Cats & Dogs

Fiona, pretty in pink

The wonderful team at Vet Emergency Group in Encinitas

Happy First Blog Post of 2022! I’m sitting in the car waiting for Mario while he’s at the chiropractor’s office so I decided there’s no time like the present to write this blog post that has been swirling around in my mind since New Year’s Eve!

For any new readers out there my name is Sonia. My husband and I have had a pitbull rescue, Fiona (the Fawn), for three years. This is our second rescue. We previously had a pitbull named Luna for over 10 years before adopting Fiona. Fiona is a special case. The humane society told us that she had probably escaped from an illegal puppy mill where she was bred too young and too often. In her little life she’s had lots of health issues and behavioral problems, but we love her.

Rewind to New Year’s Eve six days ago when Mario and I decided to visit some friends for the evening. Upon returning home I had this sinking feeling that Fiona may have had an issue with her anxiety because the fireworks that were going off in nearby neighborhoods were Fourth of July level fireworks.

Sure enough, upon entering the house I found pieces of wood from our door trim and blood all over the floor but no sign of Fiona. I waited downstairs while Mario followed the trail of blood up the stairs and found her at the top of the stairs standing there with what looked like a huge gash in her abdomen. I am not kidding when I say it looked like a crime scene! I broke down crying while Mario put an old sheet around her and carried her into the car.

We drove to Veterinary Emergency Group in Encinitas, one of the few emergency vet hospitals open on New Years night. I cannot stress enough how amazing they were there! After imaging and testing the vet said that Fiona’s wound was superficial so they would be able to stitch her up and send us home with meds. We were there until 10:30am since they were so busy.

During that time we saw cats and dogs – some in the lobby and some in kennels recuperating, and it struck me that none of them were fighting with each other. While we sat there waiting I told Mario that they weren’t fighting with each other because they were all sick and just trying to get well and that’s the problem with the church right now.

I feel like we have forgotten that we are all sick and just trying to get well. The church is supposed to be a healing place for those needing help and in most cases it has become something else, a system of our own making where infighting is the norm. As the world gets more polarized, the church seems to do the same.

For this year Mario and I made the decision to continue in the direction that God has us going and that means pushing against any religious man made system, against our own destructive perceptions/habits and pushing against any fear of moving forward in faith. We are purposing to be intentional in the little things God wants us to be obedient in and to keep at it!

Okay, quick update…after I started writing this Mario and I had a hard day together. We fought after going to Costco! We fought like cats and dogs, literally. I’ll spare you the details..this post is long enough, but we did talk it over and got on the same page. That’s the thing about healing, you want to do it alone, but you really can’t. We need each other, and we need God’s grace for that healing. So we pray for revival and that starts with us, and it starts with you.

To end this post I just want to say that this is a year of continuing what you started! Get healthier in every way. Keep going! In order to get better we need to see what God has been showing us about healing. We are all sick in some way and need to be focused on getting well. Focus on the Healer. Focus on the healing that only God can give & then share it with a world in desperate need of it.

Happy 2022, friends! The best is yet to come!

With all my heart,

Sonia

I Have Loved You

Happy Thursday, Loves! Today’s post will focus on the phrase, “It is what is.” I have found myself using this phrase quite a bit the last few months trying to explain certain things out of my control and then one day I saw something on social media that said “It is what it is until it isn’t.” That caught my attention. I Googled the phrase It is what it is and found this article: https://www.inc.com/peter-economy/the-stupidity-of-it-is-what-it-is.html

It is an awesome read about the phrase and why he feels it is stupid. He quotes Army officer Major Andrew Steadman in the article, ‘”Here’s the problem with It is what it is. It abdicates responsibility, shuts down creative problem solving, and concedes defeat. A leader who uses the expression is a leader who faced a challenge, failed to overcome it, and explained away the episode as an inevitable, unavoidable force of circumstances. Replace It is what it is with “This resulted because I failed to do __________” and you get an entirely different discussion.’

I admit I’ve used that phrase quite often lately, and it just didn’t sit well with me. I’ve shared in previous blogs that I am in therapy for my mental health, and I am going to share a little bit more about that right now and give you the reason for this blog title today. My therapist suggested EMDR therapy due to certain triggers and responses in my life. I had heard of this therapy before and knew a little bit about it so it didn’t surprise me when she brought it up. I just didn’t know if I was ready (here’s a link with information if you want to read a little bit about the therapy https://www.emdr.com/what-is-emdr/ ). I knew it was a call to action in every way for my mental, physical and spiritual health, a call to change. God was making a way for great change in my life and now it was up to me to either be courageous and brave or stay stuck.

