Happiness and How To Get There

What is most important to you?  Family?  God?  Friends?  Drugs?  Sex?  Whatever you feed will grow.  In other words, if you spend quality time with your family in happy situations, love will grow.  If you spend your time with heroin, an addition grows that is very unhealthy and not safe.  If you want to grow closer to God, read the Word.  Talk to God.  Even yell at Him if you want.  God is not some bad man in the sky.  He loves YOU! Don't worry about what to pray... Just tell Him your heart's desire.  Listen for Him.  Listen for Him in songs, in the wind, in the light, in the sun.  Listen to him at the river.  Listen to Him thru meditation or prayer.  God loves YOU!  Not a broken you or a sin-free you - just YOU!!  There is nothing in this world that you've done that will separate you from God.  Adultry, murder, pornography, lies, alcohol, nothing.  Take a minute now to praise Him for giving you LIFE!  💜🕊️💙

Prayer Rocks

Check out my Facebook page.  I paint custom prayer rocks.  Let me know your favorite color, animal, symbol, or design and I will make you one!!  For freeeeeeeee!  (You can donate if you want, but I enjoy just blessing others.)  https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/summary

Poem and Graphic Art

In 2015 I took a graphic arts class at EIU.  I woke at 3am one morning with a poem in my heart and wrote it out.  Then, developed this graphic novel about a church, me, and church and me as a body.  Sharing because I feel others can relate.  All is hand-drawn with ideas from various Google images and my imagination.  I'm going thru a journey that I feel is just beginning.  I turn 50 this year.  Half (or better) of my living life is gone and it makes you reflect a bit.  May all of you have a blessed day.  Make it great, as they say.  💙🕊️💜

It's Been Awhile - My Vineyard Journey Has Started

So back in July 2017 I quit my full-time job because of health reasons and office politics.  It's one of the best things I've ever done.  I quit a 15-year career at State Farm to move to Florida to reunite with my HS sweetie.  Again, one of the best things I ever did.  Follow your heart if you can.  It pays off in the end.  Sometimes financially it's not possible and I get that, trust me. 

I grew up comfortable in Mahomet, IL, moneywise.  New car at age 16?  No problem.  New Wurlitzer organ for a graduation present?  No problem.  New stereo to play those MANY LPs, 45s, cassette tapes?  No problem.  But... there was a huge secret no one wanted to tell me.  I was adopted.  Found out when I was 20 years old.  Getting my first divorce and my brother and I went to Virginia Beach to gather belongings.  "Hey sis... you know... we're not really brother and sister?"  What?  You were adopted at age 6 months.  O.....K.  Well, that makes sense.  I didn't look like anyone in my family.  My family never knew how to handle a wild girl who only thought of herself... played music constantly in my room because I didn't want to deal with the outside.  Studied.  Drew faces.  Drew fashion designs.  Loved to make Shrinky Dinks, color, type on Dad's old typewriter, play the organ, sing in my room.  Dad even carpeted the walls to hold in the sound so I didn't blast out the rest of the house.  I had mega pictures up of my "heroes" - Pat Benatar, Blondie, REO Speedwagon, Queen, Sean Cassidy because hey, he was cute...  mmmm.... Journey, Rick Springfield, AC/DC, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Donna Summer (hers was my first 45 I ever bought). 

Since those crazy 80s, my tastes have changed in music, food, art, you name it.  But I've learned to be true to MYSELF.  Another best thing I ever did was search and find my birth family in 2007.  I have a sister!!!!!!!!!  I have "other" brothers!!!!  I have a birth mom!  I have uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins (what are cousins, I asked!), and wonderful new friends. 

So for today, friends, BREATHE, slow... in 4, out 4.  Know YOU are enough.  No matter who or what you are!  God doesn't make mistakes.  https://www.facebook.com/Tamacita68?fref=nf

Blog for Mental Health

“I pledge my commitment to the Blog for Mental Health 2015 Project. I will blog about mental health topics not only for myself, but for others. By displaying this badge, I show my pride, dedication, and acceptance for mental health. I use this to promote mental health education in the struggle to erase stigma.”
 
