Gregory C. Johnson, aka The Quiet Computer Guy, handles all technical aspects behind the scenes here at Light Love Hope. He gifted the design and hosting of the site to Shirley to encourage her to write again after the tragic death of her sister. A shy, yet devoted, friend til the end of time.
I don’t write much on here but feeling the way I do I thought a bit of writing might be a way to do some self-therapy.
It was fourteen years ago today that my mom passed away. I spent the last several hours that she had at her bedside holding her hand. It was a very humbling experience. I had a feeling of complete helplessness. During that time, I prayed for her suffering to end. I feel guilty for doing that to this day. That may be why around this time every year I have times where I am right back there by her side holding her hand.
They say time heals all wounds. That may work for some things. Others it does not. This is one of those things. As time has gone on, it doesn’t bother me as much as right after she passed away. But back then I had a wonderful support system; a dear friend that I could call anytime and just talk to get my mind off these kinds of things. He passed away back in October, so this is the first year I have had no one to turn to just let my feelings out. So here I sit writing in hope that putting this in words will help a bit with the feelings inside.
The one things I want to pass on in all this is please always tell those that mean the most to you how your feel about them. Don’t assume they know. Tell them. Let them know that they are important to you and that you love them. We all need to hear that we matter to someone.
I wish anyone that reads this that your life is touched by love.
When I read Mandisa’s story and listened to “Out of the Dark” the term “light at the end of the tunnel” came to mind. We all go through tragedy in our lives. There are times when it can be so completely overwhelming that it destroys our faith in God. Yet, God is always there at the “light at the end of the tunnel.” That is what “Out of the Dark” is all about. It is Mandisa’s story of her overcoming her loss of faith and bringing herself back into the light.
This is an awesome CD. It is filled with an uplifting message intertwined with dance beats and beautiful melodies accentuated by Mandisa’s amazing voice. It can’t help but bring a smile to your face and get your feet moving across the floor. This CD is a glorious celebration of life and how God’s grace that can bring us all out of those dark times. Don’t hesitate. Get your copy and feel the love that comes through each track. #OutOfTheDark #FlyBy
Win a copy of Mandisa’s Out of the Dark CD. Fill out the form below. The contest ends May 30th.
Thank you to everyone that submitted an entry.
“Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.
Only one entrant per mailing address, per giveaway. If you have won a prize from our sponsor Propeller /FlyBy Promotions in the last 30 days on the same blog, you are not eligible to win. Or if you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.
The world God has given us is filled some amazing things. I had a lot of time to think about this over the weekend during a stay in the hospital. I think the greatest gift we are given is the ability to love. Love is a mystery. Love is elusive for a lot of us. If only love was an easy thing to give and receive I think you could change the world in an instant.
God brings us into this world as a clean slate. We don’t know how to hate. We don’t know how hurt others. I believe it is love that is the connection that is fostered between a new born and their parents. Love is born in all of us as a gift from God.
But, if love is not continually reinforced in our lives as we grow and experience the world many of us seem to lose that feeling. We stray from God’s message of loving others and ourselves. I came from a family environment where love was lost in our daily lives. My parents never said us, my sister and I, “I love you.” We went to church each Sunday, but still the message of God’s love was never brought into our home. What little I know about love I learned from watching, observing and reading; but never from first-hand experience.
Like a lot of people in the world, I am what they call “unlucky” in love. I have had my heart crushed several times as almost everyone has at some point in their lives. I have been told things like “I really didn’t mean it when I said I loved you” or “they came back into my life so I don’t love you anymore.” So, through all these years I have lived, I have lived alone feeling that I have not really know what love is. But that has not stopped me from giving of myself to others to show them that love is all around them even in the most trying of times. For my definition of love is to give as I believe God intended us to do.
On this Valentine’s Day, think of those you love. Share with them the love that is in your heart. Share with them one of the greatest gifts God gives us… love.
I have been thinking about this passage a lot lately. With everything I see and hear going on in the world It seems everyone has completely lost touch with this part of Jesus’ teachings. I read and see people get angry over trivial things and then react with unbridled violence. I unfortunately had to experience something like this first hand quite recently.
It was a nice quiet New Year’s evening when at 8:30 p.m. I heard what I thought was firecracker’s very close to my home. I get up to look and see a car racing off. The police showed up within a few minutes. I went down to see what was going on and discovered that where a shootout in my front yard.
I live on a corner lot. Several people decided to use my house to setup an ambush for a car driving down one of the streets that pass my house. The shooting lasted for only about ten seconds. In that short time, there were 15 to 20 shots fired. There were spent shell casing on my front porch and strewn across my front lawn. I was extremely fortunate that these people could not aim well as my home did not get hit by gunfire; however, three of my neighbor’s homes were hit. The targeted car was hit four times and crashed up the street almost driving into a home. The shooters and those in the crashed car ran off before the police arrived.
