Some days

        Some days you just need to rest! Today is a day like that for me. Yesterday was a prosperous day
With a great meeting with those students. I am so blessed to have these high school students on my team in this out of the darkness walk. It is like some how in my son's death he has pushed me out and is responsible for this stretch with a positive out reach . I expect with this I am going to make some new friends and strengthen some old ones.
 But for today I am trying to rest as I am exhausted in this new journey of planning a walk for a community.
        I started this a couple days ago and some how got distracted and never finished so I will try again now. I am pleased that things are moving along in the planning of the walk and that although I feel incompetent in my abilities to get this done I am being blessed by those who are gifted to be the source to pull it to completion . Praise God! I am excited to see how this comes out. Another way to deal with this time of year and it's painful pulses in my every day.
  In a matter of months I,and my family, will brave the cold and snow to what ever degree it delivers as we for the 5th year I a row we hike out to my sons grave and light candles and pray and remember out sweet son,nephew,cousin,brother. I will again make a snow angel and light and leave a pumpkin spice candle burning under his bench leaving a warm glow for as long as it will. I am always amazed when I finally get back there that that candle housed in a glass vase has burned down to as far as it can what with the melted wax. I leave a pumpkin spice candle as his favorite pie was pumpkin and some how it seems fitting.
  Now my family and I , and many others who want to support,or have themselves lost a loved one to suicide, can meet each year and walk to enlighten others of the effects  of suicide or to bring money in for the research and helping of others. I would not have been pushing for this had I not been made so cruelly aware by the death of my precious son this way. I am struggling even now as I am preparing the way for a new chapter for the foundation of prevention of suicide possibly in the small town where my son grew up and where he died. But my family and I press on in this path we are set on, not by our choice but by his. So the love we have that burns on forever is meted out now through this, one of many pilgrimages on his behalf knowing he would want this and knowing the character he himself had while here in helping others .
     So we will gather,and even now are gathering , and reaching out to one another . We are not alone and I so wish my son had been aware he was not alone !

       Ecclesiastes 4:9,10
Two are better than one , because they have a good return for their labor : If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
 Lord help us to help one another up and help those who feel alone to see and know they have some one , even on a phone call that can help them up when they fall.

 If you need help and feel alone and are considering suicide please contact the afsp.org site to find info and get  help .  Your life is valuable and you are a gift to this world.
       

A New Tuesday

                                                 
                                                        Proverbs 16: 9
             A man's heart plans his way, but The Lord directs his steps.


I needed that verse for today. My plans for today were set last week. I have an appointment to meet with students in a high school in regards to suicide and a walk to get suicide awareness and prevention started in the community . This will be difficult but it is a new beginning in my steps with this great loss of my son . This verse comforts me to know that although I could think I am doing this on my own, I, in fact, am not. The Lord is directing my steps so I can step out in this new journey. A struggle I had was leaving my son behind as I went on with this life I have to live. But  I am not leaving my precious son behind at all , I am bringing him with me and I am pleading his cause to others. I can't think if a better way to spend my day.
       



   Lord today I bring you my life and all that there is in it. I ask for these steps you have directed to blessed and a blessing and if possible in my son's memory. Thank you Jesus , amen .
   
 

A Couple days of Rest

Weekend Retreat!

   I got back from my retreat yesterday afternoon and although tired I am refreshed and have much to ponder. So much truth to prayerfully consider and process. My friend and I were blessed right at the start of this weekend when we could not be in the assigned housing due to some physical needs. We were given instead a whole cabin to ourselves. You cannot imagine how many times we did a little rejoicing and praise over this gift! It may seem like a little thing but to share a bunk house with four other women with one bathroom and shower is pretty difficult. So the two of us instead had only to share the one bathroom bunkhouse with each other. Let me just say we managed harmoniously together. We came away feeling very loved by God and thankful for his generosity to us.

   The speaker was amazing and she brought to light much related to our life's struggles and joys. There is much to gain by retreating to a country setting along a lake with 200 women. It stretches you and pulls you out of your comfort zone at the same time as pulling you in and giving you reason to be thankful for what you have been blessed with. So now I pause to reflect and seek God in a quiet place here in my own home. I am blessed!

       Isaiah 40:28 ~ 31 

Do you not know?

   Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

  the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

  and His understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary 

  and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

  and young men stumble and fall; 

but those who hope in The Lord

  will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles;

  they will run and not grow weary,

  they will walk and not be faint.

