Hope Encounters Loss

Posted by RJ Thesman

For regular followers of my blog and those who have read my books, you might think the title of this post means my mother has passed. No. She is still living in the shadows of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her brave heart still beats.

This loss was a complete surprise – a younger woman in good health – whose body suddenly betrayed her. Within 10 days of feeling so exhausted she drove to the ER, my friend Deb was gone. DM at country store

We did life together. Drank gallons of chai tea, determined the best place to eat by the quality of the guacamole, cried together at sad movies and celebrated birthdays with ice cream.

I will forever miss hearing her voice on the phone, “How ya’ doin’?”

How can a writer deal with such loss and continue to be a wordsmith? What kind of takeaway can I find – some way to honor Deb and the relationship we shared?

Learn from the Experience. I now know all I ever want to know about hemolytic anemia – how the red blood cells become so depleted and how even a transfusion can attack the good cells. If I ever develop a character with this disease, I will know she must be so totally exhausted she cannot even comb her hair. Because that is what Deb experienced. I will also know that even the best medical minds can find no effective long-term treatment.

Value the Journaling Practice. During Deb’s time in ICU when the outcome became clear, I returned home each night to my journal. I wrote out Bible verses that brought me comfort, especially the ones Deb loved. I also screamed the unfairness of it all through words – you know, upper case screaming with a red gel pen and underlining every other word. Writing out my frustrations helped trigger the beginnings of working through my grief.

Understand the Grieving Process. Some of the grieving began as I held Deb’s hand in the ICU and reminded her we had planned another trip to Santa Fe. Although she could not respond, I hoped she heard me. The roller coaster of the grieving process continued throughout those 10 days and then the weeks that followed. Again I learned writers must take care of themselves even as they grieve. This was not the time for me to begin working on a new novel.

Remember the Good Times. As a writer, I crafted the speech I shared at Deb’s memorial service. To recall our trips together, our shared loved of the country and cats, the excitement we had for anything the children and grandchildren did. It was my honor to speak about her and through my words to recall the way she invested in relationships.

Appreciate Each Day. Memes on Facebook and boards on Pinterest often remind us to live each day with purpose, to never take our lives for granted. But when we’re faced with the fragility of life and how quickly someone can be taken from us – the experience underscores how important it is that we appreciate each day. I am hugging my son more often. I am stopping work to pet the cat, taking time for sunsets and worrying less about the calories in dark chocolate.

I plan to spend each day writing my words with purpose and motivation – to make a difference while I am on this earth.

Deb taught me to enjoy ordinary moments while planning for the extraordinary. I am determined to take another trip to Santa Fe and remember how she played her Native American flute, coaxing echoes from the mountains around us.

I will finish the novel Deb encouraged me to write because she knew it deals with the important topic of domestic abuse. In the acknowledgements, I will include her name because she prodded me to find an agent and send the book into the marketplace.

How do we find hope when we encounter loss? One tiny piece at a time.

We must allow ourselves the grace to grieve, to let time salve the wound and allow God’s comfort to work its way into our souls.

Then hope itself becomes a comfort as we treasure our relationships and live each day seeking more ways to appreciate the people we love.

Goals Print Cover Before writers can reach their goals, they must effectively set realistic and achievable targets. For a strategic guidebook on “Setting and Reaching Your Writing Goals,” order your copy here.

Hope Uses Her Voice

Posted by RJ Thesman

One of the best tools to build relationships is the book “The 5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman.

When we know our love language and the love languages of our friends and family, we can feed care into each others’ souls. voices-invisible

Recently, I discussed love languages with my son and reminded him about my primary language. “Acts of service,” I said. “I feel most loved when someone does something for me.”

Conversely, I often show love to others by helping them and doing kind things for them.

After a long month of illness, my love tank was pointed to empty. So I decided to tell my son exactly what I needed.

If we do not use our voices, we become invisible and our needs are not heard.

“Son, my love tank is empty.”

“Huh?”

“You know, acts of service and all that love language discussion we had. I need my love tank filled.”

“What does that even mean, Mom?”

“It means…after being sick for so long and eating nothing but chicken soup, grapefruit and cough drops, I think my body needs some iron. That means I need a really good hamburger – not the cheap drive-through kind of burger. My body needs a buffalo burger with parmesan garlic sauce and potato wedges on the side. Lots of wedges.”

