Category Archives: Healing

Healing – Part 7

Featured

Posted by in Healing, Places With God, Uncategorized, Words That Heal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

A well dressed gentlemen walked past me in the library.

His perfectly polished cordovan dress shoes were in contrast to a strong alcohol odor passing by and nauseating me.

Liquor seeped out of his skin on a Sunday afternoon.

I was just relaxing catching up on the latest periodicals, but another story began to unfold in my mind.

Sadness so unbearable some turn to old vices.

My old vice was candy, especially black licorice.

Blue after visiting with a grieving dear friend, I bought a box.

A strange calm arrived as I bite into the chewy, salty, tart sweet.

Perhaps this well-groomed young man had suffered a loss of some kind.

When the dark angst hits go outside and read the psalms beginning at 100.

Read out loud till you hit 107 verse 20.SONY DSC

He saved them from their distress.

He sent His word and healed them;

He rescued them from the Pit.    Psalm 107 v. 20 HCSB

 

 

Healing – Part 6

Featured

Posted by in Healing, Places With God, Restful Homes for Our Families, Uncategorized, Words That Heal

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

The dove is missing!

For two days it bounce around my backyard without flying.

I fed it corn,  left water for it, and set up a hay bale to offer shade and protection from my door.

And now it is gone.

My hope became horror after I saw the feathers…lots of feathers, signs of a struggle.

Later while walking our small dog, fecal evidence betrayed our toy predator.

Our Shitzu was more Sun Tzu, a warrior bird dog, not a palace pet.

Mourn, rest, stay away from the kind of chaos that can attack us when we are in a vulnerable state.

 

 

Healing – Part 5

Featured

Posted by in Healing, Places With God, Restful Homes for Our Families, teens, Uncategorized, Words That Heal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In line at the grocery store a young mom started setting items aside she could not pay for–

bananas, apples, and other veggies.  I handed the money to the cashier and she, with her many lovely long braids, and her sweet children were on their way.

I’ll never see this family again, but I assured her it was from God and He loves her.

Standing in line at the gas station one of our coaches from the high school was checking out.  It was less than $10.00 but it gave me the opportunity to thank him for all he does for the young people in our community and a simple God Bless you.

You are reading this and thinking I don’t have any extra.

Save a quarter a week till you have a dollar and give it away and bless another.

Perhaps one of my biggest adjustments to having an empty nest is the grocery store, mine is HEB.  Feeling blue grocery shopping alone one Saturday, two teen girls stood in front of me at the checkout counter with a giant bottle of chocolate syrup. The only thing I said as I slipped several dollars to the cashier on their behalf was “God Bless you” to the two smiling young faces. It ended up being on sale and just one dollar, but it was my small way of demonstrating God’s love toward others, and God lifted my spirits as I gave just a little away, my unexpected blessing from Him.

A young mom from our neighborhood texted me to see if she could pick up some food for her three small children from our churches pantry. I could not get there, but the owner of the preschool was there to help, and helped her carry the groceries to her car where she quietly handed the young mom an envelope with extra cash.  That mom called me later to say how she could not believe how God had met her need so quickly.  Sometimes our random acts of kindness are really divine appointments– God’s way of letting others know they are loved and not forgotten.

Feeling Sad?

Be the hand of God.

 

Healing – Part 4

Featured

Posted by in Healing, Places With God, Restful Homes for Our Families, Uncategorized, Words That Heal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yesterday I fell off my bike carrying too much on the way home from our mailbox. It was a pretty hard fall, contents of my basket flying everywhere, and blood dripping from scrapes on my wrist and leg as I rode home.

Photo by Trish Southard

Photo by Trish Southard

Share your load with others.

Todd would have been glad to swing by our box and pick up some of the bigger items on his way home from work.

Our family lost three loved ones in four years.

Multiple loved ones passing away or one is too much of a burden for anyone to bear alone.

Grief Group helped me lift my heavy heart.

Surrounded by people who have suffered the loss of a loved one, and a leader, the group gently persuades you to share your imperfect memories, portraits,  all while putting you at ease.

