Being Human, More Humble Pie & Transformers 17-21May2025

 

As I started to write this update it was overcast, with “pea soup fog”.  🌫️  We locals know what ‘Pea Soup Fog’ is.  But for those from far away, no it is not green fog.  It is extremely thick, fog...  one where you can hardly see a car length in front of you when driving.  There are still many blessings to count on this type of day.  Jamie & I had the privilege to watch our granddaughter, Audri Sander, graduate from UMKC on-line.  Congratulations to Audri for receiving her Early Childhood Education Degree.  🙌💛🎓💛👩‍🎓💛🎓💛🙌   Your dedication & hard work has been rewarded.  We couldn’t be prouder of you!  There are times that technology is an extra, special blessing.  Especially, when you have limitations regarding travel & mobility.  Our hearts were with her, as we watched.  And our prayers will always continue to be with her.  

Please forgive any mistakes, as this chick is lacking some sleep & just had her 4 week treatment injection.  🙃😵‍💫Sorry Cousin Richard, this is definitely not done in point form.  Maybe everyone should take some snacks & find a comfy space to lounge, incase you want or to need to fall asleep.

Do you remember “transformers?  In North America we would have recognized them to be produced by the Hasbro Company.  We had quite a collection of them when our kids were young.  One of my favorites was shown in the movie, “Bumble Bee”.  Instantly he could move parts and be transform from a Bumble Bee into a Chevrolet Camaro.  Unlike the Rubik’s Cube, transformers were easier to use.  (Unless of course you were my grandson Ethan who mastered them in no time at all very young age.) They make me think of how God can transform our lives into something completely different than what we expect or even imagined, if we are willing.  

Romans 12:2:  “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” NIV

Have you ever eaten humble pie when you’ve come to the place that you realize, yet again, that you are only human. One time, when discussing a very difficult situation with my Christian Counselor, I remember sharing how disappointed & frustrated I was with myself.   In this difficult situation I had “reacted” instead of “responding”. Sometimes that can happen when someone strikes a very painful, deep nerve within your emotions… or as they say, “triggers you”.  

I loved my counselor’s response to me that day, “Paulette, you need to remember that you are still, only human.”   She showed me God’s truth, and implemented His mercy & grace to help me on my journey to a very deep healing. Thank you Michele!  She has also encouraged me to use “point form” but obviously I haven’t mastered that yet.  🤣😂🤣

Through this I realized I had a new nerve\trigger point.  Though I did not like the way it made me feel, I have found that it can be an opportunity to heal.  Sometimes, these have been God opening a door for me to receive a much deeper healing.  First I have to acknowledge my emotions.  It is harder than it sounds, as you are allowing yourself to be vulnerable and feel the pain.  In our humanness, I know sometimes instead that we choose to try to bury our emotions instead of experiencing and processing them.  Unfortunately this is when those emotions can become like a jack-n-the-box.  If not dealt with, they may pop up unexpectedly at any time.  Through the process of Godly counsel, I have learned it is both best & totally worth, taking the next step and doing the hard healing work required.  Christian Counseling has been such a blessing throughout different aspects of my life.  When an issue arises, God has taught me to NEVER point my finger at someone else.  First, I must turn that finger around and point it at myself and examine my own heart.  At times it is not pretty when God holds up the mirror to show you the reflection of who you really are, in comparison to who you think you are.  

Next be sincere when asking God, “Is there anything I need to change in myself to help with this situation?”  

Then, when emotionally ready, I ask, “What would You like me to learn from this?”  Truly there are always more lessons to be learned, no matter our age.  Remember that it is a privilege to learn at the Master’s Feet, even when the situation is allowing deep pain to surface.  I remember when counseling with Michele and I was in the deepest pain I had ever experienced at that point in my life.  I was rushing into our session saying a lot of things that I needed to change or thought I should do… it was a list a mile long.  Also, I wanted it all done at warp speed.  

Michele gently told me, “I think you are trying to outrun the pain and to truly heal you must go through it to get to the other side.”    

I have hung on to that pearl of wisdom and have tried to apply it to my life.  In the Bible, Job is a strong example of someone who experienced long-suffering.   Yet he respected God and honored him by choosing to follow God’s will, God’s Way and accepting God’s Timing, despite all the pain and suffering that he endured.  In the Bible it says:

“So do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you.  I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.  Isaiah 41:10 NIV

Psalm 147:3:  “He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.”  NIV

You might be very surprised with the answer\s that you receive through the process of healing.  God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the way that we imagined, but He ALWAYS answers our prayers in a way that is best for all involved in the situation.  It’s not all about me like our human nature tends to think when we are hurt.  After all,  God does have the divine perspective.   He can see the beginning from the end… not just our limited human view\perspective.  We need to truly listen in order to learn someone else’s perspective and gain insight as to how they feel.  We don’t have to understand or necessarily agree with them, but we do need to give them our full attention when they speak and not be jumping ahead to what we want to say next.  Seeing things from someone else’s perspective is an important skill to develop.  With ADD I often pray and ask God to help me listen with His divine ears of compassion and keep my mouth shut until He wants me to speak.

