Worthy Witness

We are getting down to the wire here – have asked for help cleaning out a home in Torrington. I started the appeal on Wednesday, and here it is Friday. Owner has to have all items out by Sunday evening so that we can begin the second phase of her move.

Yikes, it is Friday, and we have two truck owners that have committed to being a good neighbor, a reliable Christian, a concerned helper, and we are again telling the story. Are you going to be part of it…

Call Shirley Zimmerman 860-597-7516 and be part of the solution.

If you have the vehicle, have compassion, and have at least two hours to donate to pick up stuff from one room only, then you are paying forward for the person who helped you when you were down.

Items taken from the home can be kept by you for your own sale (too late for owner to have one.) Or you can take items to the Goodwill store and donate, receiving a donation slip that is yours…

We need your able-bodied help and vehicle today, Friday. to commit at 4:00 or 6:00 p.m.;Saturday hours are 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., 1:00 and 5:00 and 7:00 p.m.; Sunday afternoon hours are 2:00 and 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. Call Shirley Zimmerman, 860-597-7516 to schedule. You will be assigned a single room. The owner and a friend will stay with you. It will take less than two hours.

Call Shirley Zimmerman, 860-597-7516 to schedule and let the blessings begin with all Glory to our God in the Highest…

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A Shout Out for Christian Action…

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2  

To Torrington Neighbors:  I have heard that a  Sister-in-Christ is in need of immediate help.  She must be out of her home in less than 10 days!  Her home is in Torrington.

Ten trucks are needed with a minimum of two workers per truck to empty her home.  We need one truck per room to completely empty the room and you can either bring items home for a sale or drop off at the Goodwill store.  If items are donated to Goodwill, the tax write-off will be yours, so get one.  The work has to be finished by late Sunday the 16^th and then our second phase of help will happen. 

I, Shirley Zimmerman 860-597-7516, am in charge of scheduling, and the work can take place beginning today, Wednesday the 12^th, from 2:00 until 8:00 in the evening.  Trucks that can come on Thursday, and Friday will be scheduled during the same hours.  Saturday appointments can begin at 9:00 and continue through 6:00.  Sunday afternoon the schedule will be from 2:00 – 6:00.  No trucks and work will overlap; one truck, one room.

We anticipate that each room will take a minimum of an hour, and no more than two.  Call me today 860-597-7516 with the day you can provide the service and I will schedule you a time and room that will work.  The owner and a friend will be in the room with you, and most items will go with you.

Consider the blessings you will receive to have helped out a neighbor, a friend, a Sister-in-Christ who needs you.  We have expectations that even if you cannot answer the call, the Lord will lead you to the person(s) who stand ready!  Please share so that the need will be met…

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2  

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I’ve lived in several houses.  The first was a little apartment near the children’s grandparents.  I was found at a tag sale, filthy. The woman saw that I was sad, just as she was, and had to consider before paying the 25 cents I cost her.

She and her two little kids took me to their apartment and scrubbed me up.  “It’s a jewel,” she said.

That day, they went outside and picked from the early-flowering bushes, adding some berries and placed them in me so that I could brighten their scuffed table.

For several years, I travelled to the Cape in early summer where a kindly lady gave us a barn to stay in exchange for housekeeping and opening the main house.  Each day of those two weeks, my little family filled me with sea roses and shells and placed me on the makeshift table above the seawall where they ate.  We were so happy then.

My next stop was a farmhouse.  The family was growing.  There was a man in the house and more children. I sat on the dining room table, and we seemed a happy family for a bit.  As the days darkened, though, and the joy left the house, I was moved to a cupboard.  Sometimes, I was taken out and filled with fragrant flowers; no more wild flowers, early-blooming bushes or berries.  Most of the time, though, I was forgotten and I missed the days past.  Those were hard times.

We moved again. The children were gone, and we had a new generation of grandchildren.  Our home was filled with light and laughter, art and flowers, and there was a new man, a gentle man who filled me with tiny roses.  I was happy again.

Something has changed.  I’m going to a new home.  This morning the woman filled me with forced forsythia and berries from the lake, tears flowed down her cheeks.  She whispered so only I could hear… “You’re my jewel; you were a gift when we needed hope.  And now, someone else needs that love.  Be brave and kind and shine as you did with us.  Bring joy to your new home.”   And I decided that I would.

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It was during my formative years that everything I ever wanted to know intellectually about God I learned from the Baltimore Catechism. I was eight or nine when I wrote my first biography about “Puppy Heaven” and read it to the classes at St. Francis School.  It would be my teen-age years, though, that I began to question God about my place in the world.  As Mary, the Blessed Virgin pondered and accepted God’s will, I wondered if I, too, could answer the call, whatever the cause.

Years later when I was introduced to the Bible, I realized that the catechism was my foundation on which my faith was born, but my real life story lied in the promises that God revealed between its pages and how I would apply them.

Life was not a breeze:  Overcoming was a challenge, and my biggest obstacle was wanting to fix things or figure them out on my own strength.  I soon learned, in my middle years, that if I were to stay in the present and not fear the future, I had to fully, in mind, body and spirit, accept a God who created me in His likeness; a Son who died that I might live; and a Holy Spirit who would guide me and turn my prayers into petitions and supplications that would bring me peace in the darkest of days.  I not only needed forgiveness, I needed to find thanksgiving in all things and accept that there was a master plan above the one I wished for my life and the lives of my husband(s) and children.

