Loneliness

05 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by Catherine Lawton in emotional needs, grief and loss, Guest Post, losing mom too soon, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Character shaped by trials, Emotional and spiritual healing, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Losing a spouse, Mother

photo by Tom Burke – Flickr

Loneliness. Life involves times of loss, times when we find ourselves alone with our memories. If you’ve lost a loved one—a mother or father, a spouse, or a child—you know that loneliness can wear at you and tear at you. This kind of loneliness is described in the guest post below, written by my father. He describes his feelings after my mother died.

In sorting through a box of old things, I recently came across this poem I wrote a few months after my first wife passed away.

~ ~

LONELINESS

~ ~

The edge of loneliness

Wears at me,

Tears at me,

Wearies me.

Memories of shared moments

Leave me with emptiness.

Laughter of the past

Echoes in the empty rooms of my empty heart.

Fires kindle momentarily

With love’s memory

Then subside

Like burned out coals upon the cold hearth.

A chill creeps over me

As winter winds blow gusty

Against my quavering soul.

Brown fallen leaves

Careen with death rattle along the street,

And my spirit dries and

Blows with them into the gutter.

I feel passed up, unwanted,

Unremembered, unloved.

~ ~ ~

About the same time I wrote this poem, I took a walk on a beach in Oregon near my home. I picked up a piece of driftwood in the shape of a whale. One side even had an “eye.” I took it home with me and wrote on a scrap of paper: “The fury of storm and tide has made me what I am.” And, “I am what I have had the good fortune of becoming.”

~ ~

I didn’t understand it right then, but much like the processes of water, wind and sand on that driftwood, the grief process was

re-shaping me. Perhaps the psalmist felt lonely and forsaken when he said, “Out of the depths have I cried unto You.” Then there’s Jonah in the darkness, helplessness, and isolation of the whale’s belly. When Jonah came out, he became one of the most successful preachers of all time. As a result of his ministry, a whole city repented and turned to God.

~ ~

Someone said, “When bad things happen to good people, they

become better people.” Of many an older saint it could be said,

“Once young and carefree, now buffeted into a work of art.”

~ ~

So what is your ocean, and what are you becoming? Sculptured by time and the elements, a thing of beauty? Then someday you can say, “The fury of storm and tide has made me what I am.”

~ ~

~G. H. Cummings

G.H. Cummings is a 92-year-old retired pastor and counselor. He is the author of Making It In Marriage : It’s Worth the Effort (Cladach, 2002). This post is excerpted from his e-book, I Was Just Thinking, available as a free download (pdf) here.

Holy Saturday

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's healing love, grief and loss, Jesus on the cross, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Easter, future hope, Holy Week, life and death, Pieta, Sadness

Detail from the Lutin Pieta (Wikimedia)

During Holy Saturday, between the crucifixion and the resurrection, a time of disappointment, waiting, uncertainty, sadness…. I am reminded of what to do with this “weight of sorrow,” these tears: bring them to Jesus …

See him kneeling in the garden, overwhelmed with sorrow, in anguished prayer and sweating drops of blood.
See him enduring the cruelest injustice, ridicule, and inflicted pain.
See him hanging on the cross agonizing, bleeding, and dying, because of my sins. … read more (What to do with sorrow)

Not Forsaken

12 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by Catherine Lawton in Adopted children, childhood memories, emotional needs, God as our parent, grief and loss, losing mom too soon, Remembering Mother, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Abandonment, Adoption, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Mother

Imogene-just-adopted

I watched an Irish movie that brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of my mother’s story. The movie was based on a true story of an impoverished family where the mother dies and the father runs off and doesn’t care of the children, who are taken into custody by the state and placed in orphanages.

The same thing happened to my mother and her siblings, only it wasn’t in Ireland. It was in Colorado. She was the age my littlest granddaughter is now—almost two years old—when she and her siblings were taken into custody by the Otero County Court. The judge declared them “neglected children” and wards of the state until age 21. Mother’s one sister and two brothers were sent to the Denver Children’s Home, but just in time a childless couple adopted her. And though she never saw her siblings again, she was raised by loving Christian parents and grew up to be a self-sacrificing, loving pastor’s wife. This is an old photo of her the day she was adopted. Her adoptive parents found her dirty and frightened.

Some things have come full circle. Since I moved back to Colorado, I have found Mother’s birth family. Our son, who is a lawyer, has done pro bono work representing neglected children who have no legal representation.

