kinsiekins photo flickr

We all make mistakes and make choices or decisions that take us away from our center occasionally. We ruminate over our mistakes and we beat ourselves up for them much too much, when we are far better served to use our energy toward creating healing in our life  and improved choices in our future. At times we do the very best we can and we still make mistakes, that’s natural, we are human. We sometimes make mistakes out of fear, out of impulsiveness and sometimes just an error in judgement when we couldn’t read a situation clearly.

Mistakes are moments, we can’t always change the direct impact of our mistake but we can certainly take another positive route from that place. We can create good from mistakes, what we learn from we use in future situations and at times our own mistakes allow us to understand another better. There are moments of forgiveness of self and of others for each of us. When we hurt another or another hurts us it isn’t always easy to reach a place of forgiveness, though it’s best for our own healing when we reach out for that place of peace and release ourselves from that pain. Forgiveness allows us to move forward with an open and healed heart.

On most occasions people hurt us without really realizing how deeply their behavior or their actions impact us. They are seeing situations through their own eyes, not ours. Many times it’s in hind sight that they begin to realize the real impact their actions had on us. I work hard to forgive the actions of others, that have impacted and damaged my spirit and heart. At times it’s not easy, at times I”ve wanted to lash out like anyone in my moments of deepest pain and grief. At times I have been physically sick from the pain of loss and the hurt caused by another. There is a time of healing, of mending of the spirit, a time when only the love of God can work within us to help us to move through the pain and reach the other side to understand the fear or the pain or the frustration or inconsideration that drove their actions in the first place.

It doesn’t make their action right. Healing simply brings is a sense of understanding that they were  in pain or uncertainty and their choices were self defeating and that we must simply step back and allow them to live through their choices and find their own way. We can request God watch over them, we can ask that they be surrounded and supported in their lives. From there we step away and release them, forgiving them and beginning  to find our own sense of calm, knowing we did all we could do within the situation.

I find many times that things come full circle. We are given opportunities and moments to bring peace to relationships, families, and friendships when we keep our hearts open and we allow the space for others to step forward in their own way and make peace. Forgiving and making peace, doesn’t mean forgetting or allowing ourselves to be stepped on again. It means allowing the love of God to work through us, in it’s own way and beginning anew, remembering what we experienced, learning from it, and creating a new bond one day at a time, one word at a time, one message at a time. It’s allowing God to heal us, to heal a situation, to heal a heart. It’s remaining open even when we don’t understand fully what God’s plan is. It’s trusting God to lead us, to guide our life and to guide our heart peacefully so that something broken can be rebuilt.

Photo Credit: Lisa Overman

We all have moments, weeks and years in our lives when pain, grief and loss overcome us. We move through our losses at the pace our hearts allow. For some healing comes more quickly than for others, there is no right or wrong when a heart is healing. The statement “Time Heals” was on my mom’s nurse tee shirt and I have found that to be true in my own life, with my own losses.

At times there is nothing we can to do help another heal besides offer our love and support. At times our love and support will be turned away, as our friends or loved ones grapple with their pain, loss and scars in their own way. I can attest that it is frustrating beyond belief to watch someone you love turn away from your love and your support because they are in pain and can’t open their hearts fully. 

In those times there is nothing more to do than step back and allow God to touch their life and help them to heal. There is only so much any of us can offer and if we are turned away then we release them, knowing we did everything we could. We gave our support and our love freely and there is nothing more to be done. In their deepest pain only God can guide our friends and loved ones who need to heal.

Healing takes place as each person is ready for it. For some it’s a dark, scary, painful, path. I know, I’ve walked that path several times over in losing my parents, my daughter and so many friends and relatives to death. I walked it as my marriage ended. There is no easy way down that path, it is a path that we walk with God, without even knowing it. We are supported and loved even in our darkest pain and deepest grief, even when we don’t feel it, and long for support. The hardest part of having walked that path is knowing I can’t take away another’s pain or fear. Those are things that have to happen within each of us, we have to willingly open our heart again and take a chance to love, even when we feel our lives have been destroyed by the pain love caused.

