Category Archives: grief

grief, healing, Hope, influence, Jerry Sittser, LIFE, life lessons, LOSS, Lovely Traces, make a difference

Thank you Professor Sittser

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This past week, I have been working intently to finish up details for publishing the Lovely Traces of Hope book.  I had one of those moments  as I sat late into the night reading/ editing/ proofing yet again through my own story.  

For the umpteenth time, I was reading through Chapter 14, Turning East, which I have sent to many of you already. (Click here if you haven’t read it yet.) In that chapter, I share excerpts of Jerry Sittser’s book called A Grace Disguised. Jerry literally led me through much of my grief through the sharing of his own story.

Several months ago as I was reworking that chapter for the book, I sent Jerry a letter to thank him for being bold enough to share his story because of the influence it has had in mine. 

Here was his reply…

Continue reading Thank you Professor Sittser →

#lovelytracesofhope, grief, healing, Hope, influence, LIFE, Lovely Traces, make a difference

A Book to Proof

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I was sittting at the Arby’s across from the mall in the area that is all window. People watching at its best.  The sky was clear with the exception of a few, very small, very white clouds slowly drifting by.  What a beautiful day!

Every thing about this moment was life-giving. Even the woman Continue reading A Book to Proof →

grief, influence, life stories, Linda Dillow, Living Intentionally, Lovely Traces, make a difference, Mentor, Offering Hope, Passion Pursuit, worship

Grateful for this Woman of Influence

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This past weekend I received an email from this special lady pictured Linda Dillow- wrote forwardwith me in the photo. Her name is Linda Dillow.  The email is the forward she has written for the book, Lovely Traces of Hope.

Linda has been my mentor in life, marriage, and worship most of my adult life, though we have only met a dozen times or so.  I received her first book  as a wedding present in 1979.  I have read all of her books since.  (I’ll list my favorites at the end of this post.)

It has seemed that just when I needed to take a next step, she was putting out the next book.  When I was invited to lead a worship team to Ukraine, she was the speaker at that same conference.  No, we didn’t plan it.  When Rennie and I were on sabbatical, she invited us to stay in their home for 10 days while they were away.

For whatever reason God chose to place her in my life over and over again, I am eternally grateful.  She led me in a journey of contentment, worship, marriage, sex even.  She encouraged me to find contentment in my life and see my words, attitudes, work, and my waiting -even my pain – as an act of worship. She led me in worship, not in songs of worship, but in worship of two hearts bowed at the sofa, remembering who God is, recalling what he has done and praising him from the core of our beings.  She invited me to see that my marriage was a reflection to my world of God’s love for us.  She challenged me to want more for my relationship with Ren.

Linda is one of my heroes!  No, this is not hero worship.  This is gratitude.  I trust her.  I know she is a woman who pursues God and points others to him, because I have seen her do it.  Not to one or two women, but to thousands, perhaps more.  Not for a short time, but for her lifetime.  I know. I’ve been watching her for 37 years now. Linda is the real deal. She is a woman of influence!

That is why I am humbled and grateful that she has written this forward for the book.  I could make you wait to read it in the book, but I just had to share it.  Take a peek. Here’s what a woman you can trust has to say.

FORWARD for Lovely Traces of Hope.

What does a mom do when her beautiful, vibrant fifteen year old daughter is suddenly, harshly, instantly gone? Grieve? Of course. Go on a long journey of seeking God and healing? Yes. Kathy did these things but also did something very unusual.

After Leisha died, she opened her daughter’s journal and found Leisha’s “book.” If she flipped Leisha’s journal over and upside down and opened the cover, Kathy found her daughter had started to write her own story. She even included the title page.

Lovely Traces

So Kathy began writing to finish Leisha’s story.

The Burrus family: mom, dad and three girls came to have a vacation in our basement in Colorado Springs in 2002. It was a special time to get to know Kathy, Rennie and their three lovely daughters, Caitlin, Brielle and Leisha. A few short years later, Leisha was singing in heaven and Kathy was finishing her story. As I read Lovely Traces of Hope, I smiled, I cried and I wrote these words to Kathy about the book she and Leisha had written.

