Tag: Hope

What is your Future Hope?

What is your greatest hope? Is it world peace? An end to this pandemic and returning to “normal?” A medical test telling you your cancer is gone?

At any point in our lives we may be focusing on one particular “hope,” driven by something pressing in on us. There was a time in my life when my marriage had suffered some pretty hefty relational earthquake cracks, and all I could focus on was hoping (and praying) the cracks would be repaired and the relationship restored. (By God’s grace, it was.)

At that point in my life, the rope knot that kept me hanging on was “love hopes all things.” Love is the knot that keeps you hanging on. It’s the knot that allows us to look into the future.

The future that Love gave us.

And that’s what this season of Easter is about.

Love. Perfect love. Earthshaking, paradigm shifting, life-altering Love.

The kind of love that prompts the God of the Universe to look upon mankind in pain and sympathy and send His only Son down to the inhabited orb to provide a way for mankind to be—if they so choose—restored to Him and look forward to a time when the Earth will be renewed and eternal life established and granted. When every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

 

A future, Heavenly hope.

 

That’s what the Resurrection gave and still gives us.

 

Nothing else on Earth comes close to that kind of promise.

 

Are you looking forward to that time? Do you have that kind of hope in your heart?

I pray you can answer “Yes!” to those two questions. If you can, I know you’re rejoicing at the promise that will someday be fulfilled.

If you’re unsure, or waffling, or wish you knew more, I invite and encourage you to watch these videos by Alistair Begg. They’re short, informative and uplifting.

 

And they could change your life by planting you on the road to eternal hope.

 

Christ has died.

Christ is Risen.

Christ will come again!!

To watch Pastor Begg’s short videos, paste this link into your browser and click on “The Story,” and the other two videos.

And then sing your heart out!

 

 

 

HAPPY EASTER!

Until next week, may you rest secure in the future hope God has already given you—the Eternal Light that shines in the darkness.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”

 
Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Grief, Positivity and Hope: Saying the Right Words at the Right Time

(This post is the last in a series on toxic positivity.)

Is your life missing peace? Does your soul feel empty and hungry? Does it feel as though the light in your life has been snuffed out?

At one time or another, most—if not all of us—have felt completely hopeless and experienced all the side effects of it. Chaos, sadness, depression, a lack of purpose or promise.

And we often need to express those scary feelings to another person. The kind of response we receive may end up making us feel worse and wondering if there is anyone, anywhere who understands our pain and is willing to walk alongside us while we’re groping and fumbling to get back into life.

In these times of heartache and trouble, what we need is not a pious platitude or super upbeat “think good thoughts and be happy” response. We need reality, and a reminder that goodness is out there, and we can find and have it.

 

The right response to deep grief and anguish—

For the last month we’ve been exploring a too-positive response to someone’s expression of grief and heartache and the problems this kind of response can cause.

And I also noted that too often Christians are the first to chime in with cheery, smiley, bordering-on-superficial responses. While the Bible passages they might share are true, they are shared improperly or at untimely moments.

Today we’ll take a look at how a writer of the Bible chose to response to the most horrendous of circumstances, with the reality of the situation, and the truth about God’s character.

 

The Lamentations of Jeremiah—

While we can find outpouring of heart and grief in the Psalms, one only need turn to Lamentations to locate funeral or dirge poetry and outpouring of grief so deep, the reader wonders how the writer can even go on living.

The dirges are for a people snatched from their homes and beloved city and dragged off to another country. He bewails the crumbling and destruction of their magnificent house of worship. The words recount a once-beautiful city and the ruinous state it now lies in. The tone and setting are dark and dismal.

Yet even after his outpouring of grief in his honest words of how he feels beaten up and bruised by God, Jeremiah calls to mind a sense of hope and where it comes from.

He reminds himself and the people that God is unchanging and faithful.

 

For twenty verses the prophet pours out his spiritual, emotional and physical agony, and then writes the well-known verses:

 

“Yet this I call to mind

and therefore I have hope:

Because of the LORD’S great love we are

not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.”

 

And he continues:

 

“I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion;

therefore I will wait for him.’