Though Mother has been gone from us over 38 years now, I never want to forget how God rescued a sad little girl whose mother had died of TB and whose father had run off to find work or something in that dust bowl era. I never want to take for granted the way God rescues us, provides for us, gives us people to love and be loved by.

I remember Mother smiling through tears of blessing as she sang, “A tent or a cottage, why should I care? They’re building a mansion for me over there. Though exiled from home, yet still I will sing, All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.”

~Catherine Lawton

Sorrow and Hope at Christmas

24 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in childhood memories, emotional needs, encouraging each other, family gatherings, losing mom too soon, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Christmas, Christmastime, future hope, hope, Jesus, life and death, Mary

An ornament I received the Christmas my mother died, that I hang on my tree every year.

Ah, Christmas! Bright lights, hustle and bustle, joyous music and celebrations….

Yet, hidden behind all the glitter, many people feel the pangs of sadness and loneliness more acutely during the Christmas season. If you have ever experienced a great loss at Christmastime, the holiday season awakens that grief again each year.

I know. My mother died on December 19, 1977. My father was the pastor of a loving church at the time, and the people were sweet to us, though they also grieved the death of their beloved pastor’s wife. Our family found comfort in togetherness—my husband and I with our two toddlers, my sister, and our dad. After the funeral, we stayed and spent Christmas in our parents’ home, with everything around us to remind us of Mother. … But no mother. She was not there and would never be again.

At a time when we celebrated the birth of Jesus who brought new life, we learned first-hand the awful separation and finality of death. The first night after she died, I lay awake in the guest bedroom listening to Daddy sobbing his heart out in the next room.

She was too young to die—in her forties. But she was gone.

We wanted the children—still toddlers—to have fun, not just sadness, so we borrowed little sleds and took them out to play in the snowy woods. In the fresh, crisp air we all laughed like children, a wonderful relief, and exactly what Mother would want for us. Maybe she saw us. Maybe she was laughing for joy with us.

Mother always infused Christmas with music, anticipation, beauty, delicious tastes and scents, warmth and surprises. She loved decorating the house and the church, preparing special music and programs for Christmas Sunday, often sewing new dresses for my sister and me, baking cookies, taking us Christmas shopping, and finding time to care for people who were sad and lonely.

Christmas Carolers, figurines that belonged to my mother.

I love Christmas, too, but everything about it reminds me of Mother and of my loss. Even after many years, the bright lights, the biting scent of pine and cinnamon, the taste of frosted sugar cookies and cider, the making of fudge and fruitcake, the singing of carols, the ringing of Christmas bells, the decorating of the tree, the excitement of gift giving—all is sweet sorrow.

Did sadness mix with joy for Mary, the mother of Jesus, when she carried her baby to the temple and heard Simeon prophesy her child’s death? He said, “A sword will pierce your own soul too” (Luke 2:35). Mary didn’t understand yet that Jesus’ death as well as his life would bring eternal joy in the heavens and cause his birth to be celebrated for centuries to come. But she would certainly experience heart-piercing sorrow and separation.

A paper nativity scene I treasure, that my mother used to display every Christmas when I was a child. – C.Lawton

Years later, as Mary watched Jesus die a tragic, painful death, did she despair? Or did the memory of the miracles surrounding his birth and life give her hope? Life won out. His death brought our spiritual birth.

Now we know, because of his birth, life and death, we can live—and celebrate Christmas—in the certainty that death will not have the final victory.

That Christmas day, six days after Mother died, our bereaved family celebrated together with gifts and festive food, scripture and prayer. Then we drove up a snowy hillside to a flower-covered grave site. The contrast of the red-rose-and-holly-covered grave to the icy, brown hills spoke to my warring emotions.

There, feeling the pain of death’s separation, I looked up into the evening sky and noticed the first star twinkling. Yes! Our hope still shown! The realities of pain, suffering, and death are inescapable. But they will be dissolved into everlasting life and joy because of the hope of Christmas.

~ Catherine Lawton

Compassion~ An Upside of Tragedy

19 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in encouraging each other, grief and loss, reach out and touch, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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giving and receiving, Gratitude, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Healing love, responding in disaster

Yesterday, a woman in a rural area of Northern California, where communities and farmers have been stricken by the devastating wildfires, shared her video of help arriving. I’m used to people sharing videos on Facebook, and I often scroll right past them. But when a dear friend posted this video on my wall yesterday, I was compelled to watch it, and my heart was touched on several levels.

