6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
There is a difference between how kids celebrate the joy of Christmas versus the adults in their lives. Kids find joy in every little thing from anticipating what is in those gifts under the Christmas tree to going shopping at the mall to see Santa Claus to perhaps sitting on Santa's lap to tell him what they would like for Christmas.
The adults in their lives have a mixed bag of emotions from their earlier days when their favorite aunt or uncle or grandparent was still alive when the smell of freshly baked cookies filled the kitchen. For many Adults their eyes become moist when they look at pictures of their deceased loved one. For some, they just assume not to open up that albun which will certainly trigger their emotions if they did.
For some adults, the memories of lost loved ones sends them into a downward spiral of over consumption of alcohol and or legalized marijuana that for still some ends up in their own tragic death, creating a new layer of grief for the adults in their lives.
For me, the way I coped with the sudden loss of my daughter Maria was turning to God and relying on my faith community. I've found that recovery from grief isn't possible to do it alone. It is important that we all find a faith community of people who are safe for us to communicate our deepest needs.
Christmas, I've learned isn't about how many gifts we have under the tree. Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus who came into a hurting world, not much different than the world we see today. We celebrate Christmas because Jesus came into the world to unite all humanity regardless of what worldview they currently possess. I'm reminded when I listen to testimonies how God often gives a vision in the minds of people who have chosen a different path to follow, but after their dream they make a commitment to follow Jesus.
As we sit by the Christmas tree remembering mom's love for cooking, or her occasional phone calls telling us that we can do anything we set our mind to, or being our cheer leader when she talks to her sisters and brothers, we can cling to God's word that "He will never leave you or forsake you."
There is one more thing a grieving person can do and that would be consider a group support group like Grief share or Compassionate Friends. I say this because it is essential that you tell your story about your loss to a community that truly understands what it is like to lose a child, parent, sibling, or other loved one.
As you do this, your pain will become less and your heart will become softer which will lead to helping others to recover simply through listening to their pain. In this sense, God will not waste the pain you're currently experiencing.
Christmas and New years is about celebrating the gift God gave the world which is sending baby Jesus in the form of a simple manger.
P> In Genesis 1:27 we read, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The man and woman are not named and both are created at the same time out of the same red earth.
For the past 20 years the transgender movement has been infiltrating our public schools through the use of gender confusion books.
Their motive is to destroy the loving families who know how to best parent their child. They do so by keeping secrets from the parents once the child decides to transgender.The justice department has been weaponized by giving schools the power to have children removed from the parents home if the parents failed to honor the child's choice of pronoun. They confuse kids beginning in Kindergarten through books like Gender bread man, Gender unicorn, Queerfuly and wonderfully made. When you look at some of these books your immediate reaction is one of disgust and anger. Their motive, according to one Trans legislator is to stop the genocide of the trans people, as if this was a normal thing to worry about.
I find it disgusting that public schools allow for this indoctrination of our children to take place- it is beyond evil. Sex should be a topic left to the parents at the appropriate time.
Schools should focus on teaching children how to read, write, do penmanship, and learn about science in order to prepare them for tomorrow's careers.
Statistics indicate that public schools have failed miserly in this department with many children being unable to pass a college entrance exam. Do the public schools care? You would like to think so, but the reality is they are more interested in creating more victims and voters for the democratic party.
The Minnesota legislature made it illegal to suggest to a gender confused child that they need mental health therapy with heavy penalties if anyone tries to do so. They also gave the courts the power to remove a child if their parents refuse to us the child's preferred pronoun.
When you factor in the reality that children are being gender confused as early as Kindergarten, you can understand how easily it is for a child to fall into the gender confusion trap.
In the literature I have read I discovered that many kids on the Autism scale are being placed on the conveyor belt toward puberty blockers and irreversible trans mutilitation surgery that for the most part makes them patients for life. Keep in mind that kids on the autism scale can be easily persuaded that they were born in the wrong body through the use of gender confusion books.
There have been a growing number of kids who sadly had regrets that they ever went down that road. Some in their adult years discovered that they will never be able to breast feed a baby, or father a child.
Chloe Cole is one such individual who regretted those early decisions. She decided to sound the horn to warn others from venturing down this road that would surely lead to regrets.
One Trans legislator said after his bill was passed by the democratically controlled legislature that outlawed mental health therapy, " This bill will stop the genocide of trans people" He said this as though it is normal to be trans which it is not.
I found that the medical community sees performing double mastectomy's and genital mutilation as a billion dollar cash cow and they will do everything that it takes to preserve that profit.
This is not right which is the reason I'm doing everything it takes to protect our biological children from this Nazi era of surgical expermentation. The trans people like to say that this is a major problem, but this is a big lie. Roughly just 1-2 % of children have undefined sexual characteristics, but you wouldn't know that when you see that thousands are being referred to medical clinics over their choice of pronoun.