“So…you need me to go to Buffalo Wild Wings and get you a burger?”

“Now you’re catching on. Don’t forget the extra wedges.”

An hour later, completely satisfied after a whopping burger and salty wedges, I realized how good food affects our moods. Not only did my body respond to the burger with additional energy, I felt as if I might be moving toward healing. Hope returned.

But to make that leap, I needed to use my voice.

If I had continued to fill the house with my pitiful moaning, slurping leftover chicken soup and begging God to take me to heaven – nothing would have improved. My iron content would have plummeted and my love tank remained empty.

But because I spoke my need and used my voice, my son had the opportunity to do a kind deed. He knew exactly what I needed.

Isn’t life easier when we know what people need? Yet we often sulk in our self-sufficiency, thus depriving ourselves and others of finding the resolution to our problems.

Hope responds to authenticity and when we speak our truth – we all benefit.

Let’s make 2017 a better year by exercising authenticity, using our voices and speaking our truth. Then we can help each other move toward more compassion, kindness and hope.

Hope Embraces A Stranger

Posted by RJ Thesman

country-cabin She was introduced to me as a stranger, this woman who shared the drive to a writer’s conference.

But within five miles we connected – as women often do when they share about their broken hearts, lifelong dreams and always always – their beloved children.

We discovered a common link as women betrayed by husbands in long-term marriages where the happily-ever-after morphed into legal paperwork and the dividing of household goods – in itself a sharing of suffering.

Who gets the family albums? The china great grandmother carefully transported from the old country to America – land of the free and home of the brave.

Women freed from the shackles of toxic relationships. Women who found their brave although it took us several decades.

We saw in each other the heart hidden under years of denial and co-dependency – how we had ignored the truth because we could not manage the raw stream of reality.

We connected through the pain, but shared the lifelong dream of writing. So after we finished baring our souls, we stopped for a refill of iced tea then concentrated on the positives of life.

She – a devotional writer with a quirky sense of humor I admired. My writing – more creative fiction with the trilogy of Reverend G and blog posts such as this one.

Both of us with degrees in education. She with a lifetime of teaching and a recent retirement. My focus on ministry and teaching women how to cope.

Another connecting point – both of us mothers of sons, proud of the men they had become, blessed because we made it through those adolescent years when the larvae of manhood simultaneously made us grit our teeth and laugh into our pillows.

Since that conference, we have shared several meals and the iced tea we both love, the large version for only a dollar at McDonald’s.

Then we found another connection in our love of the country. She – blessed with several acres where she plants gardens, decorates with bird houses and roams with her loyal dogs. My life currently stuck in limbo land, living in the city yet craving for sunsets without buildings and the solace of quiet labor.

Yet with all our emotional connections, the one fiber that spans any differences and winds itself through eternity is that we love the same God. Neither of us quite understanding why he allowed us to be members of the gray divorce club, yet both of us certain we will trust him with the rest of our lives.

Hope grows when we meet other pilgrims along the road of life and discover common connections, heart stirrings and reasons to pray for each other.

Then as we embrace our eternal connection, we no longer call each other strangers but instead lock hearts as family.

Hope Offers Support

Posted by RJ Thesman

A fist of fear pummeled my soul. I was startled by its intensity and for several moments – forgot to breathe. It was only when I started to feel dizzy that I reminded myself to gulp in draughts of oxygen.

Why the fear? I needed to go to the doctor – one of those visits that might be serious or only slightly serious – depending on the results.

And I knew I could not do this alone. So I called my son. “I need a favor, honey.”

“Sure.”

Even the sound of his bass voice reassured me, and I breathed deeply. “Would you go with me to the doctor? I don’t know why. I just need someone with me today.”

Again, “Sure. Glad to.”

My heart stopped its thumping romp as fear eased.

He stood with me as I checked in, followed me into the sterile room and provided another pair of ears to listen carefully to the doctor’s orders. Then he helped me gather my purse, all the paperwork, even my water bottle.

The prognosis, “Nothing serious yet. We’ll try the pills first and then go from there.”

Did he hear the same words I heard, the ones I was hoping for? Yes, but it was good to have another voice to confirm the answer.

At the pharmacy, he helped me pick up the meds, then we shared supper and watched the Royals together back in my living room.

Somehow, just having another human being beside me in the journey, to share in the fearful possibilities, to lighten the load – felt like healing itself.

