Tag: story

Weekend Wisdom

Lenten Weekend Wisdom: Just As He Planned

Michele Kearns

The redemptive story confronts us with the fact that God is not like us. He saw our need, he planned how to meet that need, and everything happened just as he planned.

Paul David Tripp – Journey To The Cross; A 40-Day Lenten Devotional (Day 18)

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. A graduate of Kent State University with a Bachelor’s degree in communications, she’s currently a virtual logistics contact center representative. She’s also managed call center teams, co-facilitated a grief support group, and helped small businesses with various writing assignments. Michele is a bookworm, and a lover of music, chocolate, red roses, and golden retrievers. She is also the amateur photographer behind the blog OgleOhio.com.

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My Christmas Story

Michele Kearns

The first Christmas without your spouse is coming and you are probably wondering how to handle it.

Here is what I ended up doing – by accident.

Early Decorating

My local Hallmark store happened to be selling stuffed reindeer about September 2008 and I bought both the male and female.  They were cute and I intended to put them away until after Thanksgiving.

However upon arriving home, I felt they needed to be on top of the grandfather clock.   They served as a reminder that Christmas was coming and I had better face that fact starting now. 

The first Christmas without Joe, was not easy but it was a little easier due to decorating early, even though it was only two stuffed reindeer.

Sentimental Journey

The sentimental decorations stayed in their boxes because looking at them would overload my emotional fuse box. While I accepted Christmas would be here, I did want to make the journey any more emotional than necessary.  It would have been too much seeing all those decorations throughout the house.

In fact those sentimental items, like a hand-made ceramic nativity set given to his Mom, have not seen the light of day since Joe passed.  There is no holiday entertaining at my house, so there is no reason to do a lot of decorating.

Just a Christmas tree my Grandmother crocheted and a few small items are enough.  

Christmas Day 2008

Christmas Day came and went and while it was difficult, it was not as difficult as I expected, in part because of dealing with Christmas earlier than normal.

Don’t under estimate the power of a little early decorating.