HopeNotes #73 – Invisible Illness Week Info

Ah… is fall in the air yet for you? Here in San Diego it’s been over 100 degrees for 2 weeks and more humidity is on the way. I just blast the air conditioning and turn on football and it “sorta” feels like fall.

This week’s HopeNotes can be viewed here.

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HopeNotes is our weekly email newsletter. You can always view the most recent issue at

www.restministries.org/hopenotes/mostrecent.htm

Health Hero Award Thank You!

Well, it was officially announced last week, I won the “audience choice” award for the Our Bodies Ourselves contest as the Women’s Health Hero. I was thrilled and planned to blog about it right away, but then I kept reading through all the nice things you wrote, and bawled. And then read some more. And felt so unworthy.

>> read more

October Chronic Pain Blog Carnival

Be sure to stop by and read the October Pain Blog Carnival from How To Cope With Pain! As always, I am honored to participate… this time sharing my post about how hard it really is to ask for help…or even just friends to hang out with during difficult times.

This is a wonderful blog of real life stories about the ups and downs and daily details of living with illness or pain… and yet, oh so encouraging too!

Bad Times are Drawing Bigger Crowds to Church

The New York Times reported 12/14:

Nationwide, congregations large and small are presenting programs of practical advice for people in fiscal straits
— from a homegrown series on “Financial Peace”
at a Midtown Manhattan church called the Journey, to the
“Good Sense” program developed at the 20,000-member
Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill.,
and now offered at churches all over the country. Many
ministers have for the moment jettisoned standard sermons
on marriage and the Beatitudes to preach instead about
the theological meaning of the downturn.

Poll – Send in your “illness & work” questions

Ask Rosalind Joffe, author of a new book and chronic illness coach on careers, a question! What do you tell a potential boss during an interview? What is you can no longer work full-time but want to ask you boss about working part time at home?

Send them in!

___________________________________

Take a Past Survey!

You can still answer our past surveys! It helps us a lot as we use your comments, suggestions, etc. to write
articles, educate churches, etc. >View Past Surveys

 

Prayer Room at Church Reaches Many

When HopeKeepers leader, Dorothy, discovered that her church, McIntosh United Methodist Church Florida was going to celebrate the National Day of Prayer, she organized a special prayer room. She had a special place where people could come and prayer. Candles, special books, scriptures, and music all set the scene for a place of quiet, rest, and alone time with the Lord. We will soon be posting photos on our hopenotes Blog. f you would like to reach Dorothy for suggestions for your own prayer room, email her at:<b> dbmc001@gmail.com

HopeNotes Poll – What do you want in a handbag?

We’ve recently been alerted to someone who is designing handbags and she wants our feedback! If you could add your favorite features to a purse/handbag, what would it be? A special opener? Amagnetic clasp? What kinds of compartments? What weight of the bag? What type of straps? Anything you can suggest would be helpful, especially features for those with disabilities or chronic illness!

Tell us!

Do You Have a Pile of Shoes You Can’t Wear?

 

When you have an illness, sometimes you end up with a closet filled with shoes that were never bareable for more than 5 minutes on your feet. Now, instead of letting them pile up and feeling guilty about spending that money, you can donate your new or “gently worn” footwear to Shoes4Soles, a Nashville-based nonprofit that organizes the donations of footwear, which are used to aid the hurting worldwide. Soles4Souls has donated more than 3 million pairs of shoes since its inception (one pair of shoes every 28 seconds).

Send your new or gently worn shoes to one of their warehouse facilities. (Plus you’ll get a tax write off–for shoes! Who knew?)

Letter from the Editor

Dear Friends,

If you told me it would be over two weeks that my computer would be unable to send email for two weeks I would have laughed, and then gasped! At last email is working once again and I am in the processing of answering them. An email problem led to a computer problem, which sent it to my “computer doctor.” However, upon getting the computer back, I’d gotten into a bad “spam loop” with a company sending me about 30 emails per minute. So, with over 30,000 emails on my server, I could no longer log onto it. My ISP was quite slow to see the importance of helping me fix the problem.

As much as I see these as spiritual attacks, I also saw Lord fulfilling the scripture Proverbs 16:4: “The Lord works out everything for his own ends…”

Without the ability to communicate, I was able to let go of some of the stress and also begin working on my “mom book” which has been in my heart for awhile. I’d not been ready to write it, had the time, nor the experience. With my son entering Kindergarten in the fall, I was hopeful I could do the topic justice if many of you who are much more experienced helped me out.

And when God wants me to work on a book, it’s because it’s a place in my life He wants to work on me. Researching, writing and praying on the topic usually impact my heart and spiritual walk unlike anything else. So, we’ll see what happens! (If you are interested in being involved, keep reading!.)

Yesterday was my son’s last day of preschool. A potluck, photos, and celebrations. A playdate with a friend wasn’t able to happen, but we had the neighbor’s little boy come over and they swam in the kiddie pool and then played trains. They were playing and he came over and just gave me a BIG hug like “thank you!” (Pretty cool). When dad came home we had dinner and Josh got to use the special “Shining Star” plate, opened a present and then we watched the video of the graduation.

I have to run and pick him up from daycamp now and then we head on over to Little Gym. I’m feeling awful. I slept well, but woke up feeling like a truck had parked on me all night. I am aware of every bit of tissue in my back – it just aches. It’s the fibromyalgia part. And I am trying to figure out when I can have hand surgery since I ruptured a tendon and my left hand is now pretty deformed.

If this is all overwhelming, next time just slide on down to the next section of the newsletter, but I wanted to catch you up to date on life’s happenings. You can also get snippets of anything on my “Twitter” in the Sunroom (scroll down to the Twitter box on the right) When my email wasn’t working, this was how I kept in touch with what the newest update was.

Next Tuesday Josh and I fly up for a week in Oregon with my family. My husband will join us a for a few days during the weekend, but can’t get away from work for long. I will try to get this ezine out from Oregon if all of technology agrees with me!

Thanks for all your prayers,

 

 

Lisa Copen
Rest Ministries Director and Founder

PS: These are the kind of emails that got my through the TV interview… Thanks, Friends! I still have not seen the footage but will try to keep this in mind

“Good luck on your TV interview. Remember, we are hurting and it will more then likely bless others to see that you are in the same boat…like you said not some model who had been sick for a day or two. I don’t want anyone to be in pain, but it is so helpful when I can see someone who looks like me, not someone who is made up to look healthy. Don’t try to cover up who you are, that is what makes rest ministries the great help it is! Thanks for all you do! Susie E.”

Invisible Illness Week Being Planned

In case you are wondering… we are starting to update the web site and pull some things together for National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week. We will be having our “chat seminars” this year as telephone seminars, where you can call in and listen and participate. Lisa will be ordering updated brochures and other items in the next few weeks.

With everyone trying to save money, we want to be good stewards and not purchase a bunch of stuff no one is interested in, so watch for an upcoming survey to tell us what you would be interested in purchasing. We want to have items available that you want (brochures, pins, bumper stickers)!