I realize that I haven’t blogged recently. I have been sick with a cold and busy with wonderful visitors and “celebrating” two family birthdays with a mixture of joy and sadness, wondering if I will be here to celebrate any more with my family, and adjusting to more losses.

One of the recent losses has been that of intelligible speech. That seemed to go with my cold. Granted, it was going before my cold but it is basically gone now especially when I am tired. It is sometimes difficult to get all the important things out before shutting off the computer for the night.

The hardest loss has been the loss of the ability to swallow food. I really miss my morning tea and the ability to take on active part in meals with family. In my family food has been a way of showing love. We cook favorite meals because we love. This subject has taken me a while to write about because the loss has been so painful. Yes you can blend foods and push them through a tube but it isn’t the same.

As these losses grow bigger the thought of heaven grows sweeter and I am reminded of Paul when he says, in Philippians 3:

⁸ Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

⁹ And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

¹⁰ That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death:

11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.