Candle Lighting Ceremony

It was my privilege to help with this quarter's newsletter for our area's Compassionate Friends.

May I share it with you?

The Compassionate Friends of the Twin Lakes Area

Quarterly Newsletter for October-December 2015

     

The Compassionate Friends Worldwide Candle Lighting unites family and friends around the globe in lighting candles for one hour to honor the memories of the sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and grandchildren who left too soon. As candles are lit at 7:00 p.m. local time, hundreds of thousands of persons commemorate and honor the memory of all children gone too soon.

Now believed to be the largest mass candle lighting on the globe, the 19th annual Worldwide Candle Lighting, a gift to the bereavement community from The Compassionate Friends, creates a virtual 24-hour wave of light as it moves from time zone to time zone. TCF's WWCL started in the United States in 1997 as a small internet observance, but has since swelled in numbers as word has spread throughout the world of the remembrance. Hundreds of formal candle lighting events are held and thousands of informal candle lightings are conducted in homes as families gather in quiet remembrance of children who have died, but will never be forgotten.

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Here's another way a family found to honor their loved one.

You can find this article in its entirety on her blogsite by clicking HERE.

From Jill persenaire Sullivan,

 Author of “While We’re Waiting”

Celebrating When the Guest of Honor is Absent

“Today I went birthday shopping for my daughter.

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some fun fall decorating items, and even a "JOY" Christmas ornament.  

I found the cutest wooden block that says, "You are loved" ... and I just couldn't pass it up. I love the "present tense-ness" of it.

...That's all I'm going to get her this year, because I really don't know what else she might want.  You see, she'll be turning 24, and I haven't seen her or spoken to her since she was 17.  She was just a teenager then, interested in clothes and boys and American Idol and politics.  (Yes, politics.)

 …But, although my daughter is absent, she is not lost.  And she is not under that headstone.  She is where she was created to be ... I am the one who is out of place.

I can thankfully say that on a day-to-day basis, God has restored my joy and I do not grieve with the intensity that I once did.  But there are still days when the "missing" is enough to bring me to my knees, and birthdays are one of those times.

But God has given us a promise.  Isaiah 25:8 (ESV) says, "He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken."

Death will be swallowed up, the sting of tears will be wiped away, and I will see my Hannah again.  I just have to wait.”

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The Compassionate Friends of the Twin Lakes area wish you

A Joyous Christmas Season!

Monthly Meetings: 1^st Thursday of each month 6 to 8 pm, led by Charlotte Repp, LSW, Bereavement Coordinator

Location:  Hospice of the Ozarks Administrative Building (Behind hospital @ 701 Burnett Drive, Mountain Home, AR 72653)

Phone:  870-508-1789

Compassionate Friends Mission Statement:  “The mission of The Compassionate Friends is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive.”

NATIONAL ORGANIZATION:                               REGIONAL COORDINATOR (AR):

The Compassionate Friends                                         David and Dana Penn

PO Box 3696                                                                 Phone 870-759-1299

Oak Brook, IL 60522-4696                                          Email:  djdp32@hotmail.com

nationaloffice@compassionatefriends.org

www.compassionatefriends.org

COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS OF THE TWIN LAKES AREA

ADVISORY BOARD:  Esther Hunter and Steve Cushing

STEERING COMMITTEE:  Chapter Leader – Charlotte Repp

Co-Leader/publications – Jacqueline Grafton

Secretary – Jo Cushing

Treasurer – Norma Rollinger

Communications Coordinator – Lavon Lannoo

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A related post on The Compassionate Friends can be found by clicking

on the highlighted letters above.

Also, drop by Rock4Today sometime to check out

my Names of God on Rocks!