It makes me wonder why in the world would anyone think to do something like this? What ever happened to caring about those around you? Yes, there will be times when you get upset over something someone does, but to have no consideration for the life of another or yourself I just don’t understand.
I think this passage of scripture has a message that we all need to think about and live by. There is so much hate being spewed on social media by people that don’t think anything of saying horrible things. It is very disheartening. We all need to follow the teachings of Jesus and live the life he asks us to and…
Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
I have always been a very light sleeper. Anything that sounds out of the ordinary at night and I wake up. It got to be so bad that I would use something like a fan, soft music or ocean wave sounds to help block out the odd sounds that would wake me up at night. That all changed when I was introduced to essential oils.
I had read about oils several years ago, but I never tried them. Then my wonderful massage therapist, Gina Westlake, mentioned that she was selling oils though Young Living. Since Gina has helped me a lot with my neck and shoulder issues, I trusted her recommendation enough to give them a try. So I signed up and bought a kit and a diffuser. It has been one of the best things I have done lately.
I started out using Frankincense in the diffuser while I meditated. I have been meditating for many years. My usual routine is to meditate with some soft music playing, such as Jim Brickman’s Soothe CD ( #soothe ), right before I go to bed to calm my mind in hopes of sleeping better. I set the diffuser near me and the scent of the Frankincense helps me achieve a deep state of relaxation faster and more often than what I would normally. So I decided to experiment a bit and use the diffuser at night while I sleep. I tried a couple of oils like lavender and I did notice a bit of a difference.
Gina made a post in our Facebook group, “Good morning! There are a LOT of oils that will support a good night’s sleep. This trio (Valor, Lavender & Envision) has been my go-to the last few days (a couple drops of each on my feet before bed) and I have been sleeping GREAT. Seriously like knocked-out-great, which is unusual for me. What oils have worked for you?”
One of the members replied that she used a combination of lavender and lemon. Since I had those two, I decided to give it a try. The lavender and lemon combination works great for me. I still wake up one or two times a night, but I am sleeping deep and feeling more rested than I have in a long time. I wish I would have known about this a long time ago.
If you have ever thought about trying essential oils, we would like to give you a chance to try them out. We have put together a little essential oils starter kit giveaway. Our starter kit includes:
A diffuser
A bottle of Young Living Lavender oil
4 oil samplers: Lemon, Peppermint, Peace & Calming, and Thieves
An Essential Oils pocket guide
A Young Living product guide
Great American Popcorn Company Main Street Galena, IL
Nestled in a scenic valley in the far Northwest corner of Illinois, sits the quaint little town of Galena Illinois. There is a very special place among the shops and eateries that is a popcorn lover’s dream; The Great American Popcorn Company.
The city of Galena got its start as a boomtown for lead mining in the early 1800’s. The city became known as the home of General and later President Ulysses Grant when Grant moved there to work in his father’s store on Main Street. Today, Galena has all the charm of a 19th Century town with its vintage buildings on Main Street and grand houses standing upon the hills of the city. Today, Galena is a wonderful destination for a weekend getaway from the stresses of the work week. The downtown area is adorned with shops and eateries with such a variety as to please most everyone.
Great American Popcorn Company
For years, I heard friends talk about Galena and how they loved to go there. It is only about an hour and a half from where I live. Yet, I had set aside the time to go there until about ten years ago. Once I stepped on to Main Street my nose caught the wonderful smell of one of my favorite things; popcorn. I have only two vices; diet Wild Cherry Pepsi and popcorn. I felt like Toucan Sam as I “followed my nose” down the street and into the Great American Popcorn Company. It was if I had stepped into a dream as there was popcorn in flavors that I never imagined such as Zesty Ranch and Parmesan and Garlic. Galena instantly became one of my favorite places in the world.
Dave & Zach Lewis
The Great American Popcorn Company was started over 20 years ago by Dave Lewis and his wife Cathie. They run the business with their children Zach and Victoria. It is easy to tell that they all have a passion for their products and their customers. You can sample of any of the popcorn flavors in the store. Over the years they have come up with hundreds of flavors of popcorn; many of which are long time favorites and always in stock such as the Galena Mix; a tasty combination of cheddar cheese and caramel corn.