Thank you for walking through the dark tunnel to His Light

Thank you for writing so honestly and vulnerably for me and others about grief and pain and how to walk….believing that there is HIS Light somewhere ahead

Thank you for “taking your clothes off” and being real

Thank you for revealing the beauty of walking the Christ walk

Why do I think you should read this book? Let me use Leisha’s name to tell you.

L egacy

Both Leisha and Kathy have much to share about building your legacy. Kathy says, “When we intentionally NOTICE what really is happening, it gives us an opportunity to reflect on what we are learning from it. More importantly we see what God has been doing. We NOTICE His fingerprints, HIS HAND on our everyday, ordinary lives.”  That is especially true when we reckon with the painful areas that may leave us paralyzed in some way. Many times just “noticing” allows us to reframe the events and their effects on our future.

E ncouragement

As a mom, Kathy gave me hope, showed me how to face problems with teens, how to reach inside myself and be willing to look honestly at “me.”  We all face loss. Loss is not the defining moment of our lives, it is how we respond to loss that matters. Kathy helped me see in a new way that healing is a progression.

I nfluence

Not many fifteen year olds think about being an influence—they are too busy thinking about boys, clothes or the Friday night party. Leisha wanted to be MAD (Make a Difference)! At her tender age, she thought about being an influence and leaving a legacy. Teens need to read this book!

S incere

Kathy is honest. Listen to her sincere words. I hesitate to write these next pages. Offering them here is a risk. What will you think of me if I tell of the places in our lives we didn’t have it all together? What if I take off the mask enough for you to see me as I really am?

H oly

Leisha and Kathy’s book points you to the Lord God Almighty. In pain. In grief. When life is a dark tunnel, Kathy discovered that God is still Light. She says, I had to learn to NOTICE God showing up differently.

A dvance

This book is an advance. It takes you forward in your thinking, in your faith, in your personal journey toward the legacy you are creating. Books have been written on grief. Kathy achingly walks you through how she processed her grief. Books have been written on how to help your teen and whole family walk through trials, Kathy shows you how her family did it.

Leisha and Kathy’s combined story is for every mom, every teen….really for everyone. I highly recommend Lovely Traces of Hope to you. I promise you it will lead you to hope as it did me!

LINDA DILLOW
Author
Calm My Anxious Heart
Satisfy My Thirsty Soul
What’s It Like to Be Married to Me?

Co-Author
Intimate Issues
Passion Pursuit
Surprised by the Healer

Want to get updates or join the launch team for Lovely Traces of Hope? click here!

dream, Fresh start, grief, Hope, influence, LIFE, life lessons, Lovely Traces, make a difference, Mentor, Offering Hope, Pat Emery Hixon, Pay Attention, Questions?, wrestling

Friend of Influence

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20150321_162126Yesterday I shared a post called THAT’s INFLUENCE.

Today I want to share with you a friend of influence.  Her name is Pat.

Pat is has been a long time friend, though recent years have brought us together more purposefully.  She has been my coach as I launched into business.   I was her matron of honor a couple of years ago at her wedding.  She has listened to me through so many transitions of life – and I to her.

Our favorite thing to do is grab a table at Touches of the Heart in Glandorf for lunch and stay till they close.  Julie, the Touches host, knows when she sees us to put on another pot of coffee.  We will be there a while.   Pat and I are never at a loss of words to fill an afternoon.

I have spent that last few weeks struggling with finding energy to do life- but more significantly returning to the grief tunnel as I processed some of the chapters for the manuscript I am writing.  The more I tried to get deeper into my story, the less strength I had to do it. I had spent 10 weeks grappling with the emotions and wondering if I could actually write them down.

I felt so alone. No one can do that except me!

Then Pat called- she connects with me in one way or another nearly every week.  This time she called.  We talked about my health, rejoiced over our families, shared what we are learning about ourselves, about God.  Like I said, we rarely run out of words.