This coming November 7th is a time that every sensible parent needs to come out and vote for strong parent lead school boards. If we can do this I think we can slow down the catrating of our boys and the mutlitation of our girls and force our schools to get out of the indoctrination game and return to teaching the hard core subjects that prepares young people for tomorrow's jobs.
Lastly, I'm including this testimony by Chloe Cole.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Matthew 18:6
Please note that You tube may prevent you from watching this expose done by the Austrian media and if you are blocked you can find this expose on youtube.
With that being said, I feel a need to alarm everyone of how our public schools are indoctrinating our children into believing they were born in the wrong body and through the use of puberty blockers and gender mutilitation surgery they can have this corrected.
As you listen to these stories you will be immediately hit by the regrets when they discovered that 'changing their sex' did not make them happier and they decided to de-transitioned back to their original biological sex.
One person who detransitioned said that puberty blockers and mutilation surgery destroyed her body. The puberty blockers, for example, led her to developed brittle bones. Another person who de-transitioned lamented that she would never breast feed a baby.
In a charter school in Ham Lake, Minnesota parents withdrew their children when they discovered books that were introduced to helped children as young as kindergarten to believe they can be any gender they want to be. What is worse is the secrecy of keeping parents in the dark as soon as their child is coerced into changing their name and their pronoun.
Kindergarteners are far too young to be indoctrinated into believing they were born in the wrong body. Parents, not schools, should have the final say in the upbringing of their children.
What is wrong with public schools simply sticking to teaching the basics of reading, writing and arthrimetic and leaving sex out of the equation? Isn't their primary job to prepare these children for tomorrow's technical jobs?
The latest statiscis suggests that the vast majority of students aren't able to read or do math at grade level- clearly the public educational system has failed.
Yet, our public educational system seems more concern over indoctrinating children then educatng them while receiving record numbers of cash for doing so.
In the last legislative session there was a trans legislator who said the Gender 'affirming' bill, in his words, would stop the genocide of the trans community. His bill started the public school treadmill of indoctrinating children as young as kindergarten to move toward gender mutilitation care, all without their parents knowing about it. If parents refuse to acknowledge their children's new pronouns they can be reported and the child can be removed from their home. Governor Walz even declared Minnesota a sanctuary state for families who wanted to come here to help their child change their sex.
There have been countless of interviews with children, years later, who regretted what they did to their bodies. The change did not make them any more happier than they were before. What they really needed was mental health therapy, not some social worker who met with them a few sessions before rubber stamping their need for puberty blockers, a new pronoun, and steps toward irreversible gender surgery. When unhappy children went back to their doctors who did the surgery they were met with resistance and treated as a nuisance- doctors would circle the wagons.
In their mind, they accomplish the task of enabling the child to change their sex- case closed.
As a Christian, I'm opposed to watching this kind of suffering going on with our children. I'm opposed to men who believe they can be a woman so they can use the woman's bathroom even though they haven't fully transitioned. I'm opposed to men pretending to be a woman so they can avoid incarceration in a men's prison when a violent crime is committed. I'm oppose to men pretending to be a woman so they can compete in woman's sports simply because they were incapable of competing against other men. It saddens me to watch our public schools become indoctrination centers for the trans community, instead of being centers that prepare children for tomorrows technical jobs. It concerns me that these indoctrination centers will not listen to parents if they disagree with the schools decision while at same time treating them as the enemy.
If we are to fight back against this evil, we must turn out in mass on November 7th, 2023 to vote for school board candidates who are pro-family who will fight against the trans communities indoctrination efforts to destroy children. We must do the same in November 2024 by electing a President who's got the guts to stand up to the evils that are permeating in our culture.
Experts tell me that less than 1% truly have gender dysphoria issues that require transition care and for those individuals such care should be allowed, but for the rest of these children, mental health therapy is what they need to help them adjust to their biological sex. You aren't going to hear this on mainstream media, or in our public health system because this isn't the narrative they want you to hear.
But, we must fight back by against the public education system. We must make our voices louder than the voices on the other side. We must do this to save our biological children and woman. Together, we can accomplish this task.
Death is never an easy topic to talk about. We avoid talking about the loss of a loved one because for most of us we fear the possiblity that we will die someday. ( to be continued)
“The joy of giving versus the sadness and loneliness of hoarding. There is no greater joy than that of giving and sharing. It is liberating. We can, after all, not take anything with us when we die and leave this earth behind.”
― Paddick Van Zyl
A few decades ago when I decided to look for a starter home a realtor friend called to tell me he found one that might be good to look at. As I drove up to the 1950's rambler house I glanced at the front window noticing bags of stuff. Once the realtor arrived we entered the house whereupon I discovered plastic bags of stuff nearly touching the ceiling. I got two feet into the room when I said I was done looking and quickly exited the house. This was before I learned that 19 million American's suffer from a hoard disorder.