There is no easy path through the pain of watching your marriage end, watching the one you love walk away and go to another. I know, I watched it happen in my own life. I watched my husband walk away six months after our daughter died, moving in with another woman. In that same time period my grandfather whom I adored died and just months later my aunt was killed by a drunk driver.
It was truly the year from hell. I don’t know how my family and I made it through that darkness; but we did.

I went on to love again, to love more deeply and to love more passionately because then I understood how quickly loss can come and how precious each day with those we love is. Life can end in a instant and goodbyes don’t always come. I know that first hand. So now I live generously, with passion and with a grateful heart for everyone in my life. It isn’t always easy and sometimes I get slapped with pain and loss again, but I know God is always there and I will always be supported and guided.

There is nothing we can do but share our hearts with love, with those we treasure. When those we love walk away, as they sometimes do we can only pray that if they are meant to be a part of our lives that God will heal their hearts and heal ours too. Healing comes as we are ready to accept it. Sometimes we fight it, we struggle in every way to go against it because we are so deeply in pain and fear. In those darkest times, I pray that God’s support will be felt by those I love, and by those you love too. All we can do is pray that healing comes on angels wings and those we love find joy, peace and love again. There is nothing more we can ask. Love heals

Mocking Bird Family By Mjmyap Flickr

Tuesday night I was sitting at the table with my bedtime glass of milk and a book. It was about 11 PM. I became aware of a mockingbird outside my window in the cedar tree just singing its heart out. The song was incredibly beautiful and I silently blessed this bird for giving me so much pleasure.

About 4 AM I got up to go to the bathroom and the little bird was still singing. When I awakened in the morning the bird was silent. I think God knows that nights are sometimes very tough for me and so he sends me a mockingbird to help me through the darkness.

Last night at 1 AM I again was sitting at the table with my glass of milk and book and outside the window was the glorious song of the mockingbird. I don’t really know why it sings all night long but I do know that the song was given to me by a loving God who gives me hope for the future and calm for the present. I am truly blessed.

Photo By Fiancailles Flickr

It doesn’t mean we wont lose our job or suffer loss, we very well may, just as I did. My belief and trust in God didn’t keep my parents from dying of cancer. What it did do is give me the strength to survive, to move through the worst pain I’d ever experienced in my life. There were hours and days when my life seemed too painful to go on. The pain of my mother’s loss was debilitating, devestating and I couldn’t even pick up the pieces. Death felt in those moments preferable to the intense pain of grief and loss I was feeling.

Losing our sense of security in the world, a job for many, my mother for me, often feels like the end of the world; and it is the end of the world we’ve been living. Our sense of protection and security is stripped away. We are left vulnerable, exposed and wondering how we can possibly go on, how we will support ourselves. Who will be there for us in our darkest hours?

At first it seems as if no one is there. It feels as if we’ve been abandoned, at least it did for me. The spirit of God is always with us, sometimes our pain is simply so deep we can’t even comprehend that we have support. I certainly couldn’t. My perception has deepened and today I realize in my darkest pain I was supported and you will be too. It may not be evident at all times but in small moments, in calm silence it will show its self and I pray you will realize you are supported.

Indian Shores Beach Gratitude By: Lisa Overman

It would just be words that are meaningless if people thought I had no similar experiences in my own life of this struggle in our trying financial times. I have been juggling the bills of these two houses for two years, alone. The moments of fear, anxiety and stress have been great. But my determination to find a way through the dark moments brought me to a place of grace and gratitude, where I realized my focus on gratitude was making a shift in my life. It can certainly make a difference in the lives of others in similar situations. No, it doesn’t happen over night. It is not a magic bullet to make all our problems go away. What it is, is a gentle shift in our thinking, our experiences, when we realize even in the struggles that we have things to be grateful for.