Extensive selection of popcorn
On my first visit, I wasn’t too sure about some of the flavor combinations and if they would taste good. You may feel that way too when looking through their selection. Don’t! You will miss out on an amazing taste treat. Some of my current favorites are: Thin Mint (yes, just like the Girl Scout Cookie), Zesty Ranch, Peanut Butter Cup, Cookies and Cream, Molasses (just like ginger snap cookies), and a long-time favorite of mine White Cheddar. They even have a flavor that was created at the request of the hostess of this blog, Shirley. Shirley has a passion for brownies so Dave came up with Brownie Explosion. To say it is amazing in taste is an understatement; especially if you like brownies.
Mouth watering fudge
Popcorn is not the only wonderful treat you can get at the Great American Popcorn Company. They have homemade fudge in a wide variety of flavors. Today I got to taste a new flavor; Dark Chocolate with Raspberry Wine. Fortunately, I only had a small sample otherwise I could easily see myself eating a whole block in one sitting. Some of the other fudge flavors they have include Birthday Cake, Mint, Peanut Butter, Honey Graham, Praline, Carrot Cake and many. In addition to fudge, they have variety of other candies, Jelly Bellies, ice cream and an extensive selection of sodas.
Wide variety of boutique sodas
I could go on but I hear a bag of Thin Mint calling my name.
I highly recommend making a trip to Galena to see the sites and get some popcorn. If you can’t get to their store, check out their website at www.greatpopcorn.com or look them up on Facebook.
“Friends don’t let friends eat microwave popcorn”
As a last thought, thank you Dave and family for bring a little taste of heaven into my world. See you soon.
“Friends don’t let friends eat microwave popcorn.”
We all go through difficult times when we feel lost and that there is no hope. I have been through that many times in my life. Occasionally God sends us something that renews our hope and spirit. Something that touches our lives in ways we can never forget. Each year as the holiday season begins, I am always reminded of one of those times when God sent a special gift our way; a Christmas Angel.
It was my sophomore year in high school. My parents had been divorced for five years. Things were difficult for mom as she had two growing kids to feed and clothe with only a small child support check to help out every two weeks. Mom worked two jobs and I was working one day a week to help with the household expenses. But as sometimes happen, that fall several things needed repair and that put mom behind with all the bills.
As the holidays approached, with no knowledge of what was going on, my sister and I began to decorate the house as usual in anticipation of the wonder of the Christmas season. Mom had signed us up to create banners to be hung in church each Sunday in Advent. It was a wonderful family project where the three of us would gather around the dining room table on Saturday night to come up with ideas for a banner to go with the scripture lesson that Sunday.
It was the second week of Advent and we were around the table talking about ideas for that week’s banner. Julia and I noticed something didn’t seem right with the way mom was acting. After about a half an hour of trying to come up with an idea for the banner, mom sat us down and told us that there wasn’t any money for the holidays that year. Things were so bad that we were in danger of having the gas and electric turned off. Mom started to cry and held the both of us for a while. There was a feeling of being lost and alone with no hope for the future that was felt by all three of us.
But mom wouldn’t let that get in the way of us getting the banner for the services the next day. As we began to glue the letter and symbols on to the banner, there was a knock at the front door. It was rather late on a Saturday night, around 10pm or so, so we paused before heading to the door to see who was there. Mom opened the door, but there was no one there only an envelope that was stuck in the screen door with mom’s name on it. Mom walked out on the porch but did not see anyone.
She came back in and sat down at the table staring at the envelope for several minutes. When she finally came to open it, she found $300 inside. There was no note; just cash. We all sat there in silence. God had brought us a gift delivered by an angel. We never found out who the person was or where the money came from. Mom was able to pay the bills and provide us with a nice holiday dinner with the money in the envelope. There were no gift for us that year. But that didn’t matter. We were safe and provided for by God’s spirit and the thoughtfulness of an unknown stranger; a Christmas Angel.
I am sure some of you may be thinking, it’s not even Thanksgiving and you are posting about Christmas already. I am posting this now because I would like to introduce our little holiday contest. We have a gift bag full of surprises to give away during the holiday season and we just couldn’t wait to get started.
So here is how this works. Christmas is the season of giving. We run around looking for the perfect gift for those important people in our lives. Then we run some more for those office gift exchanges or Secret Santa’s we always seem to get into. What we here at Light, Love, Hope want to know is what do YOU want for Christmas; what do you REALLY want for Christmas?
We have a bag full of stocking stuffers to give away. So post your Christmas wish as a comment on our Christmas Wish page or on this post on our Facebook page. We will be picking random winners throughout the next several weeks. You have until December 15th to get your wishes posted.
To get things started, I will share with you what I really want for Christmas.
