God's Bright Light

Matthew 5:14, 16 “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden… In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” It was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Daisy Catchings-Shader, the founder of our cherished Umbrella Ministries, a support group for women all over the country who have suffered the loss of a child. This is a fellowship no one wants to belong to, but when I came to my first meeting after the loss of my son, Elisha, on June 19, 2015, I came to realize I was not the only mom who was suffering. I found a safe place that offered me the hope of Heaven and I met hundreds of women just like me who were also on their own grief journey and I knew that I didn’t have to walk alone. Oh, what an incredible legacy Daisy left. Every single time I talked to her, she would always encourage me to keep writing, to keep journaling, to keep reading my Bible, and to continue to look to Jesus. Matthew 10:42 says, “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward." The Bible tells us that we are to be the light of the world, that city on hill, a shining beacon for all to see, that cold cup of water to the thirsty, and to come alongside those that are weary and heavy laden. That is exactly what Daisy did for over 30 years as she touched so many lives with healing words, unconditional love, and compassion for hurting and grieving women. Who would have thought that even though she suffered the devastating loss of her son Danny, that God could meet her where she was in that dark place, heal her broken heart, and then turn her tragedy into something so beautiful and amazing, a refuge of hope and strength for all to see. Isaiah 61:3 says that “those who grieve are to be given a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” What the Lord calls us to do after such a terrible loss does not come naturally. Our instinct is to curl up and pull the covers over our head and ask God to stop the world so we can get off. But I’ll never forget the day I hung up my cross that I wore around my neck that held the ashes of my precious Elisha, the first day that I was able to smile, laugh, and find joy again in my life and especially the day that I was able to enter into worship and truly praise my Lord and Savior at church. Daisy was a beautiful and shining example of someone who had an overflowing heart full of joy and she was forever praising our Lord in her speech and her countenance. When I saw her at conferences and support groups, there was a flame of excitement in anticipation of what the Lord was about to accomplish, and it was contagious. We were incredibly blessed by this remarkable and wonderful lady, and she will be greatly missed. So shines a bright light in a dark and weary world.

-- Melody

Remembering Daisy....... and her heart and leadership with Umbrella Ministries

James1:22 “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.” The word “daisy” comes from an Old English term meaning “day’s eye.” It earned that name because its petals open in the morning and close at dusk. The flower has long symbolized purity, innocence, and simplicity. To each of us, there is only one Daisy. Daisy was the perfect name for her. Her presence entered my life in 1997, during one of the darkest seasons I have ever known. In the shattering days and weeks after Katie’s death, my pain felt like it would never end. I wasn’t sure how I could go on living with a broken heart. As I struggled to find my footing, one evening this sweet woman called me. It was a simple phone call, yet it became the beginning of something that would slowly change everything. Daisy listened to me. She cared. She pointed me toward the same faith that had been such a comfort to her. It wasn’t an instant fix, and it didn’t erase the sorrow. Instead, she offered small words of hope and encouragement – something I could hold on to when each day felt overwhelming. Little by little, those moments of kindness helped me see beyond my grief. Daisy was a gift to me at just the right time. When everything had been stripped away, she reminded me that God still sees, still provides, and still sends people to walk beside us in our darkest moments. Daisy didn’t fix my grief. She simply showed up and helped me take a step forward. Looking back, that phone call marked the beginning of my journey from despair toward hope. As the years passed, I came to realize that my experience was not unique. She has touched so many lives, often arriving just when she was needed most. Each of us has our own story of how she encouraged us. Her influence on my life has taken me to places I never could have imagined. Who would have thought that a grocery store checker would one day find herself speaking to other women about grief? I still remember when Daisy asked me to write a devotional. I had to ask her, “What is a devotional?” What began with one encouraging phone call continued to open doors I never expected. The one thing I never could have imagined from that first conversation was traveling to Africa and presenting Umbrella Ministries to two villages. That happened because Daisy believed in me and encouraged me to keep moving forward. The same steady faith that helped carry me through loss is reflected in the way Daisy lives her own life. Proverbs 31 describes Daisy well. “The Lord is in the midst of her, and she will not be moved. She trusts that God will help her when morning dawns. She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future. When she speaks, her words are wise, and she gives instruction with kindness. There are many capable women in the world, but you surpass them all.” And that is our Daisy. Our loving Daisy went home to be with the Lord. She brought so much joy into our lives, and we will cherish her sweet spirit forever. – Michele

