Monday's Mourning Ministry - I Will Never Leave You Children

Monday's Mourning Ministry

I Will Never Leave You Children

I Will Never Leave You Children

{Lyrics to the song are highlighted}

By myself I can do nothing

I judge only as I hear, and

My judgment is just, for I

seek not to please Myself

but Him who sent Me.

~John 5:30

Faith

Faith is taking the first step to light even 

when you don't see the whole staircase

~Victorya Casanova

Trust

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; 

do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek His will in all you do,

and He will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:5-6

I will never leave

I will never leave you...

Children...

I will never leave you...

alone

You are not alone

I will never leave

No matter what happens God never fails

I will never leave you...

Children...

I will never leave you...

alone….

No mind can comprehend…

A love that has no end…

I will never leave...

I will never leave you….

Children...

I will never leave you

alone

"Trust In The Lord

With All Your heart.

And lean Not On Your

Own Understanding"

You're Not Alone

Love: 

It is not rude; 

it is not self seeking;

it is not easily angered;

it keeps no record of wrongs.

~I Corinthians 13:5

Hope

No one whose Hope is in You will ever be put to shame.

~Psalm 25:3a

God Wants To Talk To You

I am with you even in the face of tragedy

Where light Shines 

Darkness hides….

The amount that I have

for you is like a rainbow. It

has a beginning…but it has no

end. I will love you forever

and that is a promise!

I will never leave you. I promise!

I will never leave you…

alone

Not one day

I love you My child

I will never leave you...

Children...

My Child, not a day

goes by when My presence

isn't with you...

I will never leave you...

alone...

Peace, I give you,

My peace I give to you, 

says the Lord

No mind can comprehend...

A love that has no end…

My love never ends…

Dance with your Father…

We need you Jesus

And to come to You for rest,

for peace,

and for love

Help me, Lord

Don't let the light burn out.

May your spirit blaze with the fire of God's love.

"I have loved you with

an everlasting love; I

have drawn you with

loving-kindness…"

~Jeremiah 31:3

Be joyful always.

~I Thessalonians 5:6

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

~Deuteronomy 31:8b

I will lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, 

O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

~Psalm 4:8

My child I see your hurt…

I see your pain…

Don't think for a minute that I don't see your pain…

Or that I don't care

Because I do

and I love you more than you can understand

My child I am here

I am with you

I have not left you

and I never will

My hands are reaching down for you

You are my son

You are my daughter

You are mine forever

I love you

Who do men say I am ~ Jesus

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

I have drawn you  with loving-kindness.

~Jeremiah 31:3

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

~Philemon 1:25

No eye has seen, 

no ear has heard, and 

no mind has imagined

what God has prepared

for those who love Him.

~Isaiah 64:4

I will never leave...

You are safe in God

A Child of God

Wayside Chapel: God loves you and He approved this message

"Love you"

"The grass withereth, 

the flower fadeth: but

the word of our God

shall stand forever."     

~Isaiah 40:8

It was for freedom that 

Christ set us free

I will never leave…

I will never leave you...

Children…

"Worship the LORD in the 

splendor of His holiness;

tremble before Him,

all the earth."

~Psalm 96:9

Would you open up my eyes

and show me the light…

take me away…

No matter what happens, God never fails…

from this place…

would you open up my eyes?

and show me the light…

I love you my child

We need you Jesus

I Just wanna THANK YOU LORD!!!

'cause I cannot

make it alone…

I need…

I need You…

I need…

Yes, I need You…

Christ gives me the strength to face anything.

~Philippians 4:13 CEV

To free me…

Pictures, thanks to 365promises.com
Video: http://youtu.be/wqRGzwFWkX8

Thursday's Therapy - How Meditation Can Help Our Bereaved Brain

Thursday's Therapy

How Meditation Can Help Our Bereaved Brain

In a Trauma seminar that Tommy and I attended in Atlanta, the point was emphasized over and over that severe trauma can alter the brain. It can even shrink parts of the brain such as the amygdala and the hippocampus! The hippocampus is where learning and memory take place. When the hippocampus is affected, we can forget directions to places we habitually drove to before. We can leave a mall, and forget where we parked our car. We can take a shower, and forget the habitual steps we normally performed every day before our child's death!

Did you notice some time in your Child Loss Grief that your memory was impacted? I did. My children could tell me something, and days later I wouldn't remember that they had even told me this information. They began worrying about me at some point, but I reassured them that it was connected to my grief and would therefore dissipate over time. I explained that grief was taking up about 90% of my brain, and only 10% was left over to attend to information coming in apart from grief so that I may or may not forget that information. I think they have been relieved over time as they see me back to my old self, at least in terms of memory! 

