Natural Health and Herbal Remedies Blog

Although rare in our society, several families or generations sometimes live together, whether by economic necessity or by choice. In this arrangement, accommodations and modifications for the person with spinal injury must be agreed to by all involved, and you’ll have to educate family members about your needs. On the other hand, you’ll have more thinking power and perhaps more willing hands to get things done.

The story of siblings Naomi Shoemaker and Jason Fleckenstein provides an inspiring example of intergenerational living.

Naomi and Jason were young adults with children of their own when they were injured in separate, unrelated car accidents, about two and a half years apart. Both injuries resulted in quadriplegia. Naomi, separated from her husband at the time of the accident, moved with her three children into her parents’ home. Jason, separated from his wife, was already living there. His six-year-old son visited the family after school, returning to his mother’s house at night.

Naomi and Jason’s parents, Victor and Patsy, provide a home for their adult children and their grandchildren, and Patsy acts as personal care attendant. Victor works full time and helps out at home in the evenings. Living under one roof saves money on resources that would have to be duplicated if Naomi and Jason lived alone. The family borrowed money to install a basement exit and indoor wheelchair lift for Jason’s basement quarters, as well as an outside backup lift.

After the first newspaper article about their unusual situation, the family was flooded with donations from strangers and from acquaintances in the community. Victor’s union organized a four-state fund drive and set up a trust fund to provide for Naomi’s and Jason’s care when their parents are no longer able to do so. The union local also secured donations from an anonymous benefactor, including a small bus to transport the multigenerational family and a voice-activated computer to help Jason and Naomi explore home-based business opportunities.

This ordinary working-class family has met unusual adversity with a “can-do” attitude. With the help of their community, they’ve turned a potentially tragic situation into an opportunity for mutual support and growth. Though Naomi and Jason depend on their own parents for physical assistance, they are able to be full parents for their own children, providing love, guidance, teaching, discipline, help with homework, and setting of limits. All family members, including the children, help out as much as they can. With the physical and emotional contributions of each generation, and the economic and practical assistance of their community, this family has made multigenerational living work.

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Job said, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10). It is a given that we will suffer. It is a given that God will discipline us if we need it. 1 Peter 4:12,13 says,

Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

This advice is certainly not what we hear from our mothers, friends, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, or our hair dressers! Think of a situation at work or in your marriage that casts you in the role of the underdog. Did your friends and colleagues make you focus only on yourself as the victim? Did they make you feel like it was something strange happening to you, and that you needed to take care of yourself? The world will tell you emphatically that you must indulge or take care of yourself, for no one else will. That lie has permeated even the church and is one of the biggest lies of Satan. But the Apostle Peter says not to be surprised when you suffer, and it is not if you will suffer but when you will suffer.

Nothing is strange about suffering being a part of the lot of our life, and nothing is strange about not wanting to suffer. But Jesus said that there was a cost to embracing his lifestyle. “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple”. There are some people who do not even know they are to pick up their cross, and there are some people who put their crosses down or even put their crosses on the backs of others. But this verse says that they cannot be a Christ-follower, a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, if they are not willing to pick up suffering or self-denial (the same thing) and carry it with them. Christ’s followers must be willing to embrace pain—there is no backing out. And the pain is painful! Hebrews 12:11a tells us, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.” Suffering is not unique to you; it is normal, but it is painful.

Your cross, by the way, is not your mother-in-law. She is an opportunity for you to show love, not a cross to bear. Bearing your cross means laying down your will and doing God’s. Even Jesus prayed with sweat drops of blood as He surrendered His will to God’s: “Not my will but yours be done”.

God made us one way by nature. “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me”. Yet He asks, calls, or destines us to go another way. To embrace changing our self is to embrace growing pains. Just like children, we too were programmed to desire to grow up, but the intermittent pain that comes with accepting more responsibility is uncomfortable. However, staying immature is even more painful.

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The stage of anatomy and physiology is the onset of sexual excitement. The first sign of sexual arousal in the female is the secretion of the lubricating fluid by the vagina. The vaginal lubrication occurs within 10 to 30 seconds after sexual stimulation in normal women. (The first sign of arousal in the male is erection of the penis.) Dr. Masters calls it ‘the sweating reaction of the vagina’. Just as beads of perspiration appear on the face, in the same way beads of moisture appear on the inner vaginal wall and coalesce (unite) to form the lubricating fluid. However, if the sexual stimulation by the male is not of the right kind, the vagina remains dry and the usual moistening is absent. Innumerable impatient males try to enter a woman’s dry vagina. Not only is such an entry difficult for him hut it causes the woman intense physical pain  and emotional disturbances. It is essential for the male to stimulate her mons area with the finger until she is moist before he enters her.

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