Busy day

                                   Yesterday I never got here it was a busy day! 
        I am so thankful to be at home today and just pausing this morning to ponder the quiet blessings I have here. I am in my sunroom on my sofa, along side me are my two dogs stretched out in the suns rays. They are happy to be with me after my being gone a good portion of yesterday. It was a productive day and I am satisfied in the results of an appointment we had. God is good! The meeting I had was with a principle at a high school to arrange the use of their field and bathroom facilities for an Out of The Darkness walk to raise money and awareness in the prevention of suicide. There is much to this organization and I am only just getting to know this about it at this point.
  We set our date, and so much more in this visit. The students will be getting involved as well and we may have set off a yearly event in this one appointment. I am pleased that this will help many and I am honored that it will be for a lasting memory of my son. This is also so hard as no mother wants to try and memorialize a child because they have died. So it begins the planning of a great walk event that may save,encourage, or bolster some other family in their suicide grief walk on a daily basis for years to come. Out of yesterday  comes a chance for me to meet students and be a voice in other's lives that may make a difference . So many changes in my life right now. I walk on in this journey looking for meaning in a tragedy that need not have happened. This will be a help for many and that is what my son would have wanted for sure . 
   Today I have work to get done as I prepare for a wonderful women's retreat I am headed to tomorrow afternoon. I am expecting to see old friends and meet some more new ones as well. I also plan on some much needed time seeking my Savior in the rest of this weekend. It helps that it is on a lake in a beautiful setting.  Isaiah 30:15 says : "In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." .... 
   So I pray you as well will be blessed as we are coming to the end of yet another week. I will be back in a few days with some new thoughts . :) 
  

What a difference a day makes

     I feel amazingly better today! I praise God for this . Soon after awaking this morning I had the hymn : "Day by Day" ,  in my head. It is a great song to remind me of God's strength, kindness, love, mercy, protection . I grew up in church and learned hymns and they have been a comfort to me in all sorts of places I have found myself in. I am so thankful for that. 
  One of my first devotionals this morning I did had this verse from Revelations 21:4 
" And He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the former things have passed away. "  I see a common theme to the start of my day. The theme that although I suffer agonizing, and some times debilitating emotional heartache I am not alone and that God is at work here. One day my Jesus will wipe away all my tears and I will no longer miss and agonize over my losses. I will be home and with my loved ones who have gone before me. 
     Lord Jesus ,
I thank you for your promises within your holy word. I thank you that I can hold on and keep holding onto you and you are always here with me. Thank you that you see and know my pain and that you are in the midst of it and holding my broken heart. I praise you Jesus. Amen 

The Day

     Today is the day of my birth. It also just happens to be the day of my brothers, obviously making us twins. We did not get together just texted our birthday greetings to one another. We always joke with each other and today when he said , "we are old " ' I made sure I told him I am still sweet sixteen. He had his comeback and I point out that I can be as young as I feel on any given day. In reality choice is a big part of life. Today I did not do so well.  I woke in a down place Struggling with it all day. At one point I would love to have been given a chance to get a do- over and be able to enjoy my birthday with my husband.
   It seems to be a naturally occurring problem that these months leading up to October and on till December and even beyond my mind goes to automatic grief mode. It can last days without skipping a beat or on and off. October the 20 th is the 5th anniversary of my moms home going and then in December on the 28th  my son went home to heaven as well. A horrific year an major change to my life and for my family . My birthday is difficult and so I struggled through and now I will sleep with my mom and my son in my mind and close to my heart making my birthday a blessing .  
          2 Corinthians 5 : 4 - 8
  For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed , but further clothed , that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared for us this very thing is God , who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident , knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from The Lord. For we walk by faith and not by sight. We are confident , yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with The Lord .

Day Of Rest

  What a beautiful Fall day we had today. I got out for a walk after church with my husband and we sat in the woods on a bridge and just watched water skippers walk and spring on the top of the water. So amazing to see these little bugs just go back and forth and not sink. I wish I didn't sink on my journey of life. But it would be dull to just float and not experience what life has for me.
  I am learning in Sunday school about the power of our words and it is amazing what power we have . As I picked apples this afternoon I saw so many wonderful kinds with different flavors and some bright red,or yellow . I am thinking about my words and how they can be flavors of a different sort. The angry words can be a flavor of sharp and overpowering ,upsetting the inner person that gets the taste of them. The kind words I speak can be like a sweet or healing taste that brings joy and blessings to those who receive them.
   So today was a day of rest and contemplation. 
 Psalm 19:14 
 " May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." 
 Be blessed ! 

