Encouraging widows to "Reviresco" (flourish) again
“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.”
General Douglas MacArthur
Bio: Michele Kearns is the founder and HUG© (Hope Unites Globally) Award-Winner of JoyReturns. She shares her widowhood adventures hoping to inspire widows to move through grief and rebuild their lives. Michele is the amateur photographer behind the blog OgleOhio.com.
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart… filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.
Three months from today is Christmas Eve. Have you started your shopping yet? If you are a widow and this is your first Christmas without your spouse, have you started making plans for how to survive the Christmas season?
Write It Down
One of the best ways to get through the season is to start a gratitude journal. It will help you focus on the blessings in your life. It may not feel like it but there are numerous blessings even though you are feeling pain and sorrow.
Start it now so you are well into the habit when the Christmas season gets into full swing.
Encourage everyone in your family to have their own journal and sit down once a week to compare notes. Each journal will be different and no one’s journal will be better than the rest. You are all unique individuals so what you are thankful for will be unique to each of you.
The grief monster does not like gratitude. He wants to keep you miserable, depressed and seeing only the bad things in life. So lay the smackdown on him by being grateful.
Bad Moments
Yes, even though you keep a gratitude journal you will still have bad moments. But hopefully that is all they will be – moments. It is in those moments you most need to get out the gratitude journal and start writing.
Not Just For The Grieving
By the way, you do not have to be in the midst of a grief journey to do a gratitude journal. The Christmas season is a chaotic and hectic time. What better way to calm your mind than to take some time writing in your gratitude journal while sipping on a cup of hot chocolate.
Your Minimum Daily Requirement
Get our your journal, steno pad, or legal pad and start writing – just 5 a day. You do not have to stop at 5 so feel free to write as many as your heart desires. Then carry your new habit over into 2014.
Today I am grateful for everyone starting a gratitude journal, especially the widows who are using this as a tool to work through their grief.
P.S. I have added a contact form so you can send me a private message if you wish or leave your thoughts in the “Express Yourself” section.
(Author’s Note: I am on a 2 week vacation to purge some frustration and restore my spirit. In the meantime, I dusted off and breathed a little bit of new life into some older posts.)
Hidden in every death is at least one blessing. If you keep an open mind, you will eventually see the blessing.
Read on and you will see the blessing I found in Joe’s death.
Our Last Night Together
Joe was rehabbing after back surgery and doing well. He called me at work on Thursday and asked that I go buy a DVD player for him and his roommate. After I got to the hospital, he had me wheel him around the rehab department looking for the best TV and TV cart. He was his old techie self, trying to make things work and definitely on his “A” game.
Once we got everything set up, he told me to leave as it was a rainy March night with the temperature hovering around 32 degrees. He was concerned about me getting home before the roads froze. So I left. I called him upon my safe arrival home.
That was our last conversation.
The next day he was gone.
The Blessing I Discovered
It took me months before I figured out a blessing relating to Joe’s passing.
Then one day I “saw the light” thanks to the proverbial “light bulb” turning on over my head.
My last memory of Joe could have been of him in extreme pain. Instead, God healed Joe of his pain and left me and his family with a few days where Joe was extremely happy, upbeat and healthy.
Thank you God for that blessing.
“Blessings”/Laura Story (video link)
We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguiseWe pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we’d have faith to believeWhen friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not our homeWhat if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise
JoyReturns 
You must be logged in to post a comment.