Hoarding disorder is recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental health condition. Hoarding is not the same as collecting. Collectors typically acquire possessions in an organized, intentional, and targeted fashion. Once acquired, the items are removed from normal usage, but are subject to being organizing, admired, and displayed to others. Acquisition of objects in people who hoard is largely impulsive, with little active planning, and triggered by the sight of an object that could be owned.
Objects acquired by people with hoarding lack a consistent theme, whereas those of collectors are narrowly focused on a particular topic. In contrast to the organization and display of possessions seen in collecting, disorganized clutter is a hallmark of hoarding disorder.
In most cases, hoarding behaviors begin after the loss of a loved one when bereaved individuals feel a sense of happiness when they go on shopping trips whether they go to a department store or purchased something they saw as a good deal at a thrift store or garage sale. These shopping behaviors are a way for people to avoid processing their inner pain following their loss. When this continues, the inner world of their home builds up with too much stuff that soon prevents them from safely navigating from room to room of their home. In the most extreme cases, their homes are filled with literally floor to ceiling stuff that creates a fire hazard and a den for rodents.
What is the solution, you ask? Facing and processing your deep seated emotions one feeling at a time is considered the best solution. It is also recognizing that there is no set time table to processing your inner pain and making a commitment to take as long as it takes. For the loss of a child it may take as much as 10 years before you see resolution to the loss.
From experience, I can tell you that you really cannot do this alone. When there is trauma with the loss, the person may need to seek the services of a caring Clinical Psychologist who can guide them through the process. For others, connecting with trusted listeners who are non judgemental, but who are willing to listen to their anguish for however long it takes until they find resolution is the way to go.
In both cases, it's important to get involve in a grief support group like Grief share where they can meet other individuals who are traveling a similar grief journey.
I firmly believe that faith plays a very important part in this grief recovery process. As I think about the intricate relationship of t he holy trinity- Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I'm reminded that God can be in two different places at the same time. He was with your loved one when he or she died and escorted to heaven. He is also walking with you as the bereaved person every step of the way helping your process those intense emotions we were never use to having.
Faith also plays a important role because it is our faith that assures that we will see our loved one again.
As you seek the help you need following your loss, chances are you will find less of a need to hoard and clutter up your personal spaces with things you really didn't need.
Refusing to process your pain will only lead you down a broken road. This Ted talk was created after years of research and work with people who suffered traumatic losses. This talk will highlight the importance of facing one's grief head on instead of trying to resolve our grief with shopping trips to accumulate unwanted stuff that only fills up the empty spaces of our homes and our hearts.
Story by Jennifer Brookland, USA TODAY NETWORK
'I wish we could play one more time': Michigan camp for grieving kids brings sobs, healing'
Everyone kept the petting zoo a surprise, so the happy rush of kids taking selfies with a llama named Tony and climbing into the pen with two Polish chickens is unexpectedly joyous.
Staff and volunteers have intentionally made the morning nothing but fun. With the drumming circle and singing, the coloring and story time, this could be a regular summer camp. But the 42 children enrolled in Camp Monarch, a service of Angela Hospice in Livonia, Michigan, are here for a dual purpose.
They’re here to enjoy themselves, but also to remember lost loved ones, learn coping skills for the grief that will follow them through their childhoods and to connect with people who understand the complex emotions and behaviors that stem from bereavement.
Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.
One child out of every 11 in Michigan — nearly 200,000 total — will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they turn 18, according to Judi’s House, a research organization focused on child bereavement data. By the time youth hit 25 years old, that number more than doubles.
The children at Camp Monarch have lost parents, siblings or other close loved ones from homicide, suicide, car accidents, overdoses, COVID or other health conditions.
Yet our culture doesn’t teach children how to grieve, rarely validates their experiences or acknowledges their pain. Grief camps are a place where, just for a day or two, children who have lost someone they love can connect with other kids who are walking the same heart-rending road, and know they aren’t alone.
“Grief shared is grief diminished,” said Debbie Vallandingham, Angela Hospice’s director of grief care services. “We want to instill in children that being open, talking, sharing, being able to discuss your feelings is a normal part of life, not something that we should hide or something that we should be embarrassed of.”
Can I visit Mommy in heaven?
Children don’t grieve the same way adults do. Adults swim down that river at their own pace, sometimes swept along, sometimes dragged under and sometimes, especially after time has passed, able to float. Children tend to hop in and out of those waters, experiencing deep sadness, isolation and anger but then running outside to do cartwheels.
Their ability to make sense of a loss and process their thoughts and feelings is very much dependent on their developmental stage, according to Joshua Magariel, regional director of patient experience with AccentCare Hospice and Palliative Care, which offers the long-running Camp Kangaroo in Detroit each year.
A very young child might not understand the permanence of death or might conceive of it as a place. Mom is in heaven, but maybe I can go visit her, a little kid might think.