The woman who recorded this video was expressing her amazement and thanks for the people from nearby North Lake County and Humboldt County (Fortuna, Ferndale and Eureka)— who caravaned over the hills, south and east to fire-striken Middletown, bringing truckloads of clothing, toiletries, pet food, farm animal feed, hay for horses and cattle, as well as farm equipment and relief workers. Watch the joyful arrival here:

My friend shared this with me because she knew my husband’s family has deep roots in the village of Ferndale and I lived during my youth in Fortuna (which was part of my story in Journeys to Mother Love). When my husband and I go back to visit that rugged and beautiful region, we are reminded of the resilience and strength of the people there who have suffered many natural disasters (extreme floods and earthquakes) as well as lasting economic downturns. Those folk know what it’s like to lose so much and be so grateful when help comes. Now they are jumping at the chance to give back.

Experiencing this generosity of spirit truly is an up side of going through such loss as the fire victims have. I relate to this partly because of my own experience as a young child when our house burned down in the night. We lost everything and were “homeless” and dependent on others for a while. But, in spite of the effects of the trauma of barely escaping from a burning house, I am thankful to have experienced the overwhelming outpouring of love and generosity, from the community and from area churches, toward our little family.

This personal video posted on Facebook (with a public setting) definitely touched a nerve with me. I know, there is always more to every story. And we may never know “the rest of the story” of this particular person who took the video. But we can have our hearts lifted by her very real and immediate response to compassionate help arriving on the scene of her need and the needs of her community. And that gives us a glimpse of the goodness that still exists in this world.

The sometimes-uncomfortable but inescapable fact is that compassion is often developed in extremely difficult situations and life experiences.

My prayer: “Lord, help me grow stronger in grace and compassion, more resilient and giving, as a result of the batterings of this life. Thank you for the surprises of help and encouragement you bring along the way.”

~Catherine Lawton

Healing Grace Like Gentle Rain

18 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Catherine Lawton in childhood memories, emotional needs, God's healing love, grief and loss, Inner healing ministry, losing mom too soon, mother wounds, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Christian spirituality, Emotional and spiritual healing, emotional wounds from childhood, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Healing love, Healing power of poetry, relationships

In Journeys to Mother Love I tell of how I lost my mother at a young age, and I hint at generational blessings as well as generational sins, “curses,” and weaknesses that needed breaking and healing.

When Mother died at age 48, and my dad went through his own bereavement and grief, it seemed the feelings from wounds he experienced as a boy threatened to overtake him again. A new grief will open past griefs and wounds that have been lying dormant but in need of deeper healing.

Feelings that came as a result of growing up with a mother who was beautiful and gentle but unable to show affection to her son, and an overbearing father whose domination turned to cruelty at times, resurfaced. During those months as a widower, my dad sought and experienced deeper healing by the Holy Spirit that gave him more freedom, joy, and wholeness, so he could move on in life and receive and share God’s love.

During that time, he was writing poems. In my experience, and others I know, poetry can be therapeutic and healing in many ways. I’ll share one of those poems here:

———————————————————————————————————————

The Gentle Life

~ ~ ~

The fine, soft, falling mist

soaks finally better than the deluge.

So the life tender and gentle

in love of God

has force in it

that gets through hardest soil

for lasting good—

better than

the mighty in the flesh.

–G.H. Cummings

~ ~ ~

~Catherine Lawton

Grief Came One Day

18 Sunday May 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's healing love, grief and loss, losing mom too soon, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Christian spirituality, Emotional and spiritual healing, Grief and loss, Healing love, life stages, life's upward path

My father and sister after Mother's burial

My father and sister after Mother’s grave

I’ve found it true for myself and for other people I know — that when we go through a period of grief and loss, the deep feelings that need expression may bubble to the surface in the form of poetry. This helps our hearts heal — and helps us minister to others in need of healing.

After my mother died, my dad started writing poetry. Losing Mother so young — she was 48 — was hard for me. But it was also devastating for my dad. Here’s a poem he wrote five months after Mother died. Maybe these lines will help someone going through their own deep grief and “dark night of the soul.”

GRIEF CAME ONE DAY

Grief came to visit me one day

And soon I found he’d come to stay.