The LORD is good to those whose hope is

in him,

to the one who seeks him;

It is good to wait quietly

for the salvation of the LORD.”

 

For the rest of the chapter, which is a total of sixty-six verses, Jeremiah runs between profound lament, calling on God and voicing faith in Him, extolling God’s faithful character, and admitting to the people’s sins that brought on some of this calamity in the first place. He is raw and honest.

And keep in mind that the people were suffering unimaginable torment; in a time so bad they had reduced themselves to cannibalism. It is ugly, it is desperate, and it is grievous.

It certainly would not be a time for anyone to throw out “Look on the bright side. It’s not as bad as you think. God is good. All the time, God is good.”

And yet that is exactly what Jeremiah boils it down to: that God is indeed good and faithful and just, and this devastation they’re living through will not last forever, because God will make sure it eventually ends.

 

But before Jeremiah gets around to stating those facts, he grieves openly, completely and without apology. And because of this honesty, we can appreciate that cheery, pat answers and out-of-context Bible verses or ones delivered too quickly aren’t realistic, they don’t reflect life, and they don’t really reflect the Bible.

 

What a Hurting Person Needs—

As pastor Alistair Begg says,

“Hurting people want to know if there’s anybody around that understands how they feel, what they’re going through.”

 

A hurting person needs to know that the theology of God is not always one of sugary words and upbeat jargon but is also one of suffering, of pain, of lament. Of honest grief.

They don’t need cheerleaders. They need big hearts, open arms and listening ears.

Sometimes it’s okay in life to imitate the grieving, lamenting prophet. Sometimes it’s best to get it all out so you can think more clearly, to purge and cleanse your heart and soul.

While we can remind ourselves that God is, indeed, always faithful, always good, and always available to us, we also need to acknowledge that life is hard. Sometimes real hard.

Sometimes so hard it feels as though it’s going to break you.

And when we’ve poured out our hearts and come to the very end of ourselves, or listened to someone else do it, then is the time—in order to keep on going and persevering—we can and should remember, and remind a grieving person:

Because of the LORD’S great love we are

not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

 

As Pastor Begg encourages:

“Bring all that you know of God to bear on all that you know of your circumstances.”

 

  • Acknowledge your or someone else’s circumstances.
  • Be realistic about them.
  • Weep over them if you must.
  • And then remember God and bring Him into the healing equation.

 

Call to mind that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, and His mercies never end.

And that’s what gives you hope.

It’s about volition. And timing. And being honest about life and the sometimes horrendous reality of it.

And then remembering that a new morning is coming and because Jesus Christ lives, we can, indeed, face all our tomorrows.

 

Invitation—

If you are finding it difficult to call to mind the hope you have in God, please reach out to me with a text to 520-975-6109. Tell me your name and a little about your circumstances, and if you need someone to talk to about them. I’m available to help you with your healing.

And if you don’t know this amazing, forgiving God of hope and would like to know Him and have a relationship with Him, send a text message to the same number. Don’t let another day go by without making this decision!

Until next week,

Be honest with your grief and allow others to be too. Listen well and open your heart—to the pain of others and to the God who hears and heals.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

After Coronavirus: Fear, Lockdowns, Hope and Rebuilding Lives

Has life changed for you during this coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns?

Will your life ever return to normal?

Should it?

 

All our lives have changed since this coronavirus pandemic started sweeping across the globe. Some of our lives have changed a little; some have changed dramatically. And some have been upended.

And the question on everyone’s mind is: where do we go from here?

 

Unanswered questions—

Although we’ve been bombarded with opinions, I’m not sure there’s a person alive—including scientists, business owners, or politicians—that know the answer to the question: where do we go from here?

The scientists have their hammer that bangs us on the head with curve flattening mandates, finding therapies, developing vaccines, and not returning to normal until all of that has been accomplished.

The economists’ hammer bangs on the stock market and fears of investors, businesses and nations and signs that economies are collapsing and might never be able to recover.

Fear. Fear. Fear.

When you instill fear, you control the masses.

When you’re afraid, you make decisions based on fear. And fear-driven decisions usually carry poor, or even catastrophic consequences.