 Please go to:  http://blogformentalhealth.com/ 

Because, as the site says, mental health is everyone's concern.

Raise awareness!

Hi all... I've been diagnosed bipolar and major depressive since I was around 19 and I'm now 46 and trudging along in life.  I hate the stigma mental health has and if I can be a small part of awareness that this is a disease and not something we make up in our mind, all the better.  I work full time and go to school part time, am married, and have two fur babies, Moses and Pepper.  

May you all be blessed and healthy in 2015 and beyond.

Tammy

Stained

If you don't know me, I'm crazy.  If you know me, you might think I'm "normal" however you would be mistaken as first of all, there is no "normal" and second of all, I hide my feelings well on most days.

So this is my first blog, on Blogger anyway.  I only have the time today to write because I'm so freaking depressed that I had to stay home yet another day because it was extremely hard to stop bawling at absolutely nothing.  Fun. 

Hell I probably have another blog floating around on some cloud somewhere, who knows.  But for today, this is it.  Hopefully I'll post here more often than I did on my supposed other blog site for which I have no idea if I have or not.   

I work full-time, go to school part-time, am 46 years old, married, no kids except my fur babies Moses and Pepper, love God to pieces, tired, love ketchup, and long walks on the beach as long as they don't involve drowning. 

I wrote a poem the other day and wanted to share... not because I think it's especially good, although I tend to like it of course since it's mine - but hey maybe someone reading it can relate and not feel so alone. So, I'll give you a little background about the poem and hopefully you're still reading and not bored out of your mind or being eaten by a large furry grasshopper.  

The other day I had a vision of a window that became stained glass (yes I have visions, surprise) and I saw it being shattered onto an abandoned church floor.  No one had been in this church for years except a few who had gone astray or simply looking for some comfort.  It spawned me to hurry write this poem which I tweaked a little, but it's mostly spontaneous.  Entitled "Stained", it represents a stained-glass window in a church and how a carpenter fixed this window, with the analogy that we can feel broken, picked up by someone, and made whole again - whether that be a stranger, a mentor, a friend, or a family member.  Sometimes it's just a child's smile or laugh.  

But as I was writing it, I realized that it also represents God forming us from the earth and how wonderfully and beautifully he made us.  We can feel lost for years, maybe our whole life, unless we find God or some kind of higher power to hold on to... hold on to faith, hope, and love.  And the greatest of these is LOVE!  

Stained

I grew
from a mound of rubble and mud.
Many worked, toiled
Until the wooden structure
was formed.

It's done!
They exclaimed.
It's beautiful
They marveled.
It's sturdy.
Upright.
Stately.
Holy. 

A few came, then more.
Years, decades flew,
and one day
at high noon
Stones, rocks, sticks flew high,
breaking what was beautiful.
A Kaleidoscope broken and scattered. 

Fragile, dangerous and bloody.
Beware, 
Pieces everywhere,
even hidden.
So.... many .....  pieces.
Small, large, jagged and splintered.
Lying dormant for an eternity.
Sleeping... weeping..... dusting.  

"How will I ever be whole again?
I'll never be a stately piece of art.
I was cracked in so many places.
I feel dead." 

But......
It remembers the sun.
It remembers the light, the music.
It remembers the love, joy, fears and tears
that were loud in this Holy Temple.  

Then....
a Savior gathered all gently
And carefully found the places
where the pieces go.
Not exactly - but close. 

He held these pieces gently
in his hands.
Carefully, artfully, lovingly.

With welds, I became stunning again.
Not perfect,
Still broken,
But Alive.
Together.

Ah.....
There's the sun,
The warmth..... 

It shines through me, 
a rainbow of colors that tell a story.
And one again,
I'm whole. 

c. 2015 Tammy Thompson Markstahler