HE Understands

I spent so many years closing off my emotions, especially the ones we aren’t sure how to cope with, and then, God’s grace opened my heart to understand Him so much more fully, and His grace began to saturate so much that had conflicted those emotions, and then He began to let me put my heart on paper in ways I never had before, having a desire to be vulnerably open on a personal level and biblically accurate in how I faced that openness, or helped others to face their own openness. But, what also came were my tears. For the most part, they had stopped with the vow I made as a child. In the gift of tears God gave to me, I felt my own emotions more strongly as well as the emotions of others as they walked their own journeys of hurt and pain, sorrow and loss, doubt and confusion. My tears for others can come openly and sometimes, unexpectedly. My tears for those things that touch me still in very personal ways, my tears come privately, or in the privacy of conversation with a trusted friend. The Isaacs is a family group that began singing in the eighties with a style similar to the Gaithers, and they have shared the Gaither stage many times. I don’t always listen intently when I am driving to what the radio station is playing, but when the Isaacs started singing, He Understands My Tears, I was fully absorbed and focused. I wrote this originally, at a time when many of us were crying our very private tears, because we were still in the middle of a pandemic, a growing pandemic, set against racial and political upheaval, economic uncertainty, and a depth of questions that didn’t seem to have clear answers. And for whatever is going on in the world around us – family issues still arise, grief grabs us and holds us, the bills aren’t getting paid, life transitions from one chapter to another, health needs are demanding attention, and ....... shall I go on??? And our tears come. And I am no different. And my own emotions, like many of you as well, have become very vivid and assaulting. But I listened to the Isaacs sing. He understands my tears ... He feels the hurt that no one can see down inside. And when the words get in the way I know He still hears, for He understands my tears. You may not believe that I'm broken for all you can see is my smile. Oh, but He hears the heart that's unspoken and He gives me strength through each trial. “He.” My God, my Jesus, His abiding-within-me Holy Spirit. “He.” He listens, He understands, He feels, He responds. And again, I was listening, but not driving. This time I was safely at home and I heard the promises of God’s faithfulness sung by I Am They. I will sing through fire and thunder, cause You are on my side, I trust You with my life. I know my story, it isn't over. Even against all odds, for You are a faithful God, that's who You are. You are a faithful God. I am convinced that Your promises will hold together and I will dwell in the hope of Your love forever. They are the words too of the psalmist and of Christ Himself. This I declare about the Lord:He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. (Psalm 91:2) And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. (Matthew 6:30) Let our tears bring us to our God. He is faithful and He listens, He understands, He feels, and He responds. O Father, thank You. – Bev (Related Bible reading: Psalm 23:1-6)

