23. God is a friend for all seasons. How do you most need Him to help you this week? To give you new perspectives? To help you grow and mature? To support you through change? To encourage you to "shut down" and be still? This week. This week my living daughter turns two. I not only feel like I lost a son, but I have also lost the carefree feeling of raising Wendy. I worry a lot more, and I was already a worrier. God help me be brave! Help me raise brave children!
24. How does God want you to respond to others who are grieving? I believe that God is calling me to start a grief group and lead others to His healing.
25. How are you pouring out to others daily? I hope to pour into my husband and daughter. I want to be a pourer and not a dumper.
God tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. How are you demonstrating self-love? I think I have a hard time loving myself and that may make it harder for me to love others.
How do you know if your emotional pitcher is empty? I become short tempered and depressed.
Make a list of specific ways that you or others can fill your pitcher. Time to read, watching a show, a Diet Mountain Dew, snuggling with my family.
26. Jesus is the One who transforms lives. In what area(s) of your life physically, psychologically, socially, or spiritually has He transformed you the most through your loss? Spiritually.
In what area do you still need to seek His hope? Physically and socially.
What plans do you sense God may have for you in the future? I think God wants me to help people with grief and to lead them to Him. I think He has more children in my future.
27. imagine you are the person Jesus approaches and ask. "Do you want to get well?" how will you respond to Him? Show me how, be patient with me, I am scared.
What excuses have paralyzed you from walking into the future? Fear of failure, rejection.
Maybe it's time to get up and walk into your future! What steps can you take to start? I'm talked to our pastor about starting a grief group, we've been to the doctor to make sure we could try again.
28. Is your past holding you captive from the future? If so, how? Maybe not with the loss of Murphy, but the death of my father.
It what ways can you allow Him to hold your hand? In what ways can you allow others to hold your hand? I need to allow God to hold my hand in making me feel confident. Others can hold my hand by reassuring me and not questioning or doubting me, which causes my low self-esteem.
29. Share about your painting for each of the stages of your journey: Hiding, Suffering, Questioning, Forgiving, Relating, and Seeking. Hiding would be a painting of me alone in a room where my loved ones are waiting on the other side of the door. Suffering would be a painting of a sea full of raging waves that represent the emotions that keep knocking me off my feet. Questioning would be a painting of a blank canvas, I felt as if I has no answers and felt so empty. Forgiving would be a painting of the sun rising on a new day, fresh and radiant. Relating would be a painting of two hands interlocked representing the love that has bloomed from tragic strength. Seeking would be a painting of a gardener looking through her garden hopeful for her fruit.
30. How can someone before you in grief guide you in your journey? Our pastor and his wife have shared their loss with us and made us understand there is no "normal".
Who are the people beside you? There are many women who have come along the way and shared "I am here with you."
Who are the people behind you that you could help? I want to start a grief group for couples in our county.
31. What do you most look forward to about heaven? Spending eternity with my loved ones.
What questions will you finally have answers to? The path of my life.
How has your perspective on the loss of your child been changed by God during your journey? At first I was bitter, but now through the grace of God I see losing my child as an investment in heaven.
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