Attitude-inize by Jan Coates

Attitude-inize: 10 Secrets To A Positive You by Jan Coates is a practical, easy to read book backed by scriptures about how to change our attitudes. Jan explains how she overcame obstacles in her life, and she teaches the reader how they can do the same. Jan made me feel I'm not alone with my personal struggles.

At the end of each chapter, Jan offers questions for the reader to consider and a place for them to write out their thoughts. That allowed me to delve deeper and be honest about the concerns and issues I face each day.

Jan Coates is a speaker and if you wish to contact her you may E-mail her at Jan@JanCoates.com. You may also visit her Web.

I want to add that after losing our son to suicide, I needed this book at this perfect time. When one loses a child in such a horrendous way, our attitudes may become negative as mine did. Thank you, Jan, for the labor of love in each page you wrote of Attitude-inize.

God bless you.

A Mother's Day Gift From God

I have always been stumped as to how to answer this question, "How many children do you have?"

Should I say, "Um, I have three, but one died?" No, no, who wants to hear that? "Well, I have two children," and in my mind, I think, no I gave birth to three. How about, "I have three, altogether." Then they look at you like what are you not saying?

After a seven-year-long sigh, I can now breathe normal. Here's why.

As my husband and I drove to worship on Mother's Day, the answer came to me as if I had opened a box and there lay the perfect gift from God. He let me know I have three children, but the youngest went on to Paradise.

Now that really surprised me, because I believe no one can know this for sure. We can hope it. We can be pretty certain, when our loved one who has become a Christian, that he will be in heaven one day. But we're not God, and we can't know for a fact.

Only God knows the heart of men. 1 Kings 8:39

So, in faith, that's what I plan to say. "I have three children, but the youngest went on to Paradise."

I continue on the path of loss where the Lord carries me, and when I look down, there is one set of footprints in the sand.

On my next post, I will delve deeper into why Joshua died, which I've not wrote about before. Please check back soon.

Until next time . . . hold tight to Jesus.

Deeper and Deeper

Into the heart of Jesus, deeper and deeper I go,
Seeking to know the reason why He should love me so,
Why He should stoop to lift me up from the miry clay,
Saving my soul, making me whole, Tho’ I had wandered a way.

The title of the song above is “Into the Heart of Jesus (Deeper and Deeper)” and this is the first stanza.

I identify with these words.

At one point in my first few years of grieving the loss of my son from suicide, I lost tracked of my own soul. Crushed and mangled, I lost my way. My need for God to stop the pain was so intense; I got only silence at God’s end. Was He waiting for my spiritual self to arrive at a certain place? Yes, for that is the way He could help me, once I lay the grief, sorrow, and pain at His perfect feet.

When I came to that place, I once more could hear His shepherd’s voice. I also sensed His angel’s comforting me, as His angels comforted Jesus. Though I felt solemn for several weeks after, I also experienced a peace that can only come from God.

"Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Hebrews 12:11 (KJV)

We need patience, for God’s timing is not always ours. I needed to go through the struggles, so that my faith in God would increase. Remember, as children of God, we agree to take up His cross and follow Him—in everything. We don’t have the authority to pick and choose. God decides how best we are to suffer for our spiritual growth. Remember that word pruning? And, He always wants us to know spiritual joy afterward.

I still miss my son, Joshua. That will never stop. I must look for joy in other areas of my life, though. The utmost important being, God sent His Son to die on a cross so we may live with Him forever in heaven.

On that path, deeper and deeper we go.

Until next time . . . seek Him.