“It will be okay, Mom.” The same words he spoke when I held his hand before brain surgery, when they cut open his precious head and removed that nasty tumor.

When life hands us its unraveling, we tend to suck it up and march forward – finding power in our own strength and the fortitude it takes to just keep living.

But sometimes – when the possibilities of a painful test loom big, when the trial unravels into fragments of unknowns and sucker punches us into silence – we need someone beside us.

Yes, we trust God, but we also need living, breathing human beings to encourage us, to hold our hands, to tell us it will be okay.

I was so grateful that day for my boy – this now grown man whose presence exuded strength and calm – this tower of humanity who has himself survived cancer and experienced his own miracle.

He did not laugh at my need or seem distressed when I swallowed tears and hung on to his arm. He simply let me ride through the storm with his presence beside me.

Every day since then, he checks on me, wondering if I feel better. Are the meds working? Am I being careful to monitor reactions?

This reversal of roles seems too soon in my journey. I do not yet feel old. I only feel older.

Every day I give thanks, treasure the gift that is my son and remind myself again – I am not really alone.

Hope breathes again because of connection.

For those who live in concrete relationship, be grateful. For those like me who soldier on in solitude, find a connecting place.

And if you know a single mom or another soul who marches with an individual beat, offer to be there if needed – to provide the reassurance that someone cares.

We need each other, even when we feel strong and healthy. Vulnerability will inevitably intrude. That is when we find out who really cares.

Hope’s Foundation

Posted by RJ Thesman

Most of my followers believe there is one true God, and they follow the Christian faith. If you fall into that category, then this blog post is nothing new. You can forward it to a friend or a neighbor.

However, the internet is a vast mission field and long after I am gone – I hope my words will remain, traveling through cyberspace and making a difference to readers.

So I want to post here why I write about hope and how you, too, can find the foundation of hope – to live within the warmth of God’s love.

It’s fairly simple, but through the centuries – some folks have made it difficult as they wrapped the rules of religion around this simple process. That’s called legalism, and it is one of the most damaging and confusing forms of abuse.

So here’s the truth:

Point Number One: God loves us – completely and forever – as far as the Atlantic is from the Pacific and beyond the farthest stars in infinite galaxies. Nothing can ever separate us from the love God wants to share with us.

Point Number Two: We’re not perfect, but God is. Therefore, we have a problem developing a relationship with such a holy God. Nothing we can do will ever make us as perfect as God, so don’t even try. That will drive you crazy.

Point Number Three: Because God loves us with such a vast affection, he wants to invite us into his family. But since we’re not perfect, he decided to create a way we could join his family – like an adoption.

Point Number Four: He sent his perfect son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for all the mistakes we’ve made. Jesus paid the debt when he died, sort of the ultimate price ever paid for an adoption. It’s been taken care of – forever.

Point Number Five: But that paid debt won’t do us any good if we keep ignoring God and what Jesus did for us. We need to believe it’s true and ask God to seal the deal. Tell him you want to begin this relationship with him.

Done! That was the simple part. Now comes the challenge.

Find a decent group of people who are Christians and spend time with them. Learn about the Bible and read it. God wrote the Bible and put lots of information in it that will help you learn more about him. Talk to God and start listening to him. That will strengthen your relationship with him.

And here’s the really great part! When you die, the relationship continues. Your soul goes to live with God in heaven where there’s no sickness, no evil and no problems.

Welcome to the family! All of us spiritually adopted kids are glad you’ve joined us.

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed. By believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” John 3:16 The Message Bible

Hope Finds a Treasure

Posted by RJ Thesman

During the last two weeks, three people at separate times have told me, “You are a treasure.”

I know this is a compliment and I truly appreciate the sentiment. At the same time, I am a bit nonplussed to be described as such.

When I think of treasure, my first impression is an antiquity. The movie “National Treasure” comes to mind as Nicholas Gage spends 90 minutes trying to find the lost treasures his Masonic ancestors hid in various places.

Gage, of course, succeeds and manages to fall in love at the same time, which spawns the second movie in the series and pleas from his fans for a third.

Although my joints sometimes cry a different melody, I don’t feel like an antiquity. I have, however, traveled around the block a few times and know a few things about life.

So I have thought about what I treasure and how I might practice more gratitude within my soul for those treasures I hold dear.