I chose to be brave. I had my first EMDR session yesterday and in the interest of word count and time and the sensitivity of the subject I will leave out all the intimate details, but I will say there was a moment during the appointment where this verse came up in my mind as if God was whispering it over my entire soul,

“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying:“Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” Jeremiah 31:3

I am still basking in that reality that God has had His hand on my life always, during every good and bad thing I have experienced. He was there. He is here. He sees it all. I am on the road to healing during this time of therapy, and I needed to know that He is with me. I am writing this to tell you today that it doesn’t have to be It is what it is. You can take His hand, trust Him and let Him walk you through to the other side of dealing with whatever needs to be faced. How it has worked and how it looks in my life is not turning my back on the appointments even when my heart is pounding out of my chest and my throat is closing up at the very thought of whatever is on the other side of healing.

My prayer for all of us is that we don’t settle for the status quo in our lives. We can proclaim a victorious, “It was what it was, but now it is not” over whatever change God wants us to embrace. The only reason why I can even write these words today is because of that verse reminding me that He has loved me with an everlasting love.

Dear reader, know this truth today, He has loved you with an everlasting love. He has called you. You are His and because of this truth our lives don’t need to be It is what it is any longer. He has given us the power to live on the other side of whatever haunts us. He has given us hope.

With all my heart,

Sonia

P.S. If you have any song suggestions, please send them my way! I love to listen while I write 🙂

Tuesday = Spiritual Health is Wealth

This past Sunday, Mario (my husband) purchased the Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul boxing event on Showtime. I wasn’t particularly interested in it but had heard a little bit about the hype on the news so I sat down to watch. It was quite the uneventful match. The commentators were doing their very best to keep the hype going throughout the eight rounds of humdrum boxing. One of them quoted Mayweather saying in interviews, “My health is wealth.” That caught my attention, and I have thought about it a lot in the last few days. The equation is simple enough. I think we can all agree that healthy choices equal less money being spent on medicine, treatments and the healthcare that is needed to manage poor health brought on by unhealthy living.

What I wanted to talk about today, though, is spiritual health and the wealth that it brings. Do we ever think about how our spiritual health is doing? I don’t often think about it in those terms. I don’t wake up asking, “How spiritually healthy am I?” Let’s think about it. How spiritually healthy are you and how do we know? I watched a sermon on Sunday from The Rock Church in San Diego and Pastor Miles was talking about prayer, and then yesterday I talked with my daughter & she shared about a Monday prayer group at work that she joined, and finally, this morning a friend of mine called to share what was going on in her life and we prayed. I think there’s some of the answer right there. What does our prayer life look like? I was a part of a Saturday morning prayer group with the church we used to go to, and it was truly amazing – a beautiful gift. I learned so much about “corporate” prayer during that time. My husband and I are in a season of seeking where God is leading us next so I am no longer a part of the Saturday morning prayer call. This was difficult at first, more then I care to share here in this blog, but something has happened the last few months.

Looking back I know that this season was handcrafted by the Lover of my soul to get me spiritually healthy again. I had become so outward facing that I neglected all the healing that was needed in me. I am going to be honest here and tell you that the shift in focus has not been easy. I have felt abandonment, fear, doubt, despair, insecurities, sorrow, loneliness and a myriad of emotions that speak to all the surreal feelings that came with this change. Although I was confident in the direction God was showing us, it meant a drastic life change. At the beginning, my prayer life was nothing more than a simple, “Help me, Lord,” that’s all I could muster up. I still had my list of people to pray for, but I finally started adding my real inner life to that list. I think that’s a big part of being spiritually healthy – getting real with God. Really, really REAL in prayer. No hiding in shame, no holding back, no pretending…just raw truth with God met by a river of love and grace and unbelievable healing.

I think that’s the encouragement for today, the prayer for today, the hope for today: Get real with God – get real in prayer, and we will undoubtedly reap the rewards of a healthy spiritual life. No offense to all the loved ones in my life, but this season is not about you. It isn’t even about me. It is about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That’s what my aim is, and I’m sure it’s yours too so let’s get healthy. It is all for His glory and our good.

With all my heart,

Sonia