Soooo Many Years

Our son Jeff met us for lunch at one of our favorite little shops close to home. Always an assortment of homemade soups, and creative sandwiches and salads. I was hungry for just something basic and asked for a ham and cheese sandwich, but it also came with a bag of chips. Usually the chips go home with me, so I didn’t particularly have a preference, so I told the friendly worker, “Just surprise me.” Filling our beverage cups, we sat at a small table, exploring the chrysanthemum in the middle of our small, but comfy, space. A little family chitchat, and our lunches showed up. My “surprise” bag of chips were simply “Classic,” until for some reason, I looked at the expiration date, December 14, still a few months away, but it was also the date that would have been my daughter’s forty-ninth birthday. And suddenly, the world stood still, as the memories descended. It was the proverbial “wave” of grief I have often told others can come unexpectedly, and give a good drenching. The waves do lessen in frequency and intensity as our God of comfort walks with us, but still, they come. The bag of chips went home with me, and they found a place in my study on top of a stack of books and papers. Soooo many years, and still, soooo many memories. After loss, the years do pass, and the memories do come. We cannot change the loss. We cannot change the calendar, and some memories we would like to ignore or stuff in the proverbial box, because they bring too much pain, and some memories we long to infuse with life and experience its warmth, its joy, its love, just one more time. Grief does change us, both in how we see ourselves, doing life without the one we have loved, and still love, and also in how we respond to our loss. There are choices involved in all of that, and for a season, we may feel totally incapable of choice. We are just fighting for survival, drenched and drowning in the aftermath of mountainous waves. Prayerfully, we will at some point recognize the hands and heart of God that reach out to embrace us, and help us find the footing to walk forward in our grief, one day at a time, openly, honestly, vulnerably, dependently. As we make the choice to let God embrace us, He will also give us the capacity to make the thousands of other choices we need to make. And our initial choice to let God embrace us won’t happen just once, but over and over and over. And the waves will still come, lessening in frequency and intensity, but choice will become more intentional, more directed at “God, what do You have for me now??? How does a very broken part of me become the beauty of resurrected ashes?” Yes, Tonia had her forty-ninth birthday. In Heaven, I’m not sure how they count birthdays, and I’m not sure how long Tonia will be the child who sings His praises, or if she looks more like the adult she would have been here. But I am here, and when the waves come, the emptiness of her presence here is felt, but I am also able to choose to reflect on how God has literally brought beauty to her ashes as she has touched soooo many lives in those soooo many years. And, yes, my tears still come, but my tears say, Thank You, thank You, precious, precious Father. – Bev (Related Bible reading: Psalm 40:1-3)

Having Fun

Psalm 126:5,6 “Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping carrying seeds to sow, will return with songs of joy carrying sheaves with him.” After our West Coast conference, I had the honor of taking two moms to the local airport. They’d mentioned calling an Uber, but I felt strongly that I needed to drive them myself. Now I understand why - I was being prompted by the Lord. We often think we’re doing something for others, but all along, Jesus is doing something for us too. He’s full of surprises. As I helped them unload their luggage, I asked one of the moms if she was glad she came. Her answer caught me off guard. She said, “Michele, I had so much fun.” Fun! At a conference for moms who’ve lost a child. That word didn’t compute at first. When you’re in deep grief, especially the kind that comes from losing a child, joy and lightness can feel almost inappropriate. Yet there it was, That was her answer. What strikes me most is how that single word, FUN, revealed something profound: even in our hardest seasons, we can still experience moments of connection, laughter, understanding, and relief when we’re with people who truly get it. Our conferences create space for that, and that’s no small thing. God can restore our hearts and souls beyond our understanding. God is able to bring good out of our tragedy. Jesus had a surprise waiting for me in that airport parking lot. We can still have fun, even in the middle of sorrow. Moments like these strengthen my faith and renew the compassion that keeps me going. Lord, even in our darkest moments, thank You for the sound of laughter. -- Michele