He lived with me both day and night

Through darkest gloom and in the light.

He lay his hand upon my heart,

To bring it pain and tear apart.

He cast a shadow on my mind,

He put my reason in a bind.

My inner pain was so severe,

I thought, Could this just last a year?

God send sweet comfort to my soul;

I bid my heart His love extoll.

But still old Grief to me held on,

I hoped in comfort he’d be gone.

Sweet friends poured in affection’s balm.

Still on me was his clammy palm.

He walked along the path with me,

Such dubious, doubtful company.

At meals he took my appetite

And slept with me alone at night.

I longed for love ~ could it dispel

This hold on me so much like hell?

But how could I find love again

With heart and soul and mind in pain?

Will he some day depart from me,

God’s Presence give tranquility?

When will I end my walk with Grief,

And find at last a sweet relief?

I asked God, and He said to me,

“I sent him, for it had to be

To bring you through the purging fire

So that your life can all inspire.”

I said, “O Lord, your way is best;

In your own time you’ll give me rest.”

~ © George Herbert Cummings

My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

19 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's healing love, grief and loss, Jesus on the cross, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Emotional and spiritual healing, future hope, God the Father, Healing love

I have felt forsaken, especially at specific times in my youth. During this Holy Week it really does something for me to know that Jesus also felt forsaken. What this means for all of us who have suffered and felt abandoned, writer Jasona Brown expresses well:

The Deepest Love

I agreed to speak on these words at our church’s Good Friday service. Then I thought, What have I done? I now must teach on the worst words in the entire Bible?

Jesus cried these words moments before his death, not long before he screamed, gave up his spirit, and died.

Exposure and Vulnerability

The Romans stripped Jesus of his clothes, exposing his body; they stripped him of his skin by scourging, exposing his sinews and muscles; but with these words, Jesus himself exposed his heart, laying it bare and raw before the human race. He could not have made himself more vulnerable.

So, I move forward with trembling. How can I presume to speak of the mystery of this most excruciating, vulnerable moment in my savior’s life?

Joy Under Despair

I must speak, however, not only because I said I would, but because the longer I sit with these words the…

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When Mother Love Must Be Tough Love

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Catherine Lawton in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, God's healing love, rejecting lies, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Family, Finding our identity, Mothering, Women's Issues

A mother’s love may be tested and tried almost beyond endurance, until it has the opportunity to shine like gold refined in a furnace.

Such is the case with the mother described in the novel, Water Under the Bridge, by Verna Simms (Verna is also a contributor to the book, Journeys to Mother Love and this blog.)

Verna’s novel surprised me with its vivid characters and setting and its powerful themes. If you have read Verna’s short memoir in the Journeys to Mother Love, this novel will provide background that will give you even more appreciation for Verna’s personal story. While Water Under the Bridge is fiction, it is based on Verna’s experience as a child. I am sure the wonderful main character of the story, a nine-year-old girl named Amelia, is very much like our Verna was as a child.

What was it like in the early 20th Century, when a father converted to Mormonism, sold the farm in Missouri and moved his family to the dry desert of Arizona, where he found freedom to embrace the teaching of polygamy? As the family struggled to make ends meet during the Great Depression, what was it like for the wife and children to have their husband and father bring into their home young wives no older than his eldest children? What was it like for the young daughter to deal with conflicting feelings of love for her family, normal experiences of growing up, and yet increasing disappointment and disdain for her father … and finally fear for her own future as she overhears what her father has planned for her?!

Where should the wife and mother’s loyalties lie?

An unusual and profound story! In places it is, perhaps, not for the faint of heart. But if you read it (and it is available in both paperback and Kindle) you will be rewarded with a great read, an engrossing story, and a beautiful picture of tough mother love!

What? You Can’t Stop Crying

08 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by arcecil in challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, God's healing love, grief and loss, letting go of anger, reach out and touch, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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a heart filled with love and hope, Emotional and spiritual healing, life stages, life's upward path, Mothering, Women's Issues

WHAT? YOU CAN’T STOP CRYING

What? You can’t stop crying.
I hear you. Been there.
You say you left your grocery cart in frozen foods.
You’re telling me it was loaded with food
and every kind of whatnot
from all the other aisles,
And then you hightailed it to your car.
There you hid behind sunglasses and drove home.
Did you remember to wipe your fingerprints
off the handle of the loaded, abandoned cart
in frozen foods?
Just kidding.