An older child understands that death can’t be undone but might struggle to deal with the complex emotions that follow or deploy harmful magical thinking — believing their actions somehow caused the tragedy.
For bereaved children, every advance in understanding and awareness ushers in a fresh round of processing grief.
“Most parents don’t realize that the kid’s going to keep revisiting this until they are literally an adult,” said Vallandingham. “That’s a lot for their adult to handle, usually, because they move at a very different pace than that child that’s grieving.”
‘They are not alone in this journey’
At Camp Monarch, kids from age 5 to 15 are learning that grief is like a jungle. It has dark, menacing shade and thorny overgrowth but also patches of sunlight and unexpected secret waterfalls. A hunt for paper sloths reminds them to take things slowly. Music therapist Heather Dean leads them in deep “monkey breaths,” and other volunteers encourage them to get support and find their pride, as a lion might.
Each child has brought a photo of the adult they lost to hang, along with a note or thought, on a green paper leaf, clipped and strung up across a hallway to simulate a jungle passage where their loved ones are memorialized. They’ll walk through it, seeing all the other leaves that aren’t their own.
“The important thing is the kids see they are not alone in this journey,” said Leah Bengel, a social worker who volunteered for this year’s Camp Monarch.
Bengel lost her mother to suicide when she was 12 years old, and went to a camp like this one, through the Henry Ford SandCastles grief support program. Now, she says, “I’m here to support the kids through their grief journey like so many people were there to support mine.”
Bengel remembers her camp experience as allowing her to just be a kid but also devote time to expressing her grief in different ways, including art. “It’s a memorable experience that obviously has impacted what I do today,” she said. “I would have felt lost without programs like this.”
“For some kiddos, camp may truly be the only place where they have an opportunity to grieve openly, to be encouraged to find support and meaning in their loss,” said Magariel.
‘You carry her in your heart’
A little boy sits with Camp Monarch volunteer Shalyn Fuller, coloring his small portion of a memorial tablecloth. “Did your mom die?” he asks her. “No,” she responds, “but my baby brother did.”
“How did he die?” the boy wants to know. And Fuller tells him, simply, honestly.
“I lost my mom,” says the little girl across the table.
“I lost my mom, too,” the boy says.
“We went to the hospital to visit her for two days,” the girl says. Then, a pause. “My mama died,” she says again quietly.
“Now her heart beats in your heart,” Fuller says to her, and to the listening boy sitting beside her, coloring absentmindedly. “When your heart beats, her heart beats because that’s where she lives. You carry her in your heart.”
“What’s your mom’s name?” Fuller asks the littler girl. She’ll write it for her, she offers, in a heart she’s drawn on one of the blank spots on the tablecloth.
“Mommy,” the little girl answers.
‘I wish that people understood how hard it is’
It can be hard for adults to talk to children who are grieving. For surviving parents, their own grief can feel insurmountable. Other adults just don’t want to make things worse.
“A lot of adults shy away from this stuff because they don’t want the kids to feel bad,” said Jasmine Kendrick, Angela Hospice’s grief care counselor. “But they need to express it.”
Kendrick says children want the adults and friends in their life to know what they’re going through and that they need help. She speaks from experience. Kendrick was just 4 years old when her mother passed away. She never got to attend a grief camp or get counseling, but she’s grateful for the ways her family kept the memory of her mom alive for her.
That’s what Essra Mokachar is trying to do for her own children. Zack, 15, and Jenna, 12, are at Camp Monarch today, and she sends them to other grief camps and support groups to make sure they have an outlet and a network.
The Mokachars lost their dad suddenly to a heart attack, nine days before their baby sister was born to a shell-shocked family that didn’t know how they would go on without him.
Two years later, they still have their days. “One cries and the other picks them up,” as Mokachar puts it.
Zack Mokachar says these camps remind him that it’s OK to ask for help and that he’s not alone in his grief. “I wish that people understood how hard it is,” he said. “You don’t know what people are going through.”
But the other kids at grief camp do. A boy Zack and Jenna met at another grief camp also lost his father, and now his mom and Essra Mokachar are great friends.
“I’m always looking for resources, and I find that it’s a good release for them,” Mokachar said. “I’m so happy we live in a community where this is available to us.”
For subscribers: US kids face mental health crisis amid school psychologist shortage. Can new federal money help?
Walking through the jungle of grief
It’s time for the children at Camp Monarch to walk through the jungle of memorialized loved ones, the faces of parents and other beloved family members dangling just overhead along with the words of the children they left behind: “I love you. I wish we could play one more time. Are you doing OK? We’re doing OK.”
Each camper writes a note to the adult they’re missing on special paper that dissolves in water. Once they walk through the memorial, they’ll drop their message into a bucket representing a waterfall and watch it become froth.
enna Mokachar goes first, slowly taking in the pictures and childlike writing of the other kids at camp. A girl breaks down crying, and Bengel puts her arms around her, tears filling her own eyes as she slowly walks her to the bucket and onward. Two sisters with bows in their hair cling to a volunteer, their sobs echoing down the hallway.