Then she asked about the book.  I told her I haven’t written much for 10 weeks.  We talked about how my health and lack of energy seemed directly connected to the book. She said, “Kathy, do I just need to come and sit with you while you write?”

Ah!  There it is!  So many days I had wished for someone to be with me in this journey.  I had not said anything because I know that I am the only one who can write my story.

But Pat saw me!

She invited herself into my pain.

She asks the questions others are afraid to ask.

She listens to my ramblings as I come to find my own answers.

No, I don’t need her to come write with me.  But I did need to know someone saw what I needed and was willing to be an answer to my need.

That’s influence.

Pat, I am filled with gratitude for the influence you have had on my life. And just so you know, I’ve completed 5 chapters and rethinking 3 more. Thanks for spurring me to finish what my heart must do!

Love you friend!

Fresh start, grief, healing, Hope, influence, LIFE, make a difference, Pay Attention, unique design

Lessons from #tribeconf

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Before this weekend, I would have told you:

  • I never wanted to be a writer
  • I started writing about 6 months ago.
  • I am still struggling to find my voice.
  • I accepted the title of writer about 8 weeks ago.

But after the weekend at the first ever TRIBEWRITER’s Conference, (hence #tribeconf) I came to own I have been on this journey of writing most of my life.

Jeff Goins being Superman!
Jeff Goins being Superman!

Jeff Goins, founder and host of the TribeWriter Conference, (Superman in another life) spoke directly to me (though he doesn’t know it) on the very first session.

 

He challenged us to:

  • Let go: of expectations, of fear, of shame (feeling that we Should Have Always Mastered Everything).  Here we go again.  First thing he says and I’m already having to open my hands to what God might be wanting to do here.
  • Embrace the mess:  How did he know I woke up in the middle of the night in a sweat, wondering if I was going to show up and be shown up for the mess that I was?  He asked us to partner with the community regarding the issues we have.  I did! I found great encouragement and accountability in the process.
  • Become a more true version of yourself:
  1. Be you! Not someone else, even if you admire them.
  2. Believe in yourself.  Action follows belief.
  3. Try something new this weekend.  That was easy! Everything had some newness to it.

While the weekend was full of excellent speakers with very practical resources and action steps for us, I probably could have left after the first speaker and felt like I got what I needed.

I have struggled ever since Leisha died feeling like I need to write to finish her book, but have been in a battle to rediscover who I am really not just as a writer, but as a woman. All I thought about myself had been put into question when my daughter died.  I blogged a bit about this during the weekend. You can catch it here.

But Ally Vesterfelt, of Author Launch really spoke to this as she shared her father’s story as he was near death.  As a clinical psychologist and marriage counselor, he had worked with all kinds of people.  But his first article as he fought to live was “Dying is easy, Life is hard to do!”  Yes it is!  I can attest to that!  I never considered that Leisha had the easy road in dying.  The rest of us had to fight to live.

Ally was just getting started with her challenge to me.  Her next thoughts made me know I was going the right direction.

  • We find our voices when we are most likely losing them.
  • One of the most painful things is to lose the sound of your own voice.
  • FIGHT for the truth, the rawness, and the realness of your own voice.
  • Finding your voice starts with finding yourself.20150830_092547 (2)

Wow!  For her to speak directly to the  battle I mentioned earlier means she is familiar with the pain of it.  I have been there for the last 9 years.  Finding my voice by finding myself.  I can identify that it must be truth, it will be raw, and it must feel real or it feels disingenuous to the process of healing.

“More than likely you will find your voice on a path you least wanted to go down. Sometimes the sufferings, not the healings, are the source of greatest transformation of our life.”

She was right! I knew she was!

I was being changed through the sufferings.  I didn’t want to suffer.  I tried to avoid the suffering, but I knew  it when I embraced the ache and walked into the darkness that the greatest transformation occurred.

As I work to finish Leisha’s book, I reconnect with many layers of grief in order to share what I have learned from the last 9 years. That has been part of the mess I have felt recently. But I wouldn’t change the process.  I am much more aware of who I am and what I was meant to say!