Today

           It is amazing how there are repercussions from just writing down your thoughts and feelings.
They have been within all along some where in the deepest recesses of my consciousness. But..... I have been living and doing as one must when alive . Today I am so very tired. Today I am spent from heartache and the struggle of losing a child. I dreamed of him last night. He was alive and here and we both knew he had been gone.. But not just gone as one goes on a vacation and returns. We knew it was amazing he was here at all. I first became aware of his return when I saw him on a tractor he was playing around on out in the field. He loved to have fun and play hard. So it was natural in the dream he was playing on that tractor. I went to him and we were happy he was here, alive and together. Yet, he and I both knew it was short lived . We got in his truck went to town and met friends of his and he wanted to stop and we discussed how it would freak them out to see him knowing he had died. I hate that word! I hate that reality! My every instinct pulls back from thinking it or even typing it out here. Maybe it is because some how it will make it true . But it.is.True! Of course his friends were so happy to see him and as casually as I had greeted him, so did they . We all knew it was so strange he was just able to be here like this. As all dreams go it ended . He left with friends and I awake to that empty place where he is not. So today, today I wrestle again with his leaving and his choice,my pain and the empty place in my heart where he resides. Today there is no living in the land of life as though he is just at his place doing his things he loved to do. Today I walk as a weary one in the wilderness of the remnants of death .
        Today I return to the place that God gave me the day of his visiting hours at the funeral home. We drove the long ride and I had my Bible in my lap and was quietly praying and asking God for something to get me through this terrible nightmare! And He did! Psalm 18 : 16 - 19 says : He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, But The Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.  I took this as what God had done for my precious son. I could see him in that broad place ( heaven ) and The Lord delighting in my son, just as I have and still do in the memories of his precious life we shared. So today , today is what it is. I will trust in my God and his mighty power to save and rescue.

A New Day

   I try to get up each morning and be grateful for a new day. Some days that does not happen. I am finding the more I focus on each new day as a gift from God it is easier to settle in and be thankful for being alive. It's sort of off to think I could not be aware of life as worthy of gratefulness. I have so much to be thankful for in so many ways. I know people who have daily pain and physical suffering and it is not a cake walk. So why would I be so blatantly unthankful with what I have received ? One of my struggles is a great loss I continue to live through. I am coming up on the anniversary of my young and precious 22 year old  son's death. No one is ready to lose a child and it is a hard thing to accept and adjust to. God is gracious and has shown me much in this process of losing and grieving . 
       I hated new days after he died for a long time . I hated that life could go on and that I could survive when my son was no longer here. How could this be so? How could God expect me to keep living? Why would my heart keep beating? How is that possible? But it did and it does. We are at five years this December, just after Christmas. Just when you are settling in to get ready to ring in the New Year, bring in more " New Days ". No one really knows what a new day will bring , or for that matter , what the ending of a new day will bring. I certainly didn't ! We certainly didn't ! And then the call ! And here is where the world and time should stop, and did stop for me and my family. Stop it did, as well as keep moving . How is it that can happen? If God had not kept days coming and going it would not be doable. But he did and he told me as I reached the hospital and found out that my precious boy had taken his own life and lay behind the same curtain right in that same emergency room where my very own mom had been behind just two months before and took her last breaths , He, God almighty , said to my deepest need, Life is for Living and I want to live it! 
  No one can tell me it was not from God ! No one ! Why would a thought that dramatic come to the mind of a mother who just found out her precious son has just , within the last hour , shot and killed himself ? So a new day has arrived again for me and for you as well , because you are reading this . I had to decide each new day what I would do with what I had left . I still have to choose as do you ? So what are we going to chooses. I choose life and living and gratefulness at life beyond the grave. I choose Jesus and growing beyond the grave. 
  Matthew 14:29 says : So Peter got out of the boat,started walking on the water , and came towards Jesus .   I am placing my name in there now and I am choosing to get out of the boat and am going towards Jesus .  

A Heart at Rest

I am at the end of a great Online Bible Study called " What happens when women say Yes to God ."

It has been a giving experience for me. Giving up my choice to run, was my real first # yestoGod moment. The second was taking steps to keep on when fear was breathing down my neck telling me God will expect too much. As I kept taking steps and asking fellow online study mates to pray I was finally able to open my palms up and say yes I am opening them to you Lord. 

    Now here I am at the end just a day away from the finish and I am sensing peace and rest in believing that God is not out to drown me in the saying yes to Him , he is out to love me on me big time. I am not with out the knowledge that it is a hard work at times but I also know that when you get to the mountain tops the view is well worth the effort, especially since I did not travel alone.
 Lysa Terkeurst says in this book that God has so much more for you than just a good life. He wants you to be free- completely free of anything that might hold you back from the things He has for you. He doesn't want you to miss one single blessing of  a God- focused life.
     Life Is for living and I want to live it!!!
   Psalm 86:11
  Teach me your ways, O Lord , that I may live according to your truth! Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you.




   
A Heart at Rest