Over the years, I have been told that I am a very hard person to know what to get for Christmas. I can see how people would think that as if I see something I want I just get it for myself. My family rarely asks what I want. They know that I have a passion for popcorn, but that is the one thing they never buy for me. That is a mystery to me. I will admit much of the time I tell them that there isn’t really anything I want. That is not really a true statement. There is something that I have always wanted, but it is not something that you can buy in a store. It is something that I missed greatly from my childhood.
Each year during the holidays, we would decorate the whole house with lights and candles. We had a very nice fireplace that we would decorate with holly and lights. Each Saturday night we would light a fire in the fireplace, have only the Christmas lights on, and have Christmas music playing on the stereo. We would sit there with our Advent calendar and read the passage of the day in front of the fire. We then just sit by fire for the evening listening to all the wonderful Christmas melodies playing softly in the background. I miss that a lot.
So here is what I would really like for Christmas. I would like to spend an evening with someone sitting with some music playing (a fire in a fireplace would be nice but not necessary ) who would let me lean my head on their shoulder and hold their hand. That is it. That is all I want.
I have never understood men’s fascination with bacon. Where I live it is an obsession with some. So much so, that we have a bacon fest each year. Restaurants gather and make some of the most, in my opinion, obnoxious combinations of foods with bacon. Who would want to ruin chocolate mixing it with bacon?
We all have family members that embarrass us from time to time. I have a family member that makes it his life calling to be embarrassing in public. This past mother’s day, I took my aunt, my cousin (her son) and his girlfriend for a nice Sunday brunch buffet/cruise on a local paddle wheel riverboat. There is a massive crowd that day and it takes us an hour just to get our tickets and on the boat. My cousin is in one of his “moods.” We sit down and he proclaims loudly. “I am not hungry!” He sits at the table watching the three of us eat grumbling and mumbling under his breath about this thing or that.
As the buffet winds down and most of the guest head out to the deck, the kitchen crew comes to clear off the buffet table. In steps my cousin. He walks up to the serving table as the servers are begging to put away the remains of the buffet and blurts out, “Gimme that bacon!”, and proceeds to fill a plate with bacon. He piles it at least six inches high. There has to be a good pound or two of bacon on his plate; nothing else. He comes back to the table and sits down to “munch.” The waiters begin to remove the plates from the table. There is alarmed look in my cousin’s eyes. Someone is going to take his bacon. There will be none of that! He loudly blurts out, “Don’t touch my bacon! Don’t anyone dare touch my bacon! It’s my bacon!” By now the entire ship knows it is his bacon.
Perhaps if I wasn’t so afraid that I wasn’t good enough. Perhaps if I wasn’t so self-conscious about how I look to others. Perhaps if I could see what others say they see in me, I would not be and feel so alone.
Perhaps I should look inside of myself and take God’s hand. Perhaps I could help spread a little love to others that feel like me. Perhaps I could share a bit of kindness to those that feel as lost as I do. Perhaps I can make a difference by spreading God’s love.
Perhaps if I give a little kindness, those that receive it will spread a little bit of kindness of their own. Perhaps that will spread even further and become a flood of people giving a little of God’s love. Perhaps that is what this world needs; more giving of God’s love.
Though you are not here, though you may be far away, I hear you whisper my name during my deepest times of trouble. That whisper brings me comfort when I feel sorrow. That soft voice touches my heart. It brings warm to my soul. Though just a whisper, the words dance upon a melody that resonates within my heart.
Just a word or a single phrase of a whisper can turn help turn an inner gloom into the hope of daylight. To whisper in the ear of those in our heart, “I love you” will touch them with the power of love that they won’t forget. It will be a memory that stays in their soul to be treasured across time.
Yes. A simple little whisper has that kind of power. Touch someone that means the world to you with a little whisper.
For someone in my profession, “crash” has a special meaning; someone is having an anxiety attack because they can’t get on Facebook. It may not always be like that, but when your computer suffers a “crash” it can be a trying experience. I have spent many an hour helping out those that I know, and some that I don’t, recover use of their computer and saved files.
It is very important today to setup your computer with a system to back up all of your data. On my home computer, I use a great program that is easy to use called Acronis True Image. I have an external hard drive that I use that backup feature in Acronis to backup my entire pc every night. I even have a special backup that handles my email. It is a reasonably priced setup to guarantee that you won’t lose those files that are important to you.
I do get a special bit of joy in helping people with these types of problems. I tell them not to feel bad when things like this happen because it is a normal occurrence and can be fixed. So it you are not backing up your computer, consider setting something up so that you can be back up and running in no time.
We all go through difficult times when we feel lost and that there is no hope. I have been through that many times in my life. Occasionally God sends us something that renews our hope and spirit. Something that touches our lives in ways we can never forget. Each year as the holiday season begins, I am always reminded of one of those times when God sent a special gift our way; a Christmas Angel.