I understand that I must find my own voice before I can truly help someone else find theirs. While I hope that the book will be used to change one person’s life in an effort to change the world,  I know that writing this book has and is changing me.

The story I’m getting ready to present to the world in a few months has been in process for most of my life.

I’m a writer! I have been a writer!  I need to write if just to change me!

How’s your story coming?

Jeff & KathyP.S. Thanks Jeff Goins! For letting go, embracing the mess and becoming a more true version of yourself. You have modeled for me and given me courage to do that same.

Thank you Ally Vesterfelt! For sharing out of the raw, real, truth of your own story. I am one who is changed because of it.

Just because I didn’t write life lessons from all the other speakers doesn’t mean I couldn’t have.  I am still just processing the first one.  Thanks to all of you for your time, availability and genuine support.

I’m already signed up for TribeWriter 2016.  Join me?

TW- 20151029- with Christine TW- 20151029-with Jo Higgins Michael TW 20151029-with Jo

fear, grief, healing, Hope, Leisha's Hope, LIFE, life lessons, life stories, Living Intentionally, LOSS, Offering Hope, Pay Attention, Uncategorized, wrestling

Hope in the Midst of the Storm

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Rennie Burrus was asked to share his Leisha story through loss to hope at Cable Road Alliance Church on Sunday, August 2. Ren asked me to share a bit of mine as well. You can listen in at the link.

Hope in the Midst of the Storm –
Podcast by Rennie and Kathy Burrus

Cable Road Alliance Church’s Podcast

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grief, Hope, Leisha's Hope, LIFE, life lessons, life stories, LOSS, Lovely Traces, make a difference, Offering Hope

Happy Birthday Leisha!

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the trioTwenty-four years ago, our daughter Leisha appeared in our world.  She messed up all of our plans that day.

Rennie was supposed to be leading a huge dedication service of the new worship center at our church in Pennsylvania.  She was being born just as they ended the service with a dedication of the new generation that would grow up in this place. Others had to fill in for Rennie!

She messed up lots of days since then too!  Just like every baby does when they grow up in our family.  Days become messy and nights interrupted. Plans get changed and that is expected!  You know, or at least you realize quickly when you bring a child into your life they will forever change you.  All three of ours have left a mark on us so significant that we know we are better, stronger, even holier as we have spent many more hours on our knees. You have too if you are a parent.  It is what we do when we come to the end of ourselves and want more for our child.

Leisha also messed up our lives the day she died. That was eight and a half years ago. Another mark on all of us that have forced us to look at all of life from a new, yet broken perspective.

It is out of that perspective that I write today and ask for your prayers.

Days after Leisha died, we gathered every picture we could find of her and discovered her tapes and journals. It was in her most recent journal that we found ‘her book’.  If you flipped it over and upside down and opened the cover she had begun to write her own story.

Chapter One

Once Upon A Time…

By Leisha D. Burrus

How many stories do you know that begin with ‘once upon a time”?  Well this is one of them, or so I thought.  I was born April twenty-eighth, nineteen ninety one.  But wait!  I am getting ahead of myself.  I guess I should start where it all began.

My parents met in high school. …  she begins to tell the love story of her dad & I.

leisha As I sat there reading it for the first time, I could imagine this book was to be full of adventure and relationships and truth. Such truth! Because even in the short chapter that was written, she had spoken much truth to my heart. But just as Leisha had penned these few words to begin writing her story, she died.  Not only was her story unwritten, but her life unlived.

However her words “I should start where it all began” was a telling of my story and of the journey of her mother and father and all that was her heritage because she was born into this family.

I knew the moment I read her words that it was meant for me to finish.  Her story started mine. It was as if she knew I would need a jump start.  Earlier that morning I had picked up my Bible to continue reading where I had left off the day before. I read these words from Revelation 1:

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.

19 “Write down what you have seen—both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen.

I felt as if Leisha was writing these words to me.
“Mom! When I saw him, I fell at his feet…and He put His hand on me and said…! Now Mom you’ve got to write!  Write down what you have seen- what’s happening right now and all the things are that going to happen. You can do it Mom!”