It is an exquisite and unique kind of pain to hear a child cry for someone they’ve lost and can never hold again.
Last to journey through the jungle is a little boy who walks dolefully down the hall, his eyes downcast, until he reaches the bucket and stops. He cannot go forward. Kristina Kosta, an Angela Hospice nurse, is dressed as a giant monarch butterfly for this occasion. She envelops him in her beautiful purple wings and her knee digs hard into the cold floor so that he can sit for a moment in softness.
Dean, the music therapist, strums a guitar at the end of the corridor, singing the refrain to “You’ll be in My Heart.”
When Toby said that he didn't think he knew grief until it hit him with the loss of his son,I think it hit a chord with all of us that were unfortunate to suffer this type of fate.
The loss of a child is a unique kind of loss because no one truly understands how to bury their own child. We were taught that our children will outlive us and bury us, not the other way along.
I truly understood the words of Toby Mac when I suffered my own loss when the pain medication Maria was on for her orthopedic surgery failed to metabolize in her system. Like Toby Mac, my daughter essentially died in her sleep.
I remember June 9th quite well. It was a Saturday afternoon when we were given permission to bring her home where we were anticipating a summer of celebration with friend parties, physical therapy to prepare her for the 5th grade class at Legacy Christian Academy where her friends were waiting for her arrival. Instead of celebration, we were thrust into the deeep hole of despair of which I wonder if we would ever see day light.
When I spoke with others facing similar losses I was struck by the similarity of stories. Grief hurts.Grief requires work to get through the journey. It takes sharing our pain with those willing to climb down into the muck and mire of it. Most people, I learned aren't willing to go to those dark places with you, but when you enter that dark place you will find new friends who clearly understand what you're going through. Just like a couple we barely knew came over to our place the moment they heard that Maria had died. We would learn that they went through this journey when the man's wife accidentally backed over their toddler daughter. As they went through their journey they found the compassion to reach out to others facing similar fates.
As Christians we are given the gift of the holy spirit that allows us to communicate with our loving God and minister to those who struggle with loss.
I urge you to cry out to God when loss occurs. Don't shut him out, nor don't stop attending Church, but place one foot in front of the other and keep on doing the same rituals you did before the loss. Do not drown your sorrows in a bottle of rum, or some that recreational marijuana because those are temporary fixes to the problem of your broken heart. Jesus Christ wants to be your redeemer and healer. He alone will walk with you every step of the way of this journey.
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
One of the hardest things we can do as parents of a deceased child is going through their belongings and repurposing the room they use to occupy. This is considered one of the last frontiers because the parents have to be absolutely ready to go the place to tackle this task. It is a reminder that when the loss of a child is concern there is no set timetable to tackle this task.For some, they are able to tackle this task relatively quicker than for others who take years tackle this daunting and emotional task.
Hence, the room of the deceased child often winds up being the 'junk' room of the home as though your original floor plan has been amputated to reveal a much smaller home.
Through the years since Maria's passing, we have made much progress with the grief journey such as placing one foot in front of the other and going to Church, meeting with friends, attending bible studies and going to uplifting events that glorify Jesus Christ. We also know through our personal relationship with our Savior that we will see Maria again because of what God promised in his Word.,P>
Since the start of the pandemic emergency orders we have seen a record number of suicides and opioid deaths so I know that there are others like us grieving for the loss of their children. So, what can we do to help these families who are struggling with this type of loss? Don't be afraid to climb into the muck and mire of their grief. Don't worry what to say to them, but quietly listen to their anguish. God works through the holy spirit placed inside each of the believers who accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of their lives. He will provide the words of comfort to give to those that are hurting. He will give you the strength to go to the dark places with them. This type of wisdom isn't something you pick up in psychology 101 or philosophy 202, but it is the type of wisdom God gives us through the living savior who conquered death on the cross and came back to life.
There is one more thing you can do to help people suffering the loss of a child- Go with them to a griefshare meeting. Most people are afraid to go to grief support groups, but your willingness to go with them just may be the spark that helps them move forward.
One of the things I did as a grieving dad very early on in my grief was put together a website to help others entering their pain for the first time to have a source of inspiring information that would help them begin their journey.
One final suggestion I can make is for newly bereaved people to find a trusted listener who can help them walk this journey without the influence of alcohol, drugs or marijuana which will only cause other health issues to develope. Research I have seen all suggest that when traumatic losses occur, many are quick to turn to alcohol in an effort to deaden the pain.