You complain you couldn’t sleep because your slumber
was interrupted by the need to blow your nose.
David of the Old Testament cried on his bed.
See, we are in good company.

Let’s look at the list of life’s events that can trigger
such an avalanche of emotion.
Just check the one that fits, or mark “Other”
at the bottom.

All right, here we go.
You poured your life into the children.
All the children left home.
The empty nest doesn’t feel as good as you thought it would.

You lost your job.
You’re too old to be hired.
You’re not sure whether this reinventing is right for you.

You moved your mother into a nursing home.
You tried to manage Mom at home.
You moved your mother back into the home.

There is an injustice in your life.
You try to think of ways to address it.
Every idea leads to a dead end.
You choose to remain silent.

You have just received a bad diagnosis.
Many well-intentioned people are offering suggestions.

Someone who is dear to you is very ill.
That loved one says, “Just sit with me.”

An important person in your life passes away.

Other.

Listen, if you weren’t crying, I’d be worried about you.
I sympathize with you.
God empathizes with you.
That’s the reason He included people
like Joseph, David, Job, and Paul in His Book.
Think about them; think about the Lord; and think about me.
And, in the near future,
you’ll be able to leave your empty cart in the corral,
go home, store the perishables in the refrigerator,
and then sit on the sofa and have a good cry.
Now, that will be progress. That will be hope.

~ A.R. (Alice) Cecil

Editor’s note: This poem is taken from the book, IN THAT PLACE CALLED DAY: Poems and Reflections That Witness God’s Love.

Sorrow and Hope at Christmas

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in God's healing love, grief and loss, losing mom too soon, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Christian spirituality, Christmas, Emotional and spiritual healing, Family, future hope, God's promises, Holidays, life and death, life stages, Mother, relationships

Journeys To Mother Love

Ah, Christmas! Bright lights, hustle and bustle, joyous music and celebrations….

At a time when we celebrated the birth…

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A Grief That Can’t be Spoken

02 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by ardisanelson in challenges of motherhood, God's healing love, grief and loss, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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future hope, Grief Loss and Bereavement, Healing love, John F Kennedy, life and death

Rose Kennedy, holding Joe Jr., presumably prior to 1921. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

President John F. Kennedy and his mother, Rose (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When my birthday rolled around this year on November 22, I was reminded again of the significance of that day in history. It was on my fourth birthday in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and I remember it well.

I hadn’t heard the word “assassinate” before that day. The sorrow that gripped my family also gripped the nation. I didn’t like it. I wanted it to go away. But every day the television was awash in news stories as the nation prepared to bury our president.

Four days in history. Four days in mourning. Four days that shook our nation and the world, now commemorated 50 years ago.

My birthday link to the Kennedys left me with a fascination for this public family. I collected books and commemorative magazines over the years. The grief of the nation and the grief of the Kennedy family didn’t end with JFK’s death. Less than five years later we witnessed another horrific Kennedy assassination when Bobby Kennedy, JFK’s brother, was killed. Our nation grieved with the passing of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, JFK’s widow, in 1994. Then in 1999, the unthinkable happened when JFK, Jr. died in a tragic plane crash over the Atlantic. More sorrow. More grief.

There’s a song in Les Miserable called “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” that Marius, the sole survivor of the student revolt, sings after the heart-breaking massacre of all his friends. Two lines of that song stand out to me and aptly describe the grief of our nation. “There’s a grief that can’t be spoken. There’s a pain goes on and on.” Haunting words in his unfathomable predicament—fighting his guilt while also embracing the newfound love of his soon to be bride, Cosette.

These words ring true to me as I think of the Kennedy family and their grief. How does a mother like Rose Kennedy live with the grief of losing two sons to the bullet of an assassin? She had already lost two of her nine children to tragic plane crashes in the 1940s. Surely this was “a grief that can’t be spoken.” Yet she survived and lived to a ripe old age of 104.

It takes an amazing amount of faith and perseverance to endure that kind of loss. As mothers we feel the pain of our children’s hurts and disappointments—from the pain of a scraped knee to the hurt and rejection of bullying words voiced in school. But we were never meant to watch our children precede us in death.

Thankfully I’ve never experienced that kind of grief. I can only provide prayer, compassion, and sympathy to those who have. Like Rose Kennedy, whose faith got her through the pain and heartache shared by the nation, we can turn to the God of all comfort when life turns tragically wrong and we enter into a season with “a grief that can’t be spoken.”