Incase you are not familiar with the terms “reacting” verses “responding”, I will be vulnerable & share a couple stories with you.  As a matter of fact, just the other night, I had a situation where I “reacted” instead of “responded”.  Background:  It had been a long day with a lot of pain, which caused my body the need to rest.  I got up as little as possible from the recliner to avoid the pain.  Any of you ladies ever neglected your urge to go to the bathroom?  Then, all of the sudden you realize that you have waited too long, so the urgency suddenly becomes an emergency?  The situation where you might even consider knocking someone out of the way to get to the bathroom first.  😜  That’s the circumstance that I was in, so I made a quick get-a-way with my walker for the assist, to the bathroom.   I use the term, quick, loosely.  Due to the layout of our bathroom, I have to back my walker in to the toilet.    This means I don’t look and just sit down and “let her go”!   My feeling of relief squelched, because I was so frustrated that my first attempt was on a closed toilet lid!  Showers of blessings, it wasn’t!   There were plenty of trajectory 💦 sprinkles for reminders on my clothing, the toilet etc.  This would also required me to take a second shower.  Honestly, at this point in the day, it took energy that I didn’t have.  The strong pain had drained what little energy I did have that day.  Then taking the necessary extra shower, also caused some unwelcome pain…   Especially after my attempting to bend to clean up the natural disaster I had caused.   My “reaction” occurred in the bathroom when the toilet-seat lid was left down instead of up.  It seems that I took my frustrations out “in word” on Jamie & “in deed” on myself.  At least I split the difference between the two of us, though Jamie may not have seen it like that in the moment.  He is a good man.

I said to Jamie with stark, stellar tone, “WHY on earth would you LEAVE the toilet-seat lid down?!?!!”  Of course I repeated it in various verbal scenarios to drive home my point.  While still in a bit of my “snit-fit”, I got into my forced 2’nd shower of the day to get cleaned up.  

Have you ever tried to slat & be frustrated with a body that doesn’t have the capacity to deal with that type of physical movement?  🤪  Way to punish yourself, Paulette!  🥴   By colourfully expressing myself, while in the shower, I had a chance to process it a bit.  Suddenly the realization hit me, that I was the one who had put, and left, the toilet-seat lid down!!!  🤦🏼‍♀️  In living color, God allowed me to see the playback of earlier that evening, when I was looking for medicine in our medicine cabinet… which you may have guessed is above the toilet. 

First, I confessed to Jamie, which was accompanied by several apologies for my accusatory tone...  

Humble Pie… 🥧 well I ate TWO pieces that night, as Jamie cleaned some things areas that I could not reach within my bending capacity.  He also helped me dry off after my shower because of my lack of flexibility.   Just so you know the humble pie was NOT a flavor I enjoyed swallowing, yet it set well after I ate it.   Ironically, it took LOTS of water 💦 💦 to both wash my humble pie down & then to clean up my mess.  Yes, God is still teaching me too, Friends.   Jamie was an example of what love is.

You need to be humble enough to accept the help you need on a journey with cancer.  So I have plenty of humble pie to go around if you’d like a slice.  I truly am grateful for those God has blessed us with to walk this cancer journey out with both Jamie & I.  If you are one of them, please receive this Holy Spirit HUG sent directly to you.  

The above bathroom escapade, along with my ADD, led me down memory lane of long ago where another bathroom occurrence happened.  It’s one that Jamie & I still laugh about today.  Background:  For me this day had been long & frustrating, actually for reasons I don’t even remember now.  I had kept “a lid on it” and “kept it all inside”.  Neither of which was a wise choice.  That night I just wanted to go to bed and get some much needed sleep and wake up with a fresh start the next day.  Have you ever been there before?  

Setting: It’s finally my bedtime.  You know you are an adult when you are excited to go to bed.  I was showered & almost ready… just needed to make my final bathroom run & brush my teeth.   

Do you know what happens when you shake a soda pop bottle of emotions up?  Hint:  It does not yield a self contained result.  🤯

As I sat down on our toilet seat, I got my butt wet and not just with a few drops!  Has this ever happened to you?  Are you with me “girlfriends”!? That apparently was the straw that broke this camel’s back that night.  I stormed back into our bedroom ready for war.  Guns loaded. Ready!  Aim!!  And Fire!!! 