Okay, I admit there are moments when I’m not in gratitude, when I’m in fear. There are moments when the anxiety overcomes me and I feel like I can’t breathe from the stress. What gratitude has shown me is that I can shift my life with a grateful attitude. It has brought a gentle flow of abundance to my life. Several times now money has flowed to me that I needed greatly at that time. It doesn’t happen every time, and no matter how great or how small the abundance that comes, I focus my energy and my prayers saying thank you to spirit for providing each gift of abundance. I repeat my thanks and I find it shifts both my mood and my experience. I feel more uplifted living like this. I also find more blessed moments coming my way and find myself focused much more in an attitude of gratitude.

Faith Charity Flights is currently working to raise money for their air ambulance and to become certified with the state of Florida. They are seeking volunteers for their air ambulance flights. On their website you’ll find a page for potential volunteers to leave their name and personal information so that Faith Charity Flights can reach those interested in this voluteer opportunity.

If you would like to donate to Faith Charity Flights USA click on this link to find their donation page.
Having seen first hand a family member face cancer treatment and seeing another dying before treatment could begin I understand deeply the importance of what this organization is trying to do. They are working to create a means for those without the means to receive necessary medically assisted flights for care and treatment. Who among us wouldn’t wish for the opportunity to make a member of our own family more comfortable by having the support of a charity organization to ease the financial burden that long term illness often brings. Consider making a donation to this worthy cause and share their website with others who might also consider donating. Every drop makes a ripple and every ripple produces a change.

Good Morning Dareha Photo

Dareha Photo

Refocusing through the day in gratitude is an essential part of the plan. This helps shift your mind away from scattered thoughts to thinking beautiful thoughts for each situation and thing you give thanks for and allows you to hold gratitude in your mind. This is clarifying. Gratitude is an attitude, it shifts your energy, it opens you to new things.

Right now the challenges of my life are great, but I know spirit is greater and I know that the work that I have done, the open channel I have provided and the efforts of my writing and following spiritual guidance are being acknowledged and will be rewarded. I know spirit put me on this path of writer and healer for a reason. God knew that I would follow my heart, share my story and in the process inspire others to begin looking at their own pain and grief. This is not an easy path, it isn’t easy to pour out your heart for all to see. To write and detail the mistakes you make, the misteps you take. I had to move past all that and realize the greater good in my honesty, in my compassion and know that it would be through both that I could begin to inspire healing in others.

There are moments still when I am touched with fear, with indecision, with pain. I have learned to move through those moments, to accept the feelings and allow them to disappate naturally. I do not allow them to take over, I cry, I pray, I meditate and I write. I allow my spirit to take control and those moments become less and the pain begins to disappear. This week in the midst of my personal challenges I have been reminded twice through a quote that this is my time to surrender. I have done the work, I have expended the effort, now it is time to allow spirit to unfold the blessings and release my concerns and my doubt.

I am a writer, I touch people through my experiences, my truth and the words that spirit guides my fingers to put on this page. The words only come through me, spirit guides my message. This is not the writing I wanted to do long ago, it is the writing that spirit determined I would do. It pleases me today, but there have been many days it did not. I wanted to write romance novels or travelogues. I wanted the exotic and romantic. Instead I got heartwrenching, emotionally draining pieces to write on my grief, on the depths of my pain. I understand now that my peace and inner strength come from what I have faced, what I have healed and I am happy today. I am grateful for this gift, the words spirit provides me to share with others. I’m my happiest self writing and touching lives with this gift. I am grateful every day for my life, for my writing and for the gift of those I treasure in my life. It is a matter of surrendering and allowing spirit to drive your life. You can fight it, you can struggle against it. But eventually surrender is the only answer that makes sense. Your life becomes joyful and your work becomes nourishing to your soul. It isn’t easy, but it’s worth the discomfort. Surrender and discover what spirit has in store.

Reverend Dee Jay recommended starting our 2009 affirmations with I am. For example, I am healed, and I have good health. I am abundant and I am creating greater abundance with my writing. I am creating a workshop to help others in grief begin to work through the healing process.

Writing my affirmations and listing the things I want to release gives me clarity and reminds me how far I have come from the moment I found Harmony back in the spring of 2006. Harmony is my spiritual home, it’s the place that reminds me I’m responsible to create the life I want and to be grateful every day for the gifts spirit provides. Thank you Reverend Dee Jay and Harmony for creating a healing, loving spiritual home for all of us. I love being a part of Harmony.