So I am!

Yes, I’m writing to finish the story Leisha started; her story and mine. I don’t know how this story will impact yours, but it is my prayer that it will give you hope. Because my primary goal is to write about the many ways this Living One who died showed up in our story. Click To Tweet

That’s the real story- in my life and yours!

So this birthday, I am asking for your prayers as I do just that! Will you pray as I finish the story! I have set my heart to finish writing, and publishing it by Leisha’s 25th birthday on April 28, 2016.  I have much to process, record and learn before that time.  But it is a thing I must do next.

Would you be willing to be on the prayer team for Lovely Traces of Hope! That’s her name for her book! Whether or not it is the final title, I don’t know yet.  But it seems fitting.

If you will join me, please sign up here.




I will add you to the group and send out periodic emails with updates and requests.

Whether you sign up or not, will you pray right now that I see this to completion.  My heart needs it done.

Thank you from a fledging author!

Kathy

Happy Birthday Leisha!

beauty, Broken, Bucket list, grief, life stories, Living Intentionally, Offering Hope

Words of Life or Death

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The gift of a woman’s story is often what God uses to speak hope into the stories of others. My friend, Dr. Michelle Bengtson has told such a story.  It is my honor to share it with you today!

Feet (1)

Dr. Michelle Bengtson

We’ve all heard the childhood rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break by bones, but names will never hurt me.” I knew from a very young age that that was a lie. Even as I said them on the playground in response to a peer’s cruel taunts, I knew it wasn’t true.

Words hurt.

Scripture tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21), but do we teach our children that? Or do we perpetuate ignorance by reciting simple rhymes?

Having worked in the field of psychology for over 20 years, it’s evident to me that children don’t realize the long-term significance of what they say.  They behave toward others in the very same way that’s been modeled to them.

As an adult who has been wounded by the words of others since early childhood, I probably err on the side of not saying enough—not wanting to draw any more attention to myself or risk further rejection.

Only three years old when I was stricken with an undiagnosable and life threatening illness, I was left to deal with the physical and emotional ramifications the rest of my life. Continue reading Words of Life or Death →

grief, LOSS, Psalm 77, Questions?, wrestling

What do you do …?

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Recently a new friend asked the common question, “What do you do for a living?”

I hesitated for a moment. Thoughts flashed through my head of the past couple of weeks.  Of conversations I’ve had with clients and friends.  I know what my job description is, but is it what I actually do?

I became a life coach because I got to help people, particularly women, identify where they are and where they want to go!  One of my favorite things to do is to partner with someone to create an action plan for their dream.

However, recently I’ve been more of a Psalm 77 coach than a life coach.  Have you never heard of a Psalm 77 coach?  Yeah, me neither. I just made it up!

Here’s why I use the title Psalm 77.

When I start working with a client, I often ask just two questions.

1) What do you want to talk about today?
2) What do you want to have to feel successful in this session?
If a client can answers those questions at the beginning of the session, we can make incredible progress.

However, what I find most often is before a woman can accomplish what she wants to be true of her, she has to grieve what isn’t!

Coaching (1)It sounds something like this! Continue reading What do you do …? →

grief, healing, Hope, LOSS, Lovely Traces, prayer

Living Open Handed: Dear Grief

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I was challenged by my story partner friend to take Kate Motaung’s challenge to write a letter to grief. Since it ties in with my recent series on Living Open Handed, I choose to share this here also.

 

Dear Grief,

I don’t think I want to talk to you!

I’ve spent so many years struggling to survive your choke hold on my life!

I’ve crawled through your tunnel

Filled with muck- dark and slimy

So deep that with each step I sunk farther

O

Until it began to paralyze my legs

Then my torso and my arms

Finally my face

Silencing my voice

Blind folding my sight

Dulling my ability to hear as you filled my ears with your lies.

I could barely find my next breath

OH

let alone move.

Continue reading Living Open Handed: Dear Grief →