Our leader had us write letters to our loved ones sharing that we wished they would have remained alive longer, our anger that they missed an important event, regrets, anger and how lonely we feel without them. We then read those letters at the cemetery or somewhere significant to the two of us. We then burned or buried the letters.

Somehow I felt lighter and more at ease with each letter.

In the Jewish faith when a loved one dies, they sit Shiva for seven days.

They stay home and allow others to listen to them, care for them, and bring them food.

When others are in pain, you will find yourself more compassionate and confident to walk through it with them.

Sit beside them quietly.

No advice needed.

When others are happy, be happy with them.

If they are sad, share their sorrow.

Romans 12:15 TLB

Healing – Part 2

Featured

Posted by in Healing, Places With God, Restful Homes for Our Families, Uncategorized, Words That Heal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Doing the uncomfortable continually all day.

Remove sorrow from your heart, and put away pain from your flesh, because youth and the prime of life are fleeting.  Ecclesiastes 11:10 HCSB

Pain away from your flesh.

It hurts my fingers when I pull a burr from Daisy’s paw.

It hurts horribly when I pull jumping cholla off our daughter’s leg.

Remove or change to unburden your sorrow.

Teddy Bear Cholla

Teddy Bear Cholla

Change who you are, what you do and where you go.

One practical takeaway from grief group was to add a hobby or something we enjoy into our lives.

Running 3-4 times a week  began in November 2013.

I set my clothes out the night before and the decision is already made. Running has been an effective method to jump-start my morning and waken my mind to prayer and the study of God’s Word.

An almost new habit for me after a 25 year break from running.

I’ve stayed physically active biking, hiking, an occasional canoe trip on the river, and I really enjoy the stair climber at the gym.

Running forced me outside into the sunrise, singing birds and it was very uncomfortable.

The doing of the continually uncomfortable was the key to my healing.

 

A Christmas Devotion

Featured

Posted by in Comedy, Healing, Places With God, Restful Homes for Our Families, Uncategorized, Words That Heal

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My family was leaving a Chinese restaurant after lunch on Christmas Eve in 2006.  A little boy about 9 years old asked his Mom if he was Jewish?  She said “No!” and the boy shouted back “RATS!”
He then asked “What I am?”  Mom’s reply was too soft to hear.  It was a teachable moment as we backed our car out of the parking lot. I asked our daughter the same question — “Who are you?”
I knew even before she answered she would say “Child of God,” because over the years we have sought to share our Christian faith and heritage with her, so that she may know she is fearfully and wonderfully created by God.  The map to who we are, where we are and come from,  must be communicated to our children, our neighbors, and our coworkers, those in our spheres of relationships as well as others who are not.

The Christmas season the world offers is a Retail Christmas.  Though exchanging gifts brings great joy, without Christ at the center it will not lead us anywhere closer to the true essence of Christ and His message, but become a distraction at the very time of the year we set a day aside to celebrate Immanuel — God with us.  Bumbling along in a haphazard existence will give our children a life with no identity, no sense of who they are, and open them up to other’s values and beliefs, man’s way and not God’s way.  They will not have a map of life.

In Barbara Tompkins Mom’s Class last year we made Jesse Tree‘s ornaments.   Our family systematically read through the story of Christ and hung ornaments on a small pink feather tree as our Christmas decorations were all packed and ready for our move the Texas the next week.  It was a comical tree with a serious message in those Jesse Tree ornaments, the story of God found in the Bible, a message of

God’s love and provision of redemption found in Jesus Christ.   

We are all unpacked this Christmas, and instead of the pink feathered tree, we are back to our home-grown artificial tree as we again tell the story of who we are in Christ by telling the story of God and his redemptive plan of salvation.  Each ornament symbolizes an accompanying Bible story that, with the help of the book The Advent Jesse Tree, Devotions for Children and Adults Preparing for the Coming of Christ Child at Christmas (Nashville: Abington Press) directs us to a daily story from the Bible and provides songs of praise to sing as a family.

As Christmas arrives our anticipation is toward the greatest gift God has given the world — the birth of Jesus the Christ, God’s own Son, Immanuel — God with us.  The Scriptures read throughout the month show us The Way, providing a clear and concise map of who we are, the identity we have in our Lord Jesus, the hope of glory.

Resting in Him,

Trish