“For no one is cast off by the Lord forever.Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.” (Lamentations 3:31-33, NIV)

~ Ardis A. Nelson

God Had a Plan!

13 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in challenges of motherhood, encouraging each other, God's healing love, leaving a legacy, reach out and touch, the healing journey, Uncategorized, when tragedy hits

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Christian author, Christmas, Christmas stories, Emotional and spiritual healing, Family, life stages, life's upward path, mentors, personal and spiritual growth

The Lord took Alice’s artistic ability, love of the Bible and interest in people, and her life experiences, and He turned it all into a ministry of encouragement through her creative writing.

A.R. (Alice) Cecil, one of our Journeys contributors, always enjoyed the arts. As a child, she put on plays in the basement. As a university student, she earned a masters degree in Fine Art doing studio painting. But God had another plan! Alice says that, as a young adult, the visual arts gave her a way to express ideas and emotions. She adds, “I did not have enough life experience and maturity to be a writer. My journey from painter to Christian writer could have only been orchestrated by God.”

When Alice and her husband, Joe (a well-known physician at Baptist East Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky), started a family, Alice read to her young children often. And she came to appreciate children’s literature so much that she was soon writing her own children’s books and illustrating them. Gradually, though, the bits of text that ran across the pages of those picture books grew and grew until she was writing full-length stories.

Then, 26 years ago, after their fourth child was born with cancer, Alice and Joe came to personal faith in Christ. The Lord brought a new focus to their lives.

After her conversion, as Alice grew as a Christian and as a writer, she wanted to incorporate the truths of the Bible into her writing. She hungered to better understand both theology and human nature. Alice lists several Christian writers who greatly influenced her during this time: Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Watchman Nee, Oswald Chambers, and C.S. Lewis. She also sought out mentors: a Christian psychologist and a seminary student earning his doctorate.

A strong desire grew within her to minister within the body of Christ through her writing. For a while she wrote a newspaper column. Then in 2012 her short memoir, “Run, Run, as Fast as You Can,” was published in the anthology, Journeys to Mother Love: Nine Women Tell their Stories of Forgiveness & Healing. This story tells Alice’s testimony of the relational challenges in her childhood as well as the sorrows that led a young mother to turn to Christ.

Alice has raised her four children and now has four grandchildren as well. Through all my communications with her she exudes joy and peace and patience (the fruit of the Spirit). And her writing demonstrates these fruits. This fall, her book of Christmas stories was released by Cladach Publishing, entitled That Was the Best Christmas!: 25 Short Stories from the Generations. Asked where she gets the ideas for her fascinating variety of characters, plots, and settings, Alice states that they develop from her desire to address certain aspects of the human condition with God as the answer. An endorsement from Judy Russell states it well: “A.R. (Alice) Cecil has a real gift to inspire and tug at heartstrings. Young and old will be inspired and enjoy.”

Each of the Christmas stories is set amidst historic events that take place during the years progressing from 1906 to 2013. The main character of each story is a boy or girl, man or woman whose heart opens to give or receive love, bringing personal transformation as they find opportunities to exchange the true gifts of Christmas, such as kindness, encouragement, forgiveness, peace, hope, and belonging. Alice (A.R. Cecil is her pen name) writes with a touch of humor and a warm understanding of both human relationships and the transforming power of God and His Word. That Was the Best Christmas! by A.R. Cecil is available in The Living Word bookstore in Louisville as well as through select stores across the country and online retailers. The paperback can be purchased at Amazon.com and BN.com. You can also read it in Kindle version.

To read Alice’s (A.R. Cecil’s) writing is to feel her heart and to be refreshed in faith and the joy of the journey.

~ Catherine

p.s. I based much of this post on Alice’s answers to interview questions I sent her. You’ll hear from Alice herself here soon, as she is preparing to post her personal testimony.

Light Shining into the Darkness

08 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Catherine Lawton in challenges of motherhood, childhood memories, emotional needs, grief and loss, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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authentic relationship, Books, Courage to be honest, Death, Emotional and spiritual healing, future hope, Mother, mother and daughter, relationships

In relationships between husband and wife, father and daughter, mother and child, it can come as a shock to realize that—though we love and are loved—though we share a bond that unites us—we are each of us separate, individual, sometimes even, painfully, alone. Most of the time we seek and find comfort and consolation in the knowledge that the other is there, or will be there, and we aren’t alone. But if you have ever lost a close loved one to death then you know the feeling of finality, separation, other-ness, of no-more-ness that can choke the consolation out of your being.

