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What Easter Meant to me THIS Year ...


chicagogina

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chicagogina

As some of you may remember, I lost my dear Mother and Best Friend in September of 2007. She was my world and my everything. I never married, never had children, and lived with Mom all of my life ... 50 years ... So her loss DEVASTATED me and ripped my heart right out of my chest. We did EVERYTHING together ... shopping, traveling, visiting relatives, going out to dinners and plays, etc. I grieved and cried and was sad and depressed and even what *I* would term "pretty hysterical" for quite a while. And that was all good and helpful, and a very necessary part of my grieving and healing process.

Easter was always very special in my family. I was raised in a household of faith and raised believing in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and in a better life than our current, earthly existance. Due to the need to travel to Easter dinner this year, I knew I would not be able to make it to Church and that saddened me GREATLY. Of ALL of the years when I NEEDED to hear the message of Easter, it was THIS year! And I wasn't going to be able to make it to a Church meeting. I was pretty disappointed, to say the least.

Well, I decided to DO something about it, so I immersed myself in my scriptures. I read all Easter week about the Atonement, and Christ's suffering in Gethsemane, and about His Glorious Resurrection ... and, after ALL those years of believing ... it FINALLY struck me! HE LIVES! It is all REAL! And He did it for ALL of us, His brothers and sisters. It was a HUGE turning point in my life ... an epiphany of sorts, if you want to call it that.

Please don't get me wrong. I still miss my dear Mother EVERY DAY of my life. The house is still lonely without her in it. I still cry ... but not as often ... and not for as long ... and not with the same intensity as before. I TRULY feel as if Christ is healing my heart and filling it up with His tender mercies, and I am SOOO THANKFUL!!!

I pray His blessings on ALL of you as you pursue your individual journeys of grief. NONE of us is the same. I had faith in Christ ALL of my life. But now ... TODAY, that Atonement and Resurrection are more real to me than EVER before and I KNOW that He did what He did, not only for the world, but for ME ... PERSONALLY. He is my Savior, my Redeemer, my Brother, and most of all, my Eternal Friend ...

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4everjoeysmom

Gina,

AMEN!

This is EXACTLY how I feel in my grief and recovery of losing my 24 year old son Joey 20 months ago.  Never before has the sacrificial gift in Jesus Christ and His resurrection been more real and personal to me than it is now.  I too had a revelation such as you, and I was already a believer AND a missionary.  It is amazing how God comes to us in a very personal way in our time of sorrow, and we get to experience that complete renewal in our hearts when we are open to hearing His call.  I feel as if not only was I born again to life when He adopted me through His grace, but I feel as if I have been born again in my faith through my adversity.

Bless you for sharing.  It is wonderful to read your story and see so much glory going up to Him.

Your Sister in Christ,

Claudia

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chicagogina

I was a missionary, too, Claudia. I taught those eternal principles for 18 months, not to mention all the lessons I've taught in Sunday School and to the youth and children at Church. But never has the Atonement and Resurrection been so meaningful in my life as it is RIGHT NOW! Praise be to the Giver of life on earth and, more importantly, ETERNAL LIFE!!!

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alwaysmyjennifer

Gina, what a beautiful, sweet message of hope and story of love. Through our pain, His love shines through and gives us hope and strength to keep going even when we feel like hiding in a corner with our eyes full of tears. Even though I've lost a child to a killer and my wife suffers a terminal illness, I've never seen God's love and mercy fail my family. Never once. I'll keep you in my prayers, for peace and comfort and strength as you need them. May He give you only His very best. Mark

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4everjoeysmom

Gina, did you do any short term assignments out of the US?  Are you still doing missions?  Are you interested in ever doing short-term in S America?  I am here for long term--as God wills.  I can't help noticing Chicago is in your name.  I grew up in central IL.  PM me if you would rather keep details private.  Blessings, Claudia

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chicagogina

Thanks for your sweet reply, Mark, and for your prayers! God's eternal blessings be on you and your family as well.

Mothers' Day is coming up shortly and it will be my first one without my Beloved Mother and Best Friend. Already I feel the emotion swelling up inside me and the tears coming more often than they have since Easter. But, I guess that was to be expected. It is, of course, my first Mothers' Day without her. But I will forge forward with faith for I know that is what she, and my Heavenly Father, would want me to do.

To answer your questions, Claudia ... No, I was a missionary for 18 months in the Rome, Italy area from 1980-81. It was a GREAT opportunity and cemented my faith. But this experience of losing my Mom and Best Friend has taken it all one step further. And yes, I was born and raised and still live in a suburb just about 5 miles north and west of the Chicago city limits.

Take care, and God bless!

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Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields

- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.

- Facebook and Twitter Integration

- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"

- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.

- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board

- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it.

- Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible.

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other.

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com.

Kelly Baltzell, MA

CEO/President

Beyond Indigo Family

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.

This is the Scripture I chose for my son's eulogy.

" But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren,

concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not,

even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so

them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. "

1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

.

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