GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS : “What is man without friends”

“Friendship... is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.”

Muhammad Ali

Today I am grateful for my friends.

Our friends usually fall in categories, those who  are always around to laugh with and talk with, and when call upon is by your side in a heartbeat. Then there are those who are not always around but you get a fond hello from time to time, and those who  we  really don’t see at all because their life path takes them away from us, and then there are those who  even though we do not see them, when we speak it is as if we picked up  from where we left off, when last we spoke. I have one such friend  and she tells me  from time to time that even  though she does not see me much, she knows she is in my heart . Believe  me, each category serves  its  purpose in enriching our lives.

The other day a former coworker ran across my mind . (we are often encouraged to pray for people when they run across our minds).. I did not pray this time though, I looked in my phone book, saw a very old number I had for her and decided to call her. Turns out, it was her husband who answered. I was so elated because this means that I would get the chance to speak to my friend. I told him who I was and he did not hesitate to give me her number. I called her, she knew it was me instantly and soon remarked how my call had brightened her day. because she was feeling a bit under the weather, having recently lost her mother, and you know what, hearing how much I had brightened her day , brightened mine  too. I was so happy I made that  call.

We seldom tell the people who are special to us, how much they are  really appreciated and  so I am using this space today to salute all my friends and to  give God thanks for each and every one of them/.

The one who, even as I pen this post, is being used  by God to enrich my family’s life, in a way that only God himself could have ordained, I thank you and I am very blessed to have you as  a friend.

GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS – Feature 16 - Divinely Ordered

Today I am grateful for Divine Order.

I believe that the way each of us life unfolds, is to a great degree, a result of Divine Order. Each of us have our unique life journey and sometimes this life journey takes us away from our friends and family for extended periods of time.

Recently our Church held their annual convention and for the past 6 years I was not in attendance because my husband and I was living abroad for 5 of those years and for the one year since we had been back home,  our daughter was an infant. I made special effort then to attend this recent one.

My heart was warmed and my spirit refreshed to see faces I had not seen in years. I remember saying to one of those individuals, that I dreamed about her recently, (It is often said that when your mind runs on someone or you dream about them, you are to say a prayer for them). It was therefore quite in order that she asked me if I said a prayer for her. I hesitated to answer because I did not pray for her specifically, usually in my prayers I pray generally, if there is nothing specific, for my friends and loved ones, and that in my view should be adequate.

I am grateful then for how life unfolds, so that we can get a lift in our hearts and spirits from time to time, because God knows, we sure need it. 

STRESS, DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY ASSOCIATED WITH INFERTILITY

I hid my infertility struggles for most of the time that I struggled. My friends did not know how miserable, sad and lonely I was. The closest people to me, my family did not know either.

I hid it because I was ashamed of my inability to conceive, I did not want anyone to know me in my incompleteness. I hid my struggles because I did not want anyone to think that I was over-reacting because I did not know that the symptoms caused by my infertility were really very real and therefore could be embraced.

As I slowly but cautiously began to open up about my struggles, I heard comments such as: ‘I don’t know if I was in your position if I would be feeling as miserable as you are;' I had no use for God and I should live in the sunshine; I should search my life to see if there are un-confessed sins that I am being punished for; that I was stressing my husband out. I was so glad I had hidden my struggles for so long or I probably would have heard worst comments.

Can I still say that this post is not really about me? It is to examine up close, the various symptoms of infertility, why they happen and how you can get help in dealing with them.

See link below, courtesy of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Women’s Health for information in this regard:-

http://www.womensmentalhealth.org/specialty-clinics/infertility-and-mental-health/?gclid=CKS2xqrSpLUCFQ0GnQodKnAAIA

From the site

“Parenthood is one of the major transitions in adult life for both men and women. The stress of the non-fulfillment of a wish for a child has been associated with emotional sequelae such as anger, depression, anxiety, marital problems, sexual dysfunction, and social isolation. Couples experience stigma, sense of loss, and diminished self-esteem in the setting of their infertility (Nachtigall 1992). In general, in infertile couples women show higher levels of distress than their male partners (Wright 1991; Greil 1988); however, men’s responses to infertility closely approximates the intensity of women’s responses when infertility is attributed to a male factor (Nachtigall 1992). Both men and women experience a sense of loss of identity and have pronounced feelings of defectiveness and incompetence.”

http://www.mentalhelp.net/images/root/infertility.jpg?0.1536280284048676
image by:

'GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS' - Post 5 – “What is man without friends?”

As a people, we are very ambitious and this is good, there is however a downside to this. We can lose
our selves in pursuing self-advancement; a bigger degree for that bigger salary, a bigger house, a newer car, and find ourselves wondering, why am I not happy, why does my life feel so dull. The thing is, we forget to be thankful for the little things that we already have, without which, our lives would not mean much. Our relationships, our health, our faith, our freedom, I could go on.


There are times in my life when I feel I could have achieved more in certain areas, and as a result I beat upon myself and take on a 'woe is me' attitude. Thankfully, I am soon reminded that less I be accused of being ungrateful, I do have things to be thankful for. 


In my pursuit to become a more thankful and happier person, in general then, I am urged to add a new posting feature to my blog, a segment dedicated to being thankful, which I have decided to call ‘GRATEFUL WEDNESDAYS', where I will post all the things in my life that I am thankful for, regardless of how small and especially those things which I have learnt the most from.

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I have very few friends. In fact there is a joke that my husband has on me, that he makes my friends for me and I take it, that it is because of my stutter why I have such a problem. One characteristic of a stutterer is that we do not readily open up ourselves to people, in case we be judged prematurely, because of the way we talk. As a result of this, we do not do so well socially.

Thanks to my husband then, among my few special friends are some that he indeed passed on to me. Today I want to use this space to say how grateful I am for my friends and their friendship. They lend not only their ears, when I need to talk, but their understanding that we all have and are entitled to our own unique view of things and we are also entitled to feel how we want to feel about issues in our lives and so they never judge me as a result.

It is my wish that they feel the same way about me too, if not though, I beg of them some time to become a better friend to them.

THANKS AND GOD BLESS YOU MY FRIENDS.