Mom worked for the stock market all of her adult life and knew the business backwards and forwards. She loved her work and didn’t want to retire when she turned 65. However, she was forced to retire at 70. She hated retirement. Mom needed to be busy. She started volunteering at church and at Boyd Hill Nature Park. She took care of her grandchildren, she took care of her daughters.

She loved animals and always had one dog and 1-2 cats around. After Mom retired she went for a long walk every morning and evening. One morning she was out in Lakewood Estates walking her beloved bassett hound, Beauregard and found a buff colored chicken in some bushes. She rushed home, got out the cat carrier and drove her car back to where she had found the chicken. She managed to catch the it, put it in the carrier and took it home. Clucky lived in Mom’s back yard for many years and rewarded Mom with an egg almost every day.

As Mom aged she became more frail but remained undaunted by the tasks at hand. She had her first fracture when she was up on a kitchen chair dusting the top of her refrigerator. The chair tipped over and she fell breaking her hip. “Nobody dusts the top of their refrigerator”, exclaimed the paramedic who came to take her to the hospital. “I do”, she announced firmly.

The anesthesia from that surgery took its toll on her memory. Her next fall came when she and Beauregard were running, yes I said running, home from my house. She tripped over something on the sidewalk and broke her pelvis. Another trip to the hospital but fortunately no surgery this time because the break was non displaced. Unfortunately, she took another fall before the break healed and it had displaced. Due to her age, surgery was declined. This fall took more of her and she was in pain a lot of the time.

When she got home from the hospital, Mom was not eating well, could not take care of her house and was quite forgetful. The family decided it was time for assisted living. September 2000 she and Beauregard moved to a villa at Westminster Shores, mostly against her will. She still felt she could take care of herself, drive her car and stay independent. I will never forget the look on her face when we left her there that first night. I felt I had betrayed her.

Almost every Tuesday and Thursday Mom and I went to the thrift stores. She could buy a bushel basket full of nice stuff and spend less than $20. Then we would head to McDonalds for a hamburger and strawberry milk shake. Saturdays were yard sale days in the neighborhood. After tromping through neighbors yards looking for treasures, I sometimes had lunch with her at Westminster.

After she had adjusted to the move, she started creating a garden of flowers outside her villa. Every few weeks I took her to the Willow Tree Nursery to pick up more flowers. The garden grew from a little plot of posies to a large area of riotous color all along the side of her villa. How she loved that garden. Other residents walked down the alley just so they could admire her work.

In March 2006, due to finances, Mom went to live with Linda who had moved to Georgia shortly after Mom went to Westminster. At first we talked on the phone frequently. After her short term memory was gone, and conversation on Mom’s part became sparse, Melissa would call me every Thursday morning on her speaker phone so I could talk to Mom. I read her children’s books by Stephen Cosgrove. They were delightful and each story had a moral and a happy ending. Mom seemed to loved them.

Melissa had called the Methodist minister and asked him to come for a visit. Tuesday November 18, he came by and talked with Mom, read her Bible verses and prayed with her. From that visit on she stopped crying all the time and became very peaceful.

Thursday, the day before she died, Missy called to tell me that Granny was unresponsive and could not talk on the phone. She said the doctor told them it would be only a matter of days. That night I asked God to give her peace but to please let her come tell me goodbye when she left this world.

Early Friday morning, I was sound asleep when suddenly, from outside my bedroom door, my vacuum cleaner turned on and then off. I sat up in bed looking out to see who had turned it on. There was no one. I looked at the clock and it was 650 AM. Too early to get up so I went back to sleep.

At 730 Melissa called to tell me that Granny had passed on peacefully. I talked to Linda and asked her what time Mom had died. Ten to 7 Linda told me. I held my breathe for a moment and realized that Mom had come to say goodbye.

I will always miss her terribly but I know she is in a better place, whole and happy and walking Beauregard through the gardens of Heaven. I love you Mom. See you at the house.

Born 5-16-14 – Died 11-21-08 – Memorial 12-13-08