Finding Nuggets of Gratitude When Family Dynamics Are Adversely Impacted

How does one find a nugget of gratitude when life presents you with a family-altering event beyond divorce that actually impacts the dynamics of family as you knew it? How does one make preparations to walk and lead with head held high in a humbled heart state? Can the attitude of thankfulness and gratefulness be found? Is it really possible to live and love out loud with hope?

Well, please allow me to take you on a personal scenic outlook overview at a cliff that stood very high and hidden. Perhaps it shall reveal that those very real down deep questions and the nugget-finds of gratitude can be found. And let me say first, that the answers do not nor cannot lie in a one-person excavation of the precious gratitude jewel because often the actual nugget can be too massive to unearth alone. Remember that I am all about #givingyouhope. 

While there are numerous folk over the last 34 years who have been people of faith influences to me, please take a few extended moments to follow along of a few #standout vessels whose lives and words each incited the reverberating walk out the God-kind of agape love-out-loud and live-out-loud faith echoes in the chambers of my being. Here goes my account of live-out-loud and love-out-loud inspirational cliff-dwellers of encouragement with picks, shovels, jack hammers and all the necessary tools to assist me in finding my nugget of gratitude that led to this very 31st day of December 2016…

• My two awesome kiddos, Leslee and Aaron, of whom I am very proud and before whom I committed to the Lord and to self to guide in a godly manner a model live-out-loud faith and a love-out-loud love that rises #above ANY circumstance in life. 
• An associate pastor and his wife who actually came to my life before marriage and the birth of my kiddos. This couple now residing in Tennessee whose live-out-loud God-the-healer Jehovah-Rapha kind of faith was prayed over me in 1980 when first we met, as my body was lying very high-temperature weakened on the floor of a Contemporary Christian Choir touring bus that pulled up into their church parking lot. That incident turned out to be a divine setup for our lives to be forever entwined with an unconditional love-out-loud bond as I was adopted into their unbreakable commitment to God and family.
• A senior pastor formerly of Trophy Club, TX who chose to Deuteronomy 28:13 rise above the circumstance and 1Peter 5:6 humble himself and place a love-out-loud phone call to me regarding a mutual friend of his family and mine. He spoke these thought and life-impacting words to me through uncontrollable live-out-loud tears, “Rainey, I need the Lord to teach me how to love as He loves…a new and deeper kind of love.”
• A dear precious friend in Tennessee came to me in a love-out-loud manner in 1996, gently cupping her hands over mine, looking into my eyes with the compassion of Jesus and softly and tenderly exhorted me in a still quiet voice as that likened unto my live-out-loud Lord, “Rainey, always be gracious. Whatever you do, always be gracious.”
• A local senior pastor and his wife who accepted our family with a love-out-loud embrace in 2001 with an unconditional unspoken love commitment to our family from then through and beyond present and spoke words of live-out-loud faith-filled words of life and Jehovah-Rapha healer to my son over me in 2004. All of this was yet another Divine plan for me to regularly glean from that dynamic marital duo as they became senior pastors in 2007 to my redefined family and a live-out-loud model to do what love-out-loud love requires with grace and truth.
• An incredible newlywed lay couple couple in a Louisiana church we met 1998 with whom lives we became intertwined, who later accepted the calling of pastors. The wife and I shared an intentional live-out-loud intimate admonishing one another impenetrable bond of love and faith. In 2008 while in the midst of an excruciatingly emotional and physically painful stage 4 breast cancer live-out-loud faith, she painlessly expounded with words that rendered captivatingly enlightening wisdom to my many years of quandary in the 1982 obedient response and commitment to the Lord to a love-out-loud daily denial to self on a long journey which presented many twists and turns. 
• 46-year glorious friendship of two incredible women whose respective life journeys compelled them to stand firm in a commitment to live-out-loud in faith for healing through breast cancer and a vegetative stroke coupled with a stand strong love-out-loud above ALL adversities, whose lives resound as loud testimonies to me. 
• A remarkably coachable and teachable woman of God on Maui, HI, whose unbridled outspoken character began being tamed as yet another setting of live-out-live to teach to me to love-out-loud to a people I did not understand, yet for whom I was to be the vessel to bring increases to the Kingdom. 

