Dear Readers, please forgive me for not keeping up with my website. I haven’t blogged for about 3 months, but if you are one of my followers, you know that I have fibromyalgia, a dreadful, painful illness that interferes with my writing and other projects. In addition to fibromyalgia, I have spondylolisthesis. My primary care physician ordered X-rays of my abdomen and hips when I started complaining about an unbearable pain in the lumbar area, glutes, and hips. The radiologist reported the problem was my spinal column. Via Pain Management specialists, I underwent two surgeries that unfortunately did not help to alleviate the pain caused by spondylolisthesis.

In addition to the aforementioned maladies, I acquired another one. I fell in my bedroom and broke a bone in my left foot. I did not know that I had broken a bone. Because fibromyalgia (fibro) attacks the muscles in the body, it was easy for me to assume that fibro was responsible for the horrible pain. Since I sleep on my back, I was developing a bed sore on my right heel. It took a while to see a podiatrist. He examined my foot and prescribed a special boot that I use every night when I go to bed. When I mentioned that my left foot hurt, he took some x-rays and discovered that I indeed had a fracture. To take care of the broken bone, I had to wear a boot all day long and remove it at night. I wore the boot for three weeks. After this period, I started to walk with running shoes for three weeks. When this period ended, the podiatrist re-examined my foot. The bone had begun to heal. I was so happy. Jesus had taken care of me. He also helped me self-publish an Early Reader Children’s book: “Merrytenna and Friends… The Pollen-Collecting Mission.” If you are interested in taking a look at my book, you may find it in Amazon’s KDP program in the Children’s section under M. E. Murray or the book’s title.

Why did I use a bee as a primary character for my book? Since I’m an entomologist, I thought sharing my honeybee knowledge with children and their parents in a book that shows honeybees making friends, being kind to each other, and exercising their role as pollinators when they feed on flowers to collect pollen.

I am pleased to write about Merrytenna because she is a charitable honeybee willing to go to great lengths to collect pollen to ensure the survival of the honeybees and especially the Queen, who eats royal jelly, made from pollen. In addition to writing children’s books, I also wrote an 87,000-word supernatural novel.

Dear Readers, please pray for all the folks who are suffering from hunger, illness, losing a loved one, and their country, in this case: Russia invading the Ukraine.

A HEALING PRAYER

O Jesus, Good Shepherd, You heal the sick and the needy. I give You all those parts of my body which have suffered from illness. You know what it is like to endure pain. Look kindly on me today and heal me. Restore me to strength of soul and body.

Give your gift of wisdom to my physicians that they may be guided by the Holy Spirit in all they do. Bless my nurses so that their hands will become Your hands as they touch me. Bless, too, my medication. O Jesus, grant us all Your healing grace of love and peace. Amen.

“A Healing Prayer” was given to me in 2016 by a Catholic volunteer when I was recovering in the hospital from a fall that ended up as a hip replacement. The prayer came from www.maryscall.com. I say it, every day because I need Jesus’s help to take care of myself, my husband, my sister, and my pets. We are not alone. Jesus is always with us. So, I seek His help to deal with pain, daily activities, and my future appointment with a neurosurgeon that’s coming up in a month. Please pray for me. I hope the neurosurgeon can end the pain coming from the spinal column.

Dear Readers, thank you so much for your prayers and for reading my blogs. Best wishes, Maria Murray.