If you are a non believer, or simply deconstructed your faith as many have in this post pandemic era, I urge you to come back to the Savior and find a Christian Church where you can be discipled and nurtured. I learned as I began going on this journey that God really didn't abandon me after the loss of my loved one, but I abandoned him. I encourage you to cry out to God and tell him all of the anguish you feel from your loss. I have learned that God isn't afraid of our anger because He wants a relationship with you. Go ahead and cry out to God and tell him you are sorry for walking away from Him and watch Him move closer to you.
Grief is a journey that has no set timelines when it is completed, but I assure you like our family, your faith will be stronger as you begin the journey. Your loved one is more alive today in heaven than they ever were on earth. Jesus assures us that we will see them again.
Thursday, March 16, 2023
And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
This is a short blog with a video that will show you how to share your faith with those around you. I would encourage you to take this presentation and make it your own, incorporating your faith stories to personalize it. People need to hear how Jesus changed your life and helped you through the perils and trials of life.
God would love nothing better than for all believers to share His message of salvation so all can come to him and see that he has a better plan than the current trending world view they are living by.
7 “[a]Ask, and it will be given to you; [b]seek, and you will find; [c]knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Matthew 7:7
It was 1972. There was a war raging against North Vietnam. The economy was in the doldrums with rising interest rates. There was civil unrest, rising crime, increasing drug use. It was a time when abortion was about to become the law of the land. It was also a time when this writer heard the gospel and made a decision to follow my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It was a decision I was glad to have made for now I had a good shepherd that I could call on when life's trouble comes. Jesus became the anchor for my soul. Love Song and Chuck Girard were two of my favorite artists I would listen to so much that the cassette tape actually wore out, but I listened to them to encourage my soul.
1972 was also the year that America saw the greatest revival with millions coming to a saving faith through Jesus Christ. When Love song wrote 'welcome back' it was about their salvation and finding Jesus after searching all of the mountain tops and all of the wrong places for God. Jesus's words 'Seek and you will find' is a reminder that we do not have to travel far to find the living Savior, but he is as close as standing and waiting for you to open the door and inviting Him in.
My salvation gave me the strength to weather the storms of this life. Deaths of parents, and in 2007 it gave me the strength to survive the death of my daughter, Maria, who was only 10 when she died. I knew through my own salvation that my daughter was with the King of kings and Lord of lords in heaven- a place I will go when my purpose on planet earth is finished. Until then, I have a mission to share my faith story to as many people I can find.
When I look back to those days there isn't much different from today. War and rumors of war were swirling around back then just as they are today. Death and hopelessness is swirling all around. We all have been traumatized by the 2 year Covid lockdowns. We have learned to adjust with virtual meetings with colleagues, but for most of us we miss the human interaction we so desparately need. As Christian's our purpose is to worship in a church filled with other broken people, encouraging one another each week we attend. Since the start of the pandemic, I chose to trust my Savior and help lead a Grief share group in person. Yes, we followed the CDC guidelines, but I knew that grieving people need the human interaction to heal from their traumatic losses.
When you think about staying home and watching the church service on television, please remember that there are hurting people some who may have shown up at the church to give church one more chance before they decide to take their life that night- just maybe, if you had gone your faithstory might have persuaded them to follow Jesus Christ. Your presence might have saved that person's other relationships from falling into deep despair and sorrow.
The song, 'Welcome back' is a invitation for every Christian to go back to Church to grow and thrive. Seek and you shall find is a message for everyone to call out the name of Jesus. As more people come to the living Savior after finding that Government doesn't have the answer then I believe we will see a new revival in this country.
24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
To anyone who has ever been to a Promise Keeper's conference you know how invigorating and life changing they are in the lives of men.I remember writing a letter to our big city news paper regarding the importance of fathers the home. I wrote to two news papers. The first letter was written to our liberal paper and within a week I received a notice that would not publish my letter unless I made the letter more gender nuetral. My second letter was sent to a little more conservative paper across the river. They said they would publish my letter. In our City of Minneapolis, a city that is filled with deep, dysfunctional liberalism, conservative voices are censored. For anyone who has never been to a PK conference, here are the 7 promises of promise keeper.
1. A Promise Keeper is committed to honor Jesus Christ through worship, prayer, and obedience to God's Word through the power of the Holy Spirit.
2. A Promise Keeper is committed to pursue vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.
3. A Promise Keeper is committed to practice spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.
4. A Promise Keeper is committed to build strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.
5. A Promise Keeper is committed to support the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor and by actively giving his time and resources.
6. A Promise Keeper is committed to reach beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.
7. A Promise Keeper is committed to influence his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20).
As a Christian who believes in the authenticiy of the holy bible, I believe knowing Jesus Christ is a life changer to everyone open to receiving the word of God in his heart. Whereas liberal media tried to censor the voices of Christian men, God has been working in the hearts of men who attended those conferences before committing their lives to the Church of Christ. We may all be rusty from the Covid closures of our churches, or the fear of contracting Covid if we went to church, but God promises to restore your hearts if you cry out to him.
