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Category: Refocusing Widows

“It Begins With a Story” by Sheryl Gehrls

It Begins With a Story by Sheryl Gehrls Every life is a story. Moment by moment, the sentences and paragraphs come together, telling a much…

Fresh Hope for Mental Health October 11, 2022

“Greater Love” by Sheryl Gehrls

Greater Love by Sheryl Gehrls Valentine’s Day. What a bittersweet time for those of us who are widows and no longer feel like someone’s Special…

Fresh Hope for Mental Health October 11, 2022

“The Winters of our Lives” by Sheryl Gehrls

The Winters of our Lives by Sheryl Gehrls God’s Word tells us that there is a season for everything in life. In the book of…

Fresh Hope for Mental Health October 10, 2022

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When hopeless people have a safe place to process their pain, and faith-filled hope is modeled and shared, they become hope-filled and thrive (in spite of their mental health challenge).

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A mental illness seems to rob you of your future hopes and dreams. And hopelessness begins to take over.

The doctor, the therapist, and medicine are not enough in learning how to live life in spite of having a mental health challenge.

And those with lived experience (peers) can model and empower one another.

As peers, we believe there is hope, and it is possible to live well because we have been there.

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"The Winters of our Lives" by Sheryl Gehrls

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The Winters of our Lives

by Sheryl Gehrls God’s Word tells us that there is a season for everything in life. In the book of Ecclesiastes we read, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven…” Ecc. 3:1 All of creation flows in cycles…planets, star systems, and even galaxies revolve on pre-determined orbits, creating times and seasons as they go. The twice daily tides are determined by the moon. Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter have been ordained to always exist as seasons on the earth. Our lives, too, have seasons that include times of activity, times of rest, times of growth and expansion, and times of decrease or maintaining. For many years, I’ve tried to make a habit of journaling at least briefly every day. Often as I’m reading Scriptures or devotionals, I have interesting thoughts and questions come to mind. I imagine that I’ve even asked God questions that no one else has ever thought about! Recently, I was reading through some old journals and came across a meditation that the Lord had given me nearly 40 years ago in the midst of a very dark time in my life. The location was a beautiful park in the city where we lived that had a river running through it and walking trails several miles long. Because it was so peaceful, I often went to walk and pray. I was sitting in the car reading and praying one beautiful winter morning, just watching one of those snowfalls where giant flakes mesmerize you as they gently fall to the earth. There, in that quiet time and place, the Lord began to speak into my heart. Allow me to share my journal with you. “Today as I sit at the park watching a beautiful snowfall, it occurs to me that sometimes our lives are like a winter landscape – dead and bare with only a few dead leaves hanging on as reminders of a better season. And yet, there is a special beauty about it — the quiet, the stillness, the sense of everything having come to a stop for a time. The peace and lack of activity present here during the other seasons is overwhelming. God has put everything to rest for a time and in the stillness is doing a new creative work which will burst forth at the proper time in the Spring. All the beauty and energy and fruitfulness and life of the past seasons has been buried under a pure white blanket of snow. None of the scars left by the traffic of the summer remain. The snow, which continues to fall, covers, protects, seals, waters, and restores all that will bring forth life and beauty in the seasons to come. Without this time of rest and repair, the park would die. The flowers and grass and trees would continually pour their strength into what is visible outwardly to the human eye. They would continually be trampled and picked and vandalized by the unthinking people who never cease to come to this place to “take advantage” of the beauty – never stopping to see where the source is. It seems as though God brings the winter to stop the drain on His creation. Everything here has a time to sleep and catch its breath and restore and replenish the internal places not seen with the human eye. And so it is that the park is once again ready to offer beauty and comfort and solitude to those who seek it in the new season, as well as to those who come only to take advantage of it. Is this a principle that holds true in our hearts and lives? The winters, the alone times, and the times that appear barren and useless are in essence the most important to us. Without the times of ceased spiritual activity outwardly, God is unable to do the inside work we need. He covers us for a time – buries us carefully – and gives us a fresh, new clean beginning. Without the down times there could be no season of life and fruitfulness. Even when the outward man shows absolutely no sign of life, God is at work restoring and refreshing the inward man in the deep places of the heart where only He has access. So, the winters of our lives become needful and essential to our spiritual walk.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

Genesis 28:16 – “When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.” How often this is true in our lives? We slumber and miss God’s presence. During this time of confusion, anxiety, and downright fear in our world, let’s not miss what God is doing in our midst. Where things are the darkest, opportunity exists for the Light of the Kingdom to be ever brighter. Know that He is in this place, and that winter will eventually give way to the Springtime. Widows, especially, need to hold to this hope of new life ahead. The days can seem lonely and dark, showing no fruit — but Spring is coming. The light will shine again, and you will smile again. Have you experienced a Winter in your life? What words of encouragement can you offer to those coming behind you? What words of encouragement would you most like to hear during your darkest winter? As always, you can email me at sheryl@freshhope.us Original Post: https://refocusingwidows.org/the-winters-of-our-lives/

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