He Bends Down to Listen

Prayerfully, sometime relatively early in my journey of grief, as I am both wanting to hold tightly to all the emotions that seem to keep me in a oneness with my child, but I am also wanting to emerge from the suffocating darkness and raging rawness of my child’s death, I begin to reach for something, someone, bigger and more capable than I am, And again, prayerfully, I will reach for the hand of God – the God who wants to carry me, embrace me, and enable me to walk forward, responding to Him, even as my love and memories for my child, and of my child, remain vibrant. Even as I write this, I realize some of us were taught about the God in our religion, and He was very distant, especially when I wasn’t meeting His expectations. When my daughter died, that was the God I knew. Others though knew that God longed to walk the journey of grief with us, and He would accept our tears, even our questions, and wrap us tightly in His compassion, His love, and His care. I could choose to walk my journey with the God of relationship, the God who loves me so intensely His own Son died so that THIS God could be my own eternal Father, and the embracing God who carries me on my journey of grief. I asked the question on the website www.gotquestions.org, a favorite resource of mine when I am trying to sort through biblical truth. I asked the question, in reference to Christianity, is it a religion or a relationship. The paragraph below attempts to draw together the basics of their answer........... Most religion, theistic or otherwise, is man-centered. Any relationship with God is based on man’s works. ... Most religions are similar in that they are built upon the concept that man can reach a higher power or state of being through his own efforts. ... According to Christianity [however], God did for us what we cannot do for ourselves. ... The grace-based relationship between God and man is the foundation of Christianity and the antithesis of religion. ... “Love” speaks of relationship. ... Holiness and obedience to Scripture are important, but they are evidences of a transformed heart, not a means to attain it. ... Christianity is not about signing up for a religion. Christianity is about being born into the family of God. It is a relationship. This God hears my voice, and my prayer for mercy, as He bends down to listen to me. I can place all I am carrying in His hands, and with an emptiness that is still raw, but pure, I can tell Him, “I can’t, but He can, and I want to let Him.” And I tell Him over and over and over, especially when my emotions overwhelm me. And even though my heart still longs to listen to my child, to speak encouragement to my child, to give nurture and guidance, and sometimes, just fun! – I am learning to say “Thank You” for the gifts my God gives every day. – Bev (Related Bible reading: Psalm 116:1,2)

Acceptence

Jeremiah 10:23 “LORD, I know that people's lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.” Letting go feels so unnatural. I have worked my entire life and have made plans for myself and when something came along to change the course of my plan, I had no choice but to go with it. I have always wanted children and when the Lord presented me with a disabled child, it took me a very long time to accept his disability. It wasn’t something I had planned; it wasn’t something I had wanted, and at first, I was very angry at God; I truly thought He had abandoned me, that He was punishing me for my past sins and honestly, my relationship with Him was rocked to the core for the first year of Elisha’s life. Rather than opening myself up to the plan the Lord had for me, I fought it, tooth and nail. I had to give up my dreams and hopes for a normal child; I had to give up my expectations that one day my son would go college, get married, and I would have grandchildren. Little by little, I began to practice acceptance of what the Lord had planned for me, and it was only then I began to truly see the gift that had been set before me. Proverbs 16:9 “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Sometimes losing our hopes and dreams and plans for our future is so painful people cannot come to terms with it; they never come to the place of acceptance and they become bitter and resentful, and trust me, I’ve met people like this who have disabled children and it is the most tragic thing that will ever occur. A lot of these people will never see the beauty and experience the joy of their God-given gift; they miss the wonder of their child growing up and all the Lord had established for them. I love the story of Helen Keller who at 19 months of age, an illness caused her to go completely deaf and blind. Her parents sought help for her in Boston at the Perkins School for the Blind. In that era, children like this were considered hopeless and were segregated and not allowed to be integrated into normal schools. But a tutor, Anne Sullivan, believed in her and persisted in her efforts to teach Helen to read Braille, to write and even to speak. With Sullivan’s help, Helen graduated with honors four years later from Radcliffe College, associated with Harvard, having mastered several languages. And because someone believed in her, Helen went on to receive many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hebrews 11:40 says “God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” I think about those people who give up when they find out they are having a disabled child, they have an abortion or when they are born, they give those children up either for adoption, or institutionalize them into a home and they never see the beauty and they never see the perfect gift that they have been given. They will never experience the incredible joy, the absolute closest thing to perfection on earth; God’s perfect and beautiful gift was just tossed away, never to be opened, never to be held, never to be allowed in to radically change their lives forever, but instead, they run away from the blessing and the challenge instead of embracing the gift, eager to gain all the blessings God has hidden in this package because it looks too difficult and we don’t like the package that this beautiful gift has been wrapped in. And so it is like everything, if we truly believe God is sovereign and if we truly are able to trust Him in every aspect of our life and in every situation, if we would just be thankful for what He has given us, we open the door to complete and total tranquility and peace within our soul, no matter what the circumstance. – Melody