The key to a changed and improved world isn't spreading the lies of Critical race theory and starting race riots in our cities, but the key is crossing that racial divide and building up our brothers in Christ.
There is a huge difference between these two movements. CRT came to destroy and conquer, but Jesus Christ came to build up and heal the divisions that exist in our land through the teaching of forgiveness.
CRT believes some men have more value than others while Jesus believes all men have value.
If every man,woman and child came to Christ we can have a revival!
I'm looking forward to serving as a facilitator with Grief share at New Hope Church in Minnesota. I felt this calling after my wife and I lost our precious 10 year-old daughter, Maria, when she passed when the opioid pain medication failed to metabolize in her system following her successful surgery.
We were anticipating celebrating her recovery in the summer of 2007, but the moment the Chaplain came out and said, "They did all they could but were unable to save her" our emotions plummeted into the deepest of despair.
Although we felt like giving up, we felt the loving hands of our Lord gently urging us to return to our New Hope Church one step at a time. I won't lie by saying it didn't hurt because it did hurt.It hurt for many months and at times we thought we would never recover from this pain. But we kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept right on going to church.
Worship, of course, took on a whole new meaning when we couldn't sing the joy filled happy praise songs, but we could sing the mournful songs with flowing tears.
God never abandoned my wife and I and neither did he abandon our son. We were hurting, but we knew that God was walking with us every step of the way on this journey. There were, of course, people we once knew who couldn't go on this journey with us, but there were new friends who had been where we were only a few years before who became our prayer partners on this journey.
The world is suffering from global PTSD caused by the isolation imposed on them by the global governments. I learned of a person with a cognitive disability who died because of the isolation had cut him off from his former friendships. When I look at the numbers, I see people who died by suicide and also by opioids. Each death causes pain in the survivors of these individuals. So many of us want to bury our grief in hopes it would never rear it's ugly head. This never works and often resurfaces with each additional unforseen death. Like the illustration of the Onion, we must peel each layer of loss while working through the emotions of each loss. In the case of grieving children, there is evidence to suggest that children who do not grieve developed long standing cognitive problems in school along with systhemic problems leading to diabetes, depression and a host of other conditions.
There is some evidence to suggest that unresolved grief will lead to early death.
I'm excited about the grief share group starting next week at New Hope Church. To help people recover from their pain through the weekly workbook and video lessons energizes me. I remember the verse from the bible which essentially indicates the need is great, but the laborers are few and it is a reminder that whatever your spiritual gifts are are obligated to us them in some capacity. Instead of taking the easy way out by playing mind numbing games that deadens the soul, it is better to seek the Lord's guidance and get involved in a ministry such as, for example, grief share.
If you are someone who is grieving the loss of a spouse, a parent, a nephew or niece, or a grandparent, I encourage you to try grief share. God wants to heal us from our pain and the best way of doing that is to place one foot in front of the other and attend the same church you attended when your loved one was alive. The other thing you can do is sign up for grief share.
“Why is light given to those in misery,
and life to the bitter of soul,
21 to those who long for death that does not come,
who search for it more than for hidden treasure, Job 3
Lisa Marie Presley and Carrie Fisher both died from broken heart syndrome. Lisa Marie Presley's last instagram posting was about how she was destroyed by her son's suicide.' Carrie Fisher, daughter of Debbie Reynolds, also died from broken heart syndrome shortly after her mom's death.
In one interview of a middle age man who was diagnosed with broken heart syndrome he said that he thought he could keep his emotional pain under wraps until he was rushed to the hospital with a suspected heart attack. After tests were completed they concluded that his heart looked fine with the right ventricle of the heart taking a unusual shape- they concluded that the unusual stress of March 2020 created extreme stress.
One of the first things we tell newly bereaved people is to get yourself checked out by the doctor and to be sure to tell them that you just suffered a painful loss. It was at one appointment I had that the doctor shared with me about the loss of his brother when he was a child.
I wish this was the norm for people to share their pain with medical providers, but it isn't. So many of us would rather have the appearance that we're perfectly fine and able to cope with our problems. After all, we rationalized, I'm educated and able to cope with life's problems.
The problem with this thinking is it never works. People who do not open up about their losses often go down a dark pathway of abusing alcohol and drugs because it appears for the moment to be the only thing that controls their emotional pain. Unless this path is short circuited with a common sense intervention, or someone who is able to reach the person to convince them they have a problem, their lives may end in a untimely early death.
So what is the solution? Emotional pain from our losses needs to be processed and verbalized to others as often as it takes for healing to eventually to take place. I discovered this after the loss of my daughter, Maria, in June 2007. In the first year, my mind was filled with anger over what I preceived was someone else's fault. As the anger grew, I noticed my blood pressure and heart palpations increasing. I also noticed weight gain as I surrounded myself with unhealthy comfort food. Only when I was able to successfully move toward the forgiveness side of my emotions was I able to make the healthier choices for my life.