So while there are many others to whom I have great gratitude, may I ask of you to #STOP in the midst of your own challenged circumstances to live-out-loud and love-out-loud? Then #DROP to your knees in humility before the Lord and the whomever/s He would or has placed in your life to help you #ROLL the care of the seeming madness onto the Lord by an unrelenting determination to dig deep in search of your nugget of gratitude. I think you just may find that amazing jewel of gratitude was found while in your drawn focus to THE bright shining #LiveOutLoud #LoveOutLoud Light of the world. Wishing you a blessed and prosperous 2017 of many exciting nugget finds of gratitude. 

Finding Nuggets of Gratitude When Life Happens in Fibromyalgia Flares

    
Did you know that a fibromyalgia flare can mimic a symptomatic severe case of the flu with total body pain void of fever, leaving an uncertainty loomed whether the real thing or not? Now, couple that with a few days of unrelenting bouts of lower spine/back pain impeding walking or everyday movement, where getting out of the bed unless absolutely necessary found its way to the bottom of the options for today list. A skirmish in life, indeed, was and is happening! 
Okay so, this early morning I mulled over names of folk, including my son, to call upon to bring me a huge pot of soup. The thought hit me that I have enough fixin’s in my pantry, fridge and freezer to brew up that big savory homemade concoction myself. Sooo, let us see what happens when fresh cabbage, spinach and onions, assorted cans of vegetables, a chicken drumstick/thigh quarter, leftover homemade turkey broth, Worcestershire sauce, instant whole wheat brown rice, seasoned to taste with thyme, cumin, sea salt, basil, oregano, and garlic powder are co-mingled with a totally blessed sufficiency of grace to get-up-and-go is employed at whatever snail-paced forward motion to get’er done. By my faith, I saw the end product before it was actually done. 

Voilà! After persistent and consistent effort with committed determination for a longer-than-normal time preparation and cooking time, SUCCESS!

    
Over a gallon of tasty-morsel fusions of scrumptiously delectable composites to satisfy the dulcet cravings was found as the nugget of gratitude for this weakened yet Christ-strengthened gal. I do realize that the prior sentence may have sounded like a mishmash of a compromised choice of choreographed words. However, the following needs no interpretation… 

Did the same person ‘who moved my cheese’, move my whole wheat crackers?

Ponder This – What Do You Do With The Pain Again?

As you intently and honestly ponder the questions posted in this blog! Post your point of pain comments. Or if you prefer, perhaps write about the pain of others with whom you are familiar. Have you ever considered the “nugget of gratitude” that may be hidden in the pain when “life happens“? Then check back in a few days for my riveting “Finding Nuggets Of Gratitude When Life Happens” post.

Pain Defined

What do you do with pain? Do you pray it away? Do you wish it would just go away? Is your faith challenged because you have pain? Do you wonder what others are going to think of you?  Do you wonder why it is there in the first place? Does confusion set in because your stand in faith against it does not immediately manifest release? Is there healing in pain? Is there healing thru pain? Or perhaps should you ask yourself, “Do I r-e-a-l-l-y want the pain to go away?” What will you do if the pain is no longer there? What do you do with the void that the absence of pain has left? What do you do with the pain?

Since You Were Not There When The ‘It’ Changed

Earlier today I wrote a facebook post entitled “Since I Was Not There This Morning…” Where I was not this morning was in church. I have been spending extended time with Jehovah-Rapha as I walk and speak life for restoration to wholeness from a severe symptomatic flare in one of the conditions with which I was diagnosed 4 years ago. It is so awesome walking out my faith, experiencing the faithfulness of God in deeper depths, wider widths and higher heights! His grace truly is sufficient! Now that is a phrase that you will probably hear time and time again as you journey with me. So now I am writing a blog post in Miss Rainey Giving You Hope entitled, “Since You Were Not There When ‘It’ Changed…” What is the ‘it’ you may ask? Well glad you asked! I am more than happy to tell you what the ‘it’ is! Oh no, I shall not make it that easy for you…since the ‘it’ has not an easy transition for me the first few years after ‘it’ occurred. You may ask, “How are you going to find out what ‘it’ is?” I love that you are not shy at asking questions! The answer is in the attached links on this blog. So take 20 minutes and be blessed and encouraged as you watch. Then post your comments as to what you believe the ‘it’ is. Then feel free to forward the links or introduce my blog to others who you feel can be inspired by the story of the change ‘it’ did to me.

Accent of The ‘It’ Part 1           Accent of The ‘It’ Part 2