In my hunger for the Word, I grew to love Moses and wanted an honest relationship like his with God.  I wanted to wail that I could not possibly continue on the narrow path.  Then I learned about David and how much he sinned and how often he repented and wrote of his redemption through the grace of God.  This gave me hope for the future.  Jeremiah 29:11 confirmed it.

Oh, but life goes on, its ebb and flow, wins and disappointments and then discouragements that bring us to our knees and finally face down; our tapestry of life darkening with each breath.

I found:  Psalm 34:18 “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those who are crushed in spirit” and once again held fast to the offer from the Balm of Gilead.

In my elder years, after one peaceful year of self searching and yearning to fulfill my destiny with Christ, I synthesized all I had learned on my journey and Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God”  took on a clarity that could not be denied.  When I was frantic and hemmed in by my circumstances, I remembered… all that God had promised and done.  I believed… that I would regain my strength through repentance and rest…Isaiah 30:15 promised that my salvation lied in quietness and trust.  I had hope… that this state of being that held me captive was temporary.  I needed to let go and let God shelter me with his divine and absolute and cleansing peace.  And it happened…  Mourning and sadness was turned to dancing and praise.  Once again my arms were uplifted to receive grace and embrace life.  Light had replaced darkness.

My life’s goal now is as a memoirist.  I turn my life’s happenings into a timeline to share my story.  I believe that the experiences of our seasons shape and grow our faith, increasing our capacity to love.

Accepting our challenges as a means to grow our faith helps us to push past fear and confusion and find purpose; seasons where God grows and uses us.

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I’ve always been a healthy eater, carefully balancing leafy greens with proteins, starches and carbohydrates.  In fact, it’s because of that understanding of nutrition and thoughtful eating habits that I’ve always thought of myself as being a healthy, thin person framed in a chubby, slightly out-of-shape body.

Whenever I ate a candy bar in the past, I justified its protein content by its generous helping of peanuts.  If I ordered cake, it was always “carrot.”  And, if I needed ice cream, it was nutritionally rich, frozen yogurt.

In all of the years I’ve lived, I’ve deplored the word “diet,” and not let it enter my vocabulary.  My use of a scale and measuring tape was only useful in those early years after five pregnancies before the age of 30.  I preferred to coin a new phrase…an adjustment of eating habits.  I have, however, dusted off the scale and ordered a new, more efficient tape for this phase of my journey.

In the past, I’ve always been able to rationalize my weight:  After all, I still am large-boned; I could but no longer can justify  PMS three weeks out of the month; I had and still have a sluggish metabolism.  Over the years I learned to accentuate the positive – good legs a firm bust, sparkling smile.  With today’s stretch pants and voluminous, cover the butt tops, I actually look pretty good.  If the arms aren’t bared, and I keep my chin straight, no one can guess the bottom line.

If the clothes fit, why worry?  Have you noticed that even though the weight has increased, you can still wear a Size 12 or Medium.   I understand that there is a new product that stretches east to west, north to south.  I used to wear one of those; it was called a “girdle.”  Could these fabrics be at fault for causing my increase of girth?

The new secret to achieving a healthier lifestyle and shedding pounds seems to be reverting back to little or no carbohydrates (bread, pastries,) eating copious amounts of protein, selected vegetables and named fruit.  In our household we have been using a salad for dinner plate for years, so for me, it’s not cutting back on portion size.  No, I need to create a fat burner, and since I have so little time, it will have to be a furnace.

My doctor, who shed much poundage in the past year and dubbed me “obese” told me about a new study that shows defined exercise as not being as important as was thought for weight reduction and keeping off pounds.  Surely, the pendulum swings on many things.  I gave up aerobics when I thought I’d die from the drill-sergeant cadance of too many leg lifts.  Noticing spidery veins in legs that had previously been thought unspoiled, I gave up the run.  Besides, there were no bathrooms on the route.

Just took a break and weighed myself.  Now I understand why we weigh in at the same time each day!  Weight up two pounds from yesterday.  How to achieve thin?  I’ll settle for a waist.

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Met with my GP yesterday and today my blood tests confirmed…I am in perfect physical condition except for my weight – obese – he actually said I was obese. I have been the same weight for over 10 years and he never used such a deplorable word. All of my vitals are perfect – no sugar, just spiking blood pressure, a product of my high energy no doubt, and for which I take a half pill each morning along with Vitamins C and D and Omega 3. Not to forget the baby aspirin my daughter, Margaret, demands.

I’m sharing my site, Worthy Witness, for the world to see…I have begun a new chapter in my life of 76 years and will be writing on this, one of my favorite blogs, to share my experience with pictures and comments on more than a lifestyle change, a new me! Let me know what you think. Do check out my archives. Still working, I am a real estate broker who represents Buyers in Litchfield County, my forever home. Perhaps you might like to learn more about my experienced career and how it can benefit you.

Who is a Worthy Witness you ask? Look at some of my previous writings and pictures and get to know me more.

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