So, of course, any of us should feel concerned if we think our severe trauma could alter the brain to the point of shrinking a part of it. But in this Trauma conference, fortunately, we were also reassured that since our ability to perform brain scans in recent years, they discovered that brain cells can indeed regenerate in the process called neurogenesis! There are things we can do to facilitate that process taking place so that we can help our traumatized brains to heal, and be restored. Meditation is one of those things. 

Many people question, "What is Meditation anyway?" A simplified answer is that it is practicing to focus the brain in on the "here and now" so that you are very aware of the present rather than your mind being adrift, unfocused, or even too focused on the past or future so that you are not experiencing the things that are present in and around you. Simple methods of focusing in on your own breathing can be meditation, and you can even feel yourself beginning to relax and just "be" in the moment. Over time, this creates positive changes in the brain, even giving us much more resilience amidst our stress and trauma. It is part of the challenge we each face of refining the balancing art of living even while we're ever dealing with the death of our beloved child. And for those of us who are attuned spiritually, the meditating on the love God has for us in all of its many aspects can be incredibly healing.

The following is an article from The New York Times' blog that shows how meditation can positively affect our brain.

~~~

How Meditation May Change the Brain

By Sindya N. Bhanoo

Over the December holidays, my husband went on a 10-day silent meditation retreat. Not my idea of fun, but he came back rejuvenated and energetic.

He said the experience was so transformational that he has committed to meditating for two hours daily, one hour in the morning and one in the evening, until the end of March. He’s running an experiment to determine whether and how meditation actually improves the quality of his life.

I’ll admit I’m a skeptic.

But now, scientists say that meditators like my husband may be benefiting from changes in their brains. The researchers report that those who meditated for about 30 minutes a day for eight weeks had measurable changes in gray-matter density in parts of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, empathy and stress. The findings will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.

M.R.I. brain scans taken before and after the participants’ meditation regimen found increased gray matter in the hippocampus, an area important for learning and memory. The images also showed a reduction of gray matter in the amygdala, a region connected to anxiety and stress. A control group that did not practice meditation showed no such changes.

But how exactly did these study volunteers, all seeking stress reduction in their lives but new to the practice, meditate? So many people talk about meditating these days. Within four miles of our Bay Area home, there are at least six centers that offer some type of meditation class, and I often hear phrases like, “So how was your sit today?”

Britta Hölzel, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School and the study’s lead author, said the participants practiced mindfulness meditation, a form of meditation that was introduced in the United States in the late 1970s....

“The main idea is to use different objects to focus one’s attention, and it could be a focus on sensations of breathing, or emotions or thoughts, or observing any type of body sensations,” she said. “But it’s about bringing the mind back to the here and now, as opposed to letting the mind drift.” Generally the meditators are seated upright on a chair or the floor and in silence, although sometimes there might be a guide leading a session, Dr. Hölzel said.

Of course, it’s important to remember that the human brain is complicated. Understanding what the increased density of gray matter really means is still, well, a gray area.

“The field is very, very young, and we don’t really know enough about it yet,” Dr. Hölzel said. “I would say these are still quite preliminary findings. We see that there is something there, but we have to replicate these findings and find out what they really mean.”

It has been hard to pinpoint the benefits of meditation, but a 2009 study suggests that meditation may reduce blood pressure in patients with coronary heart disease. And a 2007 study found that meditators have longer attention spans.

Previous studies have also shown that there are structural differences between the brains of meditators and those who don’t meditate, although this new study is the first to document changes in gray matter over time through meditation.

Ultimately, Dr. Hölzel said she and her colleagues would like to demonstrate how meditation results in definitive improvements in people’s lives.

“A lot of studies find that it increases well-being, improves quality of life, but it’s always hard to determine how you can objectively test that,” she said. “Relatively little is known about the brain and the psychological mechanisms about how this is being done.”

In a 2008 study published in the journal PloS One, researchers found that when meditators heard the sounds of people suffering, they had stronger activation levels in their temporal parietal junctures, a part of the brain tied to empathy, than people who did not meditate.

“They may be more willing to help when someone suffers, and act more compassionately,” Dr. Hölzel said.

Further study is needed, but that bodes well for me. For now, I’m more than happy to support my husband’s little experiment, despite the fact that he now rises at 5 a.m. and is exhausted by 10 at night. An empathetic husband who takes out the trash and puts gas in the car because he knows I don’t like to — I’ll take that.

Picture: thanks to FotoSearch.com
Article: How Meditation May Change the Brain: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/how-meditation-may-change-the-brain/