This feeling is described well in the new novel, Gadly Plain by J. Michael Dew. The 12-year-old girl named Spring-baby loses her father to death and emotionally she falls into a chasm of sadness that “bullies her, keeps her wilted, sober.” At least she shares grief with her mother. But then her mother abandons her (because “Mom needs time for Mom”).

When the author was nine years old his own father got sick and died. The story of Gadly Plain is his artistic expression of his own inexplicable trauma and the answers he found after many years of searching for meaning in the whole experience of human history, personal life and death.

Mr. Dew is a believer and the creative vision he shares in this imaginative story is honest about human weakness and suffering, but rooted in truth and hope. The book begins with a quote: “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse whose rider is called Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11).

The story itself is as earthy as a body in a casket, a girl in a tree, a donkey in a pasture, hay in a barn, an old lady smoking in a bathroom, a young woman driving aimlessly across the countryside, and a faithful farm hand giving a reassuring hug.

I challenge you, as a mother or a daughter, to face your own aloneness, watch and listen for the messengers the Lord of hope may be sending to you; and to help you do that, read the book Gadly Plain: A Novel.

~Catherine Lawton

God Knows the Desires Of Your Heart

11 Saturday May 2013

Posted by kyleen228 in Adopted children, challenges of motherhood, confessing our need, emotional needs, encouraging each other, expectations, feeling inadequate, God's healing love, the healing journey, when tragedy hits

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Adoption, Mother's Day

As an adoptive mom, Mother’s Day brings many emotions. For years before my husband and I adopted children, I dreaded Mother’s Day. It reminded me of what I wanted and did not have. Even now, 8 years since we adopted our first child, I can still remember those feelings with surprising freshness. Infertility or barrenness is a difficult road to walk. Most young women assume motherhood will be a part of their life experience. When God has other plans, the shock and despair can be overwhelming. Given this, I thought it might be helpful to share how God helped me navigate this emotional mine field.

After my cancer and hysterectomy, I considered many options and struggled with much fear. My husband and I discussed surrogacy, adoption, foster care, and remaining childless. Many well-meaning friends tried to convince me that not having kids wasn’t such a bad thing, especially my friends with teenagers. Their warnings fell on deaf ears, however. I knew that my life would simply not be complete without children.

Four years later, with considerable pain, after deciding on adoption and still being without a child, I finally had to ask the question I dreaded: “Lord, do you not want me to have children?” What if He said “yes”? How could I reframe my life into a world that didn’t include children? It seemed impossible to me. And yet, I still had to ask. What I heard that day began to change my perspectives. In a still, small voice within my heart I heard, “Wait upon me and I will give you the desires of your heart.”

Wait….. Okay Lord, but isn’t that what I have been doing? Four years of waiting is a long time. What am I waiting for? Or better yet, what are YOU waiting for? Are you waiting on me?

Then one day God led me to 1 Samuel 1:1-20 and the story of Hannah. Barren and brokenhearted, Hannah was blinded by her grief. She had the love of her husband, his preference, in fact, over his other wife Penninnah who had given him children. Indeed, one day when Hannah was weeping, her husband asked her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than 10 sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8). Hannah’s despair over being childless kept her from enjoying the blessings God had given her.

I realized I had been like Hannah, so consumed over the desire to be a mother that the sadness over what I wanted and did not have kept me from enjoying the good in my life, and there was so much good! I realized I had to surrender my will to God, believing his promise that if he chose not to make me a mother, he would fulfill the desires of my heart some other way. I started to see how God could provide spiritual children, a ministry, a career or so many other things that would fulfill my heart. I just needed to trust Him with my hopes and dreams.

Not long after that, the call finally came and a few months later we brought home a beautiful baby girl. I think God had been waiting for me to take that leap of faith and let go of my plans for my life. So if this Mother’s Day brings the pain of childlessness, let me encourage you to trust God with the desires of your heart. He may choose to bless you with children or He may choose to bless you in other ways. He made your heart and put your deepest desires there. He knows what will make you truly happy.

~ Kyleen Stevenson-Braxton