Delightful, powerful ripple effects: Samantha’s memoir

“The Samantha White book arrived this afternoon,” my friend wrote in an email, “and I'm about 30 pages into it already. Boy, can I relate! Thank you so much for suggesting it.”

I had mentioned to my friend—let’s call her Erin—that she might enjoy Samantha’s memoir, Someone to Talk To:  Finding Peace, Purpose, and Joy After Tragedy and Loss, and Erin ordered Samantha’s book that very day!

About 24 hours after Erin started reading Samantha’s memoir, she sent another email: “What a gift…! Samantha’s path, experiences and emotions are so very similar to mine that it is uncanny.… It is such a relief to hear others felt or feel the same way I do.”

Before long, Erin wrote again:  “On page 177 in Samantha's book she states for the first time she has fibromyalgia. OMG! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! Both in our 70s, she and I have walked parallel lives on opposite coasts. No wonder her words so resonated with me.…

“Other than the Bible, her book is probably the most impacting and significant book I have ever read! Honestly. Our paths and feelings are so very similar. On almost every page I could say ‘That's me! That's exactly me!’ Only someone who has been there can have even an inkling of the pain we suppress and try not to self acknowledge. 

“Thank you again, Linda, for mentioning Samantha's book to me. No longer feeling so alone, it is a comfort to read about someone who has lived this and survived and, more importantly, thrived! Telling her story helped heal her and it is a significant step in helping with my healing.”

Some of you—perhaps many of you—

fear your story is not worth telling.

You worry no one would want to read your memoir.

I hope you will reconsider and write your story.

You lived your story

so that,

like Samantha,

you can bless others with and through it.

Think how exciting and rewarding that would be.

Think of how moving it would be to learn

your story could help answer someone’s prayers.

Think of the way God could use your memoir

to bring healing and hope.

Put yourself in Samantha’s place: What would you feel if you received messages like Erin’s?

Samantha emailed: “Passing Erin’s words on to me, the message that my book is helping and inspiring her, was a blessing. It is what I prayed for, all the time I was writing it. ‘Please let this book fly on wings to those who might derive some comfort, courage and inspiration from it.’ Please thank Erin for me, for her words, which are an answer to my prayers.”

Did you catch that? Samantha prayed while she wrote her memoir. She asked God to give others comfort, courage, and inspiration from her experience and her memoir. How exciting is that?!

You, too, can pray while you write.

Who knows what God might do through your story?

In her earlier guest post here at SM 101, Samantha said writing her memoir was “among the toughest, most draining, most rewarding things I have ever done” but her painful past and the tough job of writing her memoir brought about blessing and healing for her and others like Erin.

But there’s more to Samantha’s story. Personal Life Coach, memoirist, and retired psychotherapist, she wrote:

“When I moved to another state I had to leave my private practice of psychotherapy behind, and discovered that I missed doing my life’s work and needed to develop a new practice, with a new emphasis. And so my life coaching practice was born!”

Check out Samantha’s new website at http://LifeCoachSamantha.com and sign up for her newsletter, Recipe for Healing, a once-a-month short message of encouragement for surviving and thriving after tragedy and loss.

Be sure to click on Samantha’s earlier post about writing and publishing her memoir.  Take a few minutes to read it. You’ll be inspired.

“To remember only the pain, or only the joy, would be incomplete”

This month’s blog posts on Thursdays resulted from welcome comments Samantha White left after my blog post, Don’t Forget Your Memories!

If you’ve been hanging around SM 101 for a while, you know we emphasize the importance of remembering, based on several Bible verses, and Samantha’s probing ponderings brought real-life clarity to the topic.

With grace and wisdom, Samantha wrote, “Remembering can be a great gift and also a great curse. Memories can haunt us and pull us away from the present.…”

And so, her insight brings us to the end of this month’s examination of forgiveness and whether forgiving also means forgetting.

(If you missed earlier posts, here are links: Does forgiveness leave room for forgetting AND remembering?  We’ve all been there.  Is God’s grace is out of reach?) If we’re ready for “…a radical reconstruction of the heart,” (Max Lucado), God is ready and eager to forgive. God’s forgiveness is complete. Perfect. We also need to forgive ourselves.)  

So the question today is:

After God forgives us, after God takes our sins from us—as far as the east is from the west!—should we forget our wrongdoings? Or should we remember them?

Here’s what I think:

If remembering keeps us stuck in pain and regret,

if remembering prevents us from moving on,

if remembering keeps us mired in self-loathing,

if remembering our forgiven sins defines us and declares us ruined for the rest of our lives,

then remembering is not God’s best for us.

On the other hand,

if remembering focuses us on God’s unfailing love and all-sufficient grace,

if remembering makes us fall on our knees before Him in awe and thanksgiving,

if remembering speaks of  “a joyful release from the things that have bound us far too long” (Chuck Swindoll, Grace Awakening),

if remembering helps us hope,

if remembering blows us away,

if remembering shows how far God has brought us,

if remembering leads us to delight in God and love Him more,

then let’s remember!

God invites us to a sacred remembering,

a sacred remembering that releases us from wallowing in old history,

a sacred remembering that invites us to be our true selves: “Your True Self is who you are in God and who God is in you” (Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self),

a sacred remembering that enables us to live in the present, and for the future,

a sacred remembering that leads us to say, like David,

“Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins” (Psalm 103:1-2, NLT).

and, “You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance; you have taken away all my sorrow and surrounded me with joy. So I will not be silent; I will sing praise to you. Lord, you are my God; I will give you thanks forever” (Psalm 30:11-12, GNT).