My treasures do not represent stuff, because I am antiquated enough to know that eventually – most of our stuff ends up at Goodwill and if I had all the money back that I have spent on stuff throughout the years – I could buy a car.

No, the true treasures for me involve people and memories – those happenings and experiences involving flesh and blood folks that cannot be replaced.

My relationship with my son is a treasure. There’s something especially sweet when our children mature and we move into an easy friendship instead of strictly a parent / child relationship.

We have great discussions about life, politics and important things like which laptop to buy and how to set up the wi-fi.

We express our opinions about world systems and how we fit into them, the goals each of us hold for 2015 and how we are moving toward our dreams. I so desperately want my son to see his dreams become reality.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I treasure sitting with my child – https://rjthesman.net/2015/03/10/hope-sits-with-my-child/

Another treasure involves growing up on the farm. Although my world now exists in the city, nothing can take from me the joy of climbing a tree, perching in its generous limbs and scribbling my first stories in my Red Chief Tablet.

Watching the massive Oklahoma sunsets change colors, celebrating the waving wheat (“that smells so sweet”) and digging my hands into fresh garden earth to plant seeds that would later produce our supper – these are treasures that make me long for those hard-working blessed days without the stress of internet surfing and bungled emails.

Even writing about the country fills my heart with longing for my dream – a log home tucked safely between old trees that hold their own secrets – one room of that home surrounded by windows with my writing desk perched smack in the middle of all that light and creativity.

Because I am a writer, I observe people so one of my favorite treasures involves the many human beings I have known.

Students from various countries around the world, women who have enriched my life and saved it many times with their nurturing hearts, ministers of both genders and every race who have spoken into my life and the myriads of writers who bless me just by being their weird and wonderful selves.

People are a treasure, walking and talking receptacles of divine cells that God has pronounced, “Very good.”

My life has been enriched by meeting these folks, spending time with them, developing relationships with them, disagreeing with them and praying with them.

So I gladly accept the moniker of “treasure,” because I hope I have somehow spoken into the lives of others the encouragement that keeps me going, the perseverance that keeps me writing and the joy that keeps me breathing.

I would be interested to know what you consider a treasure. How about sharing with all of us your thoughts on the subject?

3 Reasons to be a Freelancer

Posted by RJ Thesman

At a writers’ conference I recently attended, another writer asked, “Why should I be a freelancer? The return on my investment is terrible. I work hard and make no money. Is it worth it?”

If you look just at the ROI, the answer is, “No. It isn’t worth the sacrifice, the time or the struggle.”

But for those of us who are Christian freelancers, three reasons keep us going.

Building credits. We continue to work as freelancers, because with every acceptance – we earn publishing credits. Those credits begin to pile up as we keep writing and as we never, never, never give up.

After a few years, we can honestly say we are published writers and give examples of publications that bought our words. When we become novelists, those credits prove that we can do the work and help us earn that signed contract.

Building relationships. One of the best returns on our investment is that we build relationships with editors, publishers, agents and other folks in the writing business. Over time, we know a cadre of people who ask for our work and want to work with us because we’ve proven ourselves to be credible and productive writers.

These are the people who will eventually endorse our books, write reviews and tell other publishers about our work. We build those relationships and then one day, we attend a writers’ conference and personally know the faculty. We feel as if we really belong to this select group of talented folks.

The Message. Working as a Christian freelancer does not bring in an enormous income. In fact, I know few freelancers who don’t have another source of income – either another job or another person in the home who has another job.

But it really is all about the message.

We write because we hope that somewhere out there, someone will read our words and be curious about this Jesus we love.

We hope that someday a person will send us an email with a thank you message, “I found my eternal home because of what you wrote.”

And we write because God has asked us to use the creative gifts we have to spread the message through cyberspace.

So that is why I am a Christian freelancer. Throughout the last forty-some years, I’ve built a lot of publishing credits and learned my craft. I’ve made some fantastic friends either online or in person. And I’ve shared the message of God’s love to people all over the world.

But for me, there’s one more reason to be a Christian freelancer…I just love to write.

RJThesman.net

Author | Coach | Speaker | Editor

relationships

Hope Encounters Loss

Hope Uses Her Voice

Hope Embraces A Stranger

Hope Offers Support

Hope’s Foundation

Hope Finds a Treasure

3 Reasons to be a Freelancer