What joy and peace and serenity I have felt this time around.

The last four Christmas holidays have been really hard as I have spent them entirely ALONE. No family, no friends, bad health, and sickness. This year I contracted the worst Flu virus that I have ever experienced, got a secondary infection and ended up with fluid in my lung...SO PAINFUL and debilitating.

Thank God, literallly, for friends in my church who constantly helped to nurse me by dropping by the house sometimes three times a day to change my bedding, get me fluids, help bathe my fever and eventurally bring me light foods to help me get my apetite back.

So, for the second year running I lay in bed on Christmas EVE to weak to get up and dressed, shivering and burning and wondering what life was all about.

It has been amazing though and I have felt so much peace and comfort and a presence with me that has strengthened me and refreshed me and filled me with joy. YES JOY.

On Christmas EVE a friend dropped by with oranges, and fruit juices and a cd of Handel's Messiah and he could not have brought me anything more precious. I lent my copy of the Messiah out to someone and have never been given it back;(don't you just hate it when you loan something and it is not returned - I only hope they enjoy it and remember one day who it was loaned from? I do not want it back now but it would be nice to be offered it) and it was a loss I found hard to take as it was my tradition to play it at Christmas especially for I have sung it many times over the years.

So, in between coughing and shivering and feeling like death warmed up I listened to it on Christmas EVE after my friend had gone and sang along when the coughing subsided. It was wonderful, even though my lungs felt like stretched kettle drum skins!

On Christmas Day I managed to get myself downstairs, though that was about as much as I thought I could manage, the fluid in my lungs drained me so much, but was I despondent and low, NO NOT AT ALL, I felt that I was surrounded with love, and my higher power was looking after me even though I was alone, I did not feel lonely. It was quite amazing. I had missed all my delights like the Midnight Mass and the Crib Service and the Christmas Morning Communion, but hey it did not seem to matter this year. And whatsmore when my friend telephoned to say her husband was bringing the car to collect me to take me to their house for some Christmas dinner I simply said okay thank you.

It was my first time out in three weeks, and I was amazed that the energy was given to me to make it and I spent several hours there with their children, listening to their passion and watching them model-making. It was incredible.

I got back to the house in time to then watch and listen to a wonderful concert of Handel's Messiah from the famous Barbican in London, WOW, it was incredible, a real gift, and again I felt so uplifted whereas I had expected to feel so low.

Over the next couple of days I found my strength beginning to return slowly and I found some incredible documentaries to watch in between managing to fix myself small meals even though I did feel exhausted time and time again, every little task stretching my endurance to the limit. I listened to a programme about the Star of Bethlehem, from scholars in the UK and the USA, and how they dated comets and the death of stars and collisions around 7-6BC to 2BC. I learnt about the sacred music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd, and I watched an amazing documentary on the present day Bethlehem and Manager Square and the theory of the shepherds fields and caves from many learned scholars. What a gift this was, and I was alone with the space to watch and indulge in these gifts.

Much to my surprise both my daughter and my son text me over the holdiays and my daughter even shared that she is to go for special and intensive counselling in the New Year and asked if she could share this with me and talk. I felt so proud of her that at long last she is taking the courage to confront her demons and seeking help. Thanks be to God that she has taken this huge step forward. It will not be easy and the hard times are yet to come, but the fact that she has at long last admitted to herself that she has problems that need addressing is wonderful and for me, that seemed like the most beautiful personal gift I could have received this year. I will hold her close, and in prayer and will support her during her counselling, but I am also aware that I am keeping myself one step removed so that she does not fall into her old habit of whipping me when she is in pain. Wisdom at last seems to be being imparted into my maternal and over sensitive crazy once guilt ridden heart.

WOW, I am so so blessed.

She even invited me to go down for the New Year celebrations if I was well enough to make the journey. (This is the first time ever I have been invited to her for Christmas/New Year!) See miracles do happen. I am not well enough yet, an eight hour coach journey at this stage would be the most unwise move, and when I told her this she said that she was sad that I was alone and not with family especially at this time of year but that she understood, and perhaps I could come down for a little visit when I was stronger and not to worry. She has text me every day since. No I am not expecting anything, I am just being grateful for what is being given today and thanking God for that wonder.

My son on the other had has had a difficult year and after loosing so many colleagues in Afghanistan and Iraq is mourning the loss of a further three very close friends who died between 18 and 24 December. It has hit him hard, but he is coping and has been in touch instead of hermiting himself away. Only by text, but hey that is okay. And I am not worried sick by his absence and his lack of contact and his not coming home, I understand he is living life to the full and with a great deal of obstacles.

WOW, another first for me, I AM LETTING GO of so much. Could this be a second miracle this Christmas has seen?

This, whilst having been a hard, sickening holiday, has been the best holiday ever! And I feel I have had a real bundle of SERENITY given to me this year.

You know, I am a slow learner, and it takes hammers to hammer things into my brain at times, and I slip back into depression and old ways and double back on my journey to holistic health many times, making my journey seem neverending and never advancing at times and then I experience a period of ENLIGHTENMENT AND IT ALL SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN WORTH THE PAIN AND THE TORTURE AND THE GRIEF.

I have been away from here for some time now, and I have found it hard since the death of my father in October, but I really felt that his death has brought about a NEW FREEDOM from unfair judgement, lack of self worth and self belief and I am beginning to accept me as a somewhat successful person rather than the failure that I have felt I have been all the days of my life so far.

EHEM...miracles galour...WOW...whose been blessed this year?

So, I just wanted to share this with you, in the hope that it might inspire some of you, at the very least, to NOT GIVE UP even when you feel you are at rock bottom and not going anywhere positive. Sometimes the doubling back, the stopping the retracing of steps, the delving into hurts to understand the way to heal and progress to a higher level of health may not make any sense, however, I know that NO experience is lost and worthless. There is ALWAYS something to find and use in an experience that can change a situation or a part of you that you might not otherwise have realised needed changing.

Keep in the light and holding on to your personal HIGHER POWER and have faith that you will find health if you are prepared to SEARCH FOR IT AND WORK FOR IT AND STRIFE FOR IT WITH ALL YOUR HEART.

That is what I want HOLISTIC HEALTH, not just physical health, but mental health and spiritual health too and that is what I am strifing for with ALL OF MY BODY, MIND AND SPIRIT AND HEART.

SENDING YOU ALL MY LOVE, FOR A FULFILMENT OF YOUR WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR AND A PEACE AND JOY THAT YOU HAVE NOT YET EXPERIENCED IN YOUR LIVES THAT WILL SURPASS ALL YOUR DREAMS.

ONE STEP AT A TIME.

Suzannah