“Jamie, is something WRONG with your VISION??!!” 

Not giving enough time for him to respond I injected, “Or perhaps there IS something WRONG with YOUR AIM?!?! 

Jamie replied, “Not that I know of.”

My snarky, strong retort was,  “I sat down on the toilet seat & my butt got wet, again!!”  

His calm response was, “Well it wasn’t me.” 😇 His sainthood was NOT earned in that moment.  

Wrong answer Honey!  🤨   My immediate reaction was, “You are the ONLY one that I SHARE that bathroom with.”  

Jamie responded, “Well I pick the toilet seat up when I go and put it back down when I’m finished.”  

This was a habit that had taken a long while to establish in our marriage… but after I had sat down on the cold, seemingly frosty, hard rim on the toilet enough times… all while having the pleasure of playing “dunkin’ punkin’ with my butt”…  Of course I also expressed my colorful frustrations… well he finally learned!

My response was, “Well who else is here to sprinkle while they tinkle?” 🤷🏼‍♀️

Finally in a sharp, defensive tone Jamie said , “Paulette, I did not do it!” 

I left the bedroom abruptly, with plenty of SELF-righteousness in tow.  All  while still letting some rants\mumbles under my breath, as I went back toward the bathroom.  I was NOT in the least bit feeling like Jamie had vindicated himself.    It seems I felt that I was both the “judge & jury” in this situation.  “Guilty as charged!”, was the verdict that I had rendered! He was after all the only person that I shared this bathroom with.  No one was home but us!  Case closed!!  Would you have found him guilty with the the current evidence presented?  

As I re-entered the bathroom to finally brush my teeth, there was our BIG Maine Coon Cat 🐈‍⬛, Charlie.  He was caught “red pawed”, as I entered the bathroom.  He was in the act of backing his head & paws out of the toilet… then he proceeded to shake his paws off, as he was making his was out of the toilet bowl.  Sprinkles, sprinkles everywhere.   No wonder my butt had gotten wet!  Now just imagine the surprise on my face 😱, as I witnessed this whole scenario.  I don’t know who was more shocked, Charlie, Jamie or me?  Rest assured, it didn’t take him 🐈‍⬛ long to exit the bathroom when he heard my sharp tone saying, “Charlie Joseph Matthews!”  Everyone knows that if Momma says your full name that you are in deep trouble.

Yes, I humbled myself and went in to tell Jamie that I knew he wasn’t guilty.  Then said that I was sincerely sorry more than once.  Next I proceeded to tell him the mystery was solved and that I did know who the culprit was.  I didn’t dare keep Jamie in suspense for too long, as I needed to give him his “Get Out of Jail Free” card, so we could finally get some sleep.  More humble pie for Paulette.  No wonder I am so big around the waist.  

After that we decided the safest thing to do was keep the toilet-seat lid down.  A few years later, that was reinforced when I went through breast cancer the first time in 2012-2013.  In my chemo education class, they said to flush the toilet twice every time I went.  Also, I was instructed that if I had pets to keep the toilet-seat lid down for their safety.  What does that tell you about the toxicity of the chemo treatments I received?  After I had survived those toxic chemo treatments the first time (2012-2013), my body came out transformed into something I did not recognize.  Trying to finding a “new normal” was the daily task at hand.  It was ever changing and I never knew what to expect health wise.  Those who have walked a cancer journey or had a serious illness, I believe you and sadly many others will understand what I am saying.  

When I had crossed the finish line of all my treatments in 2013 I told to Jamie, “I feel like I’ve been left in someone else’s body and I am going to have to learn to live here for the rest of my life.”  In kid terms, I was a broken transformer, who could never transform back to what I had been originally.  Instead God transformed me, yet again, from the inside out & helped me walk my journey to all the wellness I could receive.   He still does today with this my second journey with cancer(metastatic this time).  It’s was & continues to be a steep learning curve BUT God provides the mercy & grace where needed.  

“…My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…” 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV

Incase you haven’t become aware yet, knowing the anatomy of a toilet, and all its working parts can be important skills to learn in order to maintain harmony in a marriage.  Do you remember when they used to write etiquette books?  Did they ever write a book on this?  Guess what?  I just found one on the US Amazon website!!  It’s called, “The New Bathroom Bible, The UPS and Downs of Toilet Seat Etiquette” by Robert J. Eck.  Illustrator Tyler Hollis.  Don’t you think this would make a great wedding gift?  Warning, I have never read the book, but I loved its illustrated cover. 

🤦🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️  Miss Mulholland, where are you when I need you?  Somehow, I think that I still did you proud though by using two more homophones correctly… but & butt.  They may sound the same & have different meanings, BUT it seems both these words can carry some real weight in a conversation.  😉  Oh, I’ve also continued to learn new vocabulary words.  Do you remember all the vocabulary Miss Mulholland use to send us home with to learn?  

