What Is The Key To Surviving Life’s Challenging Times?

We are able to replace our fears with the promise of Jesus never leaving us alone. Praise the Lord!

Kim Wilbanks

How do you get through the things you can’t imagine getting through?

When Things Don’t Go According To Your Plans

Like most little girls growing up in the 1960’s, I dreamed of one day being a wife and a mom.  I assumed I would also have a job — maybe a teacher, a ballerina or an archeologist — but always at the forefront, a wife and a mom.  Those dreams did come true (not the part about being a ballerina or an archeologist), but not without some bumps along the way.

I didn’t date a lot in high school, maybe because my curfew was 9:00 p.m. on weekends. Then, I met a guy in the first few weeks of my Freshman year of college. We dated for about a year then got engaged at the beginning of my Sophomore year. By the second semester of my Senior year, we broke…

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Having Fun Together as a Couple

Faith, peace, joy, and gratitude are corner stones for a healthy marriage. Great blog by Paul.

Paul Linzey

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.

Proverbs 17:22

They liked each other as soon as they met, so they started dating. They did all kinds of fun things. They saw movies and went to concerts. They both liked to ski, loved the same music, and enjoyed talking about the Bible. They had fun together. They laughed often. They made life feel good for anyone who was around. It was obvious to them and their friends that they were meant to be together, so they got married. They were best friends.

After the wedding, they settled into their new life together, and the dating gradually stopped. Life got serious, and they forgot the importance of having fun together.

Almost every time I ask an engaged couple what drew them together and what they like about each other, invariably their answer is that they…

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The Chemistry of Love

Paul Linsey is a talented author I met through Lakeland Christian Writers. This is a great Blog! Falling in love is easy. It’s building a lifelong healthy relationship that is possible with love, wisdom, and Jesus at the center.

Paul Linzey

Experts researching the biology and chemistry of falling in love and falling out of love have discovered there is a 2-year cycle of attraction, that is largely hormonal and chemical. What we call falling in love is the rush of hormones and chemicals that bring an excitement, arousal, happiness, and energy. You feel so good when you’re with the new lover, or even when thinking about him or her. It’s intoxicating.

This image comes from https://people.howstuffworks.com/love6.htm.

Then after about two years, that chemical/hormonal cocktail begins to lose its effect. You don’t feel the same, and you wonder what went wrong in the relationship, why you fell out of love.

George Strait recorded a song titled I Ain’t Her Cowboy Anymore about a guy whose lover is leaving, and he has no clue what he did wrong . . . or whether he did anything wrong at all.

The answer? Nothing…

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Unity Produces Winners

Great article by Paul Linsey!

Paul Linzey

Football season is in full swing. All across the nation, players and fans have high hopes and great expectations that their team will win. And let’s be honest, for most people, it’s not how you play the game. It’s whether you win or lose.

Last week, several sportswriters interviewed a college quarterback whose team just won a big game. They had beaten a good team by a pretty wide margin, and when asked how he did it, the QB deflected the praise. “It was my guys. They played a great game. I know I can count on them to come through.” Another question elicited this answer, “The reason we’re doing so well is that we all bought into what the coaches are telling us. There’s no fighting or working against each other here.”

Winners always have one thing in common: They have team chemistry and camaraderie. After a successful game…

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Police Dealing with Mental Illnesses

Yesterday I had the privilege of listening to an International Bipolar Federation interview with Retired Sergeant and Chairman Ron Clark, RN, MS, APSO. Ron is involved with the Badge of Life Program. The mission of Badge of Life is a 12-year-old program to support officers in times of crisis. Depression, PTSD, and suicide is very high in law enforcement. They see really bad things. Sometimes it is impossible to get those images out of their mind.

Badge of Life is a proactive organization to reach officers before they are in trouble. They need support. Most officers, fireman, and paramedics are afraid if they say anything regarding struggling with depression or PTSD issues they will lose their jobs. They are afraid to confide in peers. According to Ron Clark more training is being provided for peer support. They encourage other officers to see someone. Ron said, “we need to have a buddy system. It works.”

In 1980 PTSD was renamed PTSI.(I) stands for injury rather than disorder. If an officer was injured with a broken leg on the job it would have been covered. Mental Health is not treated the same way. 38 years and it is still not recognized nation wide. Colorado and Maine just got coverage for mental illness vs physical injury.

Bottom line is we can do better for our officers.

Check back tomorrow for Crisis Intervention Training that is being done for our officers. When officers receive training in dealing with citizens struggling with mental health issues, the entire incident usually turns out to be a win for everyone involved. Looking forward to sharing my experience with police officers and paramedics in 2010.

 

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Two Childhood Friends Reunite

This will be a wonderful story about the life of Amy Gamble and her struggles and victories over her mental health. So happy that Amy’s dream of writing a book to help others has come true!

My Testimony

So glad to share Renee’s testimony! Her father was my pastor in 1992, when I was first diagnosed bi-polar. Their family has been through so much with losing their son in an accident. This is a life changing story. May those suffering mental health disease know there is hope even when life seems hopeless.

Reneé Tumolo

For 34 years, I described my faith as “inherited.” I spent a significant amount of my adult life wrestling with my convictions and whether or not my spiritual life was solely a result of my upbringing. I openly shared with other Christian friends the desire to have a faith that was my own, a faith I experienced first hand, a faith I had heard so many others enthusiastically proclaim from the pulpit after encountering a miracle in the midst of their life’s “rock bottom.” I longed for something to strengthen my spiritual walk…I longed to know The Lord in a way so real that there would be no room for doubt….I longed for a testimony that I couldn’t ignore or explain away. I always sensed deep down that to secure my faith, I would need a moment where everything changed….saved by something supernatural, something undeniably bigger than myself. I spent…

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By Wisdom a House is Built

Thank you for sharing this Proverb and your reflection. Our homes should be a safe haven filled with love and respect.

Do you trust me?

I start each day reaching for this outstretched hand! Thanks Kim for your blog!

Kim Wilbanks

My children grew up watching Disney movies.  They were babes when the classics such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aladdin were released. We watched the movies so often I still know the words of most of the songs.

We had a game we would play when traveling.  One person would say a line from a movie and the others would have to guess the movie.  I would always start with “there’s a girl in the castle” said in my best French accent.  Can you guess which movie? 

If you think about it, there is always a line or two from a movie that stand out and make it easily identifiable.  I thought about one of those lines recently.  It was a line uttered by Aladdin/Prince Abu in the 1992 animated feature Aladdin.

At one point in the movie, Aladdin notices…

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9 Thoughts on Recovery

Amy is a great advocate for those who struggle with mental health issues . I love the way she expresses her journey and gives hopes to others. I hope some day to talk to Amy! May you be blessed by her Blog post.

Marsha