 “Never be afraid when God brings back the past.

Let memory have its way.

God will turn the ‘might have been’

into a wonderful beginning for the future.”

(Oswald Chambers)

Forget the things that happened in the past.

Do not keep thinking about them.

I am about to do something new.

Don’t you see it coming?

I am going to make a way for you

to go through the desert.

I will make streams of water

in the dry and empty land.

  (Isaiah 43:18,19, NIRV)

God invites us to a sacred remembering in which we view our forgiven sins not as through rose-colored glasses, but as through grace-fogged glasses, when we view forgiven sins as distant clouds, as morning mists.

Samantha wrote these rich, insightful words that will bless your life and help you write your memoir:

“Memories can … make us deeply grateful for all the good we’ve received. One of the gifts for me in writing my memoir is that it helped me put my most painful memories to rest. By publishing them, I have given them wings on which to fly and stay alive, without my having to personally relive them daily.… The Bible is about times of pestilence and suffering AND triumph and survival. I suppose we need to remember it all … that life was difficult, and that we overcame and grew.… To remember only the pain, or only the joy, would be incomplete. We need to remember it all, as a package, because life is all of it. Pain and loss, healing and joy. We LEARN by remembering!!! I think the message of the Bible, ‘Remember,’ also means ‘Don’t let the suffering, nor what was gained and learned from it, be wasted. Learn. Remember what we’ve learned.’”

Many thanks, Samantha! 

You have blessed us all!

“To remember only the pain, or only the joy, would be incomplete”

This month’s blog posts resulted from welcome comments Samantha White left after my blog post, Don’t Forget Your Memories!

If you’ve been hanging around SM 101 for a while, you know we emphasize the importance of remembering, based on several Bible verses, and Samantha’s probing ponderings brought real-life clarity to the topic.

With grace and wisdom, Samantha wrote, “Remembering can be a great gift and also a great curse. Memories can haunt us and pull us away from the present.…”

And so, her insight brings us to the end of this month’s examination of forgiveness and whether forgiving also means forgetting.

(If you missed earlier posts, here are links: Does forgiveness leave room for forgetting AND remembering? If we’re ready for “…a radical reconstruction of the heart,” (Max Lucado), God is ready and eager to forgive. God’s forgiveness is complete. Perfect. We also need to forgive ourselves.)

So the question today is:

After God forgives us, after God takes our sins from us—as far as the east is from the west!—should we forget our wrongdoings? Or should we remember them?

Here’s what I think:

If remembering keeps us stuck in pain and regret,

if remembering prevents us from moving on,

if remembering keeps us mired in self-loathing,

if remembering our forgiven sins defines us and declares us ruined for the rest of our lives,

then remembering is not God’s best for us.

On the other hand,

if remembering focuses us on God’s unfailing love and all-sufficient grace,

if remembering makes us fall on our knees before Him in awe and thanksgiving,

if remembering speaks of  “a joyful release from the things that have bound us far too long” (Chuck Swindoll, Grace Awakening),

if remembering helps us hope,

if remembering  blows us away,

if remembering shows how far God has brought us,

if remembering leads us to delight in God and love Him more,

then let’s remember!

God invites us to a sacred remembering,

a sacred remembering that releases us from wallowing in old history,

a sacred remembering that invites us to be our true selves: “Your True Self is who you are in God and who God is in you” (Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond: The Search for our True Self),

a sacred remembering that enables us to live in the present, and for the future,

a sacred remembering that leads us to say, like David,

“Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. He forgives all my sins” (Psalm 103:1-2, NLT).

and, “You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance; you have taken away all my sorrow and surrounded me with joy. So I will not be silent; I will sing praise to you. Lord, you are my God; I will give you thanks forever” (Psalm 30:11-12, GNT).

 “Never be afraid when God brings back the past.

Let memory have its way.

God will turn the ‘might have been’

into a wonderful beginning for the future.”

(Oswald Chambers)

Forget the things that happened in the past.

Do not keep thinking about them.

I am about to do something new.

Don’t you see it coming?

I am going to make a way for you

to go through the desert.

I will make streams of water

in the dry and empty land.

  (Isaiah 43:18,19, NIRV)

God invites us to a sacred remembering in which we view our forgiven sins not as through rose-colored glasses, but as through grace-fogged glasses, when we view forgiven sins as distant clouds, as morning mists.

Samantha wrote insightful words that will bless your life and help you write your memoir:

“Memories can … make us deeply grateful for all the good we’ve received. One of the gifts for me in writing my memoir is that it helped me put my most painful memories to rest. By publishing them, I have given them wings on which to fly and stay alive, without my having to personally relive them daily.… The Bible is about times of pestilence and suffering AND triumph and survival. I suppose we need to remember it all … that life was difficult, and that we overcame and grew.… To remember only the pain, or only the joy, would be incomplete. We need to remember it all, as a package, because life is all of it. Pain and loss, healing and joy. We LEARN by remembering!!! I think the message of the Bible, ‘Remember,’ also means ‘Don’t let the suffering, nor what was gained and learned from it, be wasted. Learn. Remember what we’ve learned.’”

Many thanks, Samantha! You have blessed us all!