Hum… I think when God created me and my colorful attitude started to blossom… well I think He made my transformer a “camel”🐫 so it could easily collapse when its back breaks, but also so it would spring back to retain its original shape.  That way I think it could keep up with my various “reaction” verses “response” rates.  My guess is that it was a camel 🐫 which transformed into a skunk🦨.   Why a skunk you ask?  Because my “reactions” sure can stink at times.  How about you?   Do you need a new perspective & some attitude adjustments?  If we are honest, we all do at times.  Maybe we should work on a  prototype for my transformer now.  Do you think it would trigger the transformer era to emerge again?  Do you have any suggestion for a name?   How about “skumel”?...  To enter your name suggestion, you have to only use the combined letters contained within the words “skunk” & “camel”.  Go!  🧐 Maybe we will create a new word for Scrabble?  Think BIG right!

On this journey with cancer, your life seems to become an endless series of appointments.  Last week I had my eighth set of CT and Bone Scans done and also met with my lung specialist.  The week before I met with my new oncologist & had blood work done while there… then also met with my naturopathic doctor on-line.   It’s seriously a lot to keep track of.  I am very grateful for the appointments that I can do locally, by phone or through on-line services.  Inevitably, there are still times that you must do the trek to St. John, Quispamsis or Blacks Harbor.  Sometimes I just want to get off this merry-go-round of appointments.   Jamie never complains, but I am sure he wants to at times.  We are both grateful for when we are blessed to have a “crash day”…   This is where we can just stay home in our PJ’s & not set foot outside our door. 

Thank you for the gift of your precious prayers.  I can honestly say that I know those truly help carry us through this ever-changing health journey.  It has been a long season of me being in pain & not feeling the best, but it seems to be coming along little by little.  I am the tortoise 🐢 and Jamie is the hare 🐇.   It seems that I am slow, but can be more colorful at times and I truly know that slow & steady wins the race for me…  All while Jamie appears to be running circles around me, while he does the lions share of everyday tasks that need to be done.  He has his own way of doing things & I have learned to just stand down & watch him do his Superman act.  Again, I have to eat some humble pie to accept what I can no longer do… as well as accept the gift of what my husband can do with me & for me.  It is full of mixed emotions but I am ever so grateful.  We continue to do our divine appointments together, as God places people in our paths at my appointments etc.  We continue to journey along in this more difficult season with the love & joy of Christ.   I think Jamie must get some relief & a bit of extra joy because I sleep a little more these days. 😉  It’s a rare occasion to have quiet when you live with me, the ADD, rabbit-trail walker.  We agree that some of our favorite times are when we do our devotions together & just talk and share.  It can run from 20 minutes to 11/2+ hours… wherever the Lord leads us and\or where we both take each other on our memory lanes.  Oh we can get into two different recollections of how things happened and that can be a grand adventure too.  Others special times are our divine appointments with the people that God has placed in our path to love.  This is where there is freedom in Christ, if you let go & listen to His still small voice.  God tells us, for a reason, to live one day at a time.  He wants us to be present in our daily lives or we can miss the joy\blessings held within the moments of each day. 

Matthews 6:34: “Refuse to worry about tomorrow, but deal with each challenge that comes your way, one day at a time. Tomorrow will take care of itself.” TPT

BTW I passed my breathing test, that was done at CCH.  My lung specialist, my respiratory therapist & I all agree that I am doing good considering all that is taking place.  There is a plan of action in place should issues arise.  One of my missions is to love them by making sure they KNOW how much I TRULY appreciated each of them.  And of course to get them to smile.  😊  I truly have worked hard with my my team of doctors, Extra Mural team…. like my sweet nurse Sam & my respiratory therapist.   Believe it or not I really do implement what I am told & shown how to do.   After all I hear, breathing is not an option. 🫁 🤓  My respiratory therapist has given me a new gadget to learn to use too.  On June 12th, I will see my oncologist & at this time she will go over my blood work, CT & Bone Scans.   It does give me time, after the reports are available on-line to me, to go through them & write down any questions I might have in advance.  God is good and He is good even in the chaos of our rollercoaster🎢 of emotions, peaks 🏔️, and desert🏜️ experiences.  Remember that your emotions are NEVER a surprise to God!  He just wants us to be honest and to unpack them with Him.  After we unpack our suitcase, He wants us to leave them with Him, so He can guide us to our next steps each day.   Friends, may God continue to bless you in just the ways you need as your journey with Him continues too.  

Sending our Love, Holy Spirit Hugs, and gratefulness for your prayers,

Paulette & Jamie