer in their life. They are a cancer survivor. The struggles may be less and less as times goes on because you have put in the work and attention and prayer you need for healing. But from time to time you have to do a “weed check” in your life to make sure those old struggles aren’t creeping up again.

3. Your weed count in your yard often reflects where you live. Ok…so we have precious neighbors on all sides of us but when it comes to yards, we have one side who keeps their yard up and one side who just really does not. The Gardeners love on their yard. They take care of it and plant and weed and fertilize. The plant beautiful flowers and shower the neighborhood with botanical love. Then we have the NonGardeners on the other side. They basically mow over the weeds. Gardening is just not their thing and that’s fine for their house. But how our neighbors take care of their yards dramatically reflects in the amount of weeds we have in our yard. The side of our yard next to the Gardener’s….practically weed free. I pull just a few up each year. There are some on the edge of the sidewalk from dogs walking by to leave and read pee-mail…but for the most part….very, very few weeds. It’s just not really an issue. But then on the NonGardener’s side…weed-a-palooza, y’all. I spend hours every year fighting weeds because the weed seed from their yard blows into ours…… and it sucks.

The same goes for struggles in life.

If you are surrounding yourself with people who sow weeds in their lives…..baby, you gonna have weeds in yours and you are going to struggle and struggle trying to pull them out of your life. If you are surrounding yourselves with people who take care and sow good things…..you are likely to do the same. I love the Gardeners AND the NonGardeners and am neighborly to both. But when it comes to having an influence on my life….the Gardeners it is!

In 2 Corinthians 12:7-9, Paul talks about having a thorn in his flesh. That thorn has been debated for centuries. What was it? Honestly, we don’t need to know what that thorn was. We just need to know that it was there. There was something weedy and thorny that grated on him for years and years. And he asked God to take it away. God’s response? “My grace if sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness”.

God knew Paul had weeds. God knows we have weeds. He gives us wisdom to deal with them. He gives us His Word, chocked full of life is a garden references. He wants us to study and learn and heal and have victory. But He also knows our frustrations. He knows when we are tired of pulling those life weeds that we thought we had already killed. And He says the same thing to us….

My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.

God is my weed hound.