The other thing I did was I began seeing a Clinical Psychologist who was skilled with treating traumatic sudden losses who was able to get me to focus not so much on the person I lost, but on my loved ones who survived.
Finally, I started attending several sessions of Grief Share where I had a chance to share my pain with others without fear that I would be judged for not having enough faith.
So, broken heart syndrome does exist, but it can be fixed with openly sharing your pain with other trusted listeners.
Here are two resources I recommend to help you on your own unique grief journey. Griefshare.org Griefclubmn.org
The lack of emotion Prince Harry experienced after his mum's death is common for young boys.Harry was only 12 years old when he received the news that his mom, Pricess Diana died in a fiery crash in the tunnel. It was the news that no child should have to bare.He was only 12 when she died.He,of course, was in a state of shock when his father shared the news with him. He describes this shock that settled in over him in the days following the internationally broadcast funeral as emotional numbness with the inability to cry. Harry did say that he never shed a tear over his mom's death for several years.
We live in a culture where boys are expected to be tough and not cry. We often will tell them that boys don't cry, here have a cookie. We substitute food instead of encouraging boys are to cry. Harry suffered many years from the gut wrenching, mind numbing emotional pain that wouldn't end.
When he was 15, he resorted to drinking and doing drugs because his pain just wouldn't quit.
In my experience of listening to people's grief stories I discovered that each person has a choice to make after the sudden loss. The first would be face your emotions head on, one emotion at a time while using a journal or finding a trusted listener willing to listen to the your agony.
The other more destructive choice that is all too common is turning to hard liquor or drugs to deaden one's pain. The first choice leads to life and in time to a new normal; while the second choice only leads to complicated health problems that may lead the person to an early death.
We are fortunate to live in an era that includes many support groups to help those grieving losses. Back in our grandparents generation they didn't have these services which meant that alcohol and drugs were the go to method for coping. I tell people in our griefshare class that talking about your deceased loved one by remembering the stories you loved about that person is the best way of healing from your pain. So many of us are afraid to open up the door where our loved one slept. Sometimes a grieving person will go decades keeping that door closed.
It is only in facing one's emotions, one feeling at a time, that will help you recover from your pain. Visit those places you went to with your loved one even if it hurts because that very act will help you to create newer memories so that you have a reason for going back. Your loved one is gone, but you're still very much alive which means you still have a purpose for living. Go through the healing process and God will reveal to you what your purpose will be.
Since I started getting involved in helping run the Grief Share group through our church, I have felt a burden for our Children.I guess I felt this burden watching my son and daughter's classmates trying to recover from their losses after Maria died. I've watch many of these kids from afar suffering from the same trauma that our family had experience in those beginning days of our grief. I remember the school chaplin saying at the school assembly, "Not to worry about reaching out to the gabrielson's because their needs were being met by their local church. Never mind that my wife and son were closer to the teachers and students of this school by virtue of her working at the school. For the most part, adminstrators are afraid to down that dark rabbit hole of grief when one of their students dies.
With the exception of a few groups at the Children's hospital we haven't done enough to fully meet the needs of children and young adults after tragic losses of parents and siblings. There was this predominant thought that children have resiliance and they will recover just fine with the help of their classroom teachers.
However, the reality is that very few classroom professionals know how to help children experiencing sudden loss and I think many of them feel that as long as you not bring up the person that died and you keep the person busy in sports and other extra-curricular activities they will do just fine. This may seem fine on paper, but the reality is when the child goes home at night they are often confronted with the horrors of what happened to their sibling and or parent that died.
Many of these kids become addicted to mind numbing video games in an attempt to drown out the emotional pain that lingers in their neurological pathways. When they get older they find illicit substances like alcohol and drugs to replace that mind numbing pain.
The reality is these children need to have the freedom to talk about their pain and the memories of their brother or sister that died. It is when they learn how to process their pain that healing will happen
I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a person who just found out that your brother or sister died suddenly. You wake up several times a night from nightmares from reliving the events leading to their death. You have this endless gastro-intestinal hurt resulting from this emotional pain. Your brain is in such a mumble-jumble mess that you're unable to think properly on your class room homework. Your test taking skills become rusty and to your embarrassment you fail several tests in your class. You come home from school and the first thing you do is play your video games because it seems to work on numbing this pain. When you're in school, you feel like everyone has forgotten you had the sibling that died and it makes you feel alone and isolated, especially, when you see your friends talking and communicating with their siblines or doing things with their mom and dad.
We must learn how to connect with grieving children by giving them a safe place to share memories of their loved one. To the grieving child, those memories still linger in thier minds even after their sibling or parent is no longer with them. Grieving children need to hear their deceased sibling or parents name and they need to know that you remember them.
The Grief club of Minnesota is one organization that provides the free grief services to grieving families.
For anyone experiencing the emotional pain following loss, I encourage you to check out griefshare.