We need to take a deep breath, stop watching and listening to media that thrive on villains and catastrophes, and do some serious thinking, praying, and planning.

 

What does the future hold?

There was a moment for many when they wondered if they’d experienced their all-is-lost moment. That point they knew without a shadow of a doubt that life was never going to be the same for them, or anyone else. They looked into the black hole of life’s future and saw, well, a black hole.

And today I’m going to ask a hard question. A question I’ve asked myself, and one my husband and I have been pondering.

Should our lives return to normal?

 

Your personal future—

I think we’re all thinking about our futures. What they hold and what they’ll look like. What we’ve lost. What we had and will have to give up.

And some of us are scared by the vision.

 

My husband’s company is already running the algorithms to discern whether the curve-flattening calculations lined up (I’ll let you know that answer later); and figuring out the best way to return the employees to a safe work environment.

They’re incorporating things like rolling starts, with some employees returning soon and others later. Right now my husband might not return to the physical plant for another 18 months.

And they’re looking at mandatory workplace practices like wearing masks, making sure employees can maintain safe (social) distances during work. Some people working on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; others might work longer hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

They’ve been contact tracing—figuring out who a sick person has come in contact with during their work day, and testing his contacts—since the beginning, and that practice will likely continue.

While my husband is thrilled at the prospect of working from home for another 18 months, a lot of his co-workers are not. They’ve had enough of it, with their kids and spouses in the same house all day. They’re bored. They don’t know what to do with themselves.

 

My husband and I can, and can’t, understand that.

It seemed like a great time to connect with family. Of course, as a former home schooling family, we’re well aware of the obstacles, frustrations, and deep learning curve you transcend in the initial home school transition, being both teacher and parent, and keeping kids challenged, focused, entertained, learning, and reasonably happy.

So we empathize with everyone that got dropkicked into the paradigm.

As for me, I’ve been doing what I was doing prior to the stay-at-home orders: writing in isolation in my study, staring through my French doors and picture windows at the backyard wildlife and budding flowers for inspiration, and meeting with writing and Bible study groups on ZOOM.

Of course ZOOMing with your groups isn’t the same as meeting in person and sharing the energy of writing and critiquing, and hugging and listening, but there have been benefits to it.

For introverts, this lockdown thing has been a boon.

For extroverts whose spirits are shriveling from lack of personal and group contact, not so much.

But none of us want to be stuck in a life of failed dreams, regrets and fears.

 

Moving from fear to peace—

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by scary, all-over-the-map emotions, I want to help you move from fear to peace. From insecurity to security. From doubt to trust. From despair to fear.

When looking at your future, what do you see?

If we rephrase that, we can ask: what do I want and hope to see?

 

Because it really is about hope. Hope in our future. And while our futures may not look like we thought they were going to look at the beginning of the year, we can make sure they’re still full of hope and purpose.

When we take the current paradigm that in some ways looks like that big black yawning hole, or misty fog, we can re-work it to paint a picture. A lovely one that allows us to make the best of the days and times we have.

That allows us to look at these times as a gift to be enjoyed and treasured.

A time to ask the Lord what He’s preparing us for, and what we can learn while navigating the valleys.

 

 

An ancient story that gives tips for our present one—

Several thousand years ago, a little nation faced a similar, gargantuan challenge. More than a challenge, really. A devastating destruction of their homeland and their dreams and hopes for their future, businesses, and families.

It was the nation Israel, and God had decided to use an evil neighboring nation to discipline them. (Israel had fallen away from the promises they’d make to God about living the way He wanted them to. They were overrun with immoral behavior and unfair, deceitful business practices and had grown fat, arrogant hearts.)

I can imagine they thought their 70 years of captivity (3 generations) spelled a death knell for their nation, and for each of them personally. They were likely horrified, and terrified. Prospects for any kind of fruitful, enjoyable living looked bleak.

But God wasn’t blind or deaf to their pain, and He instructed His prophet Jeremiah to give some encouragement to these exiled people:

 

“Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons; and give your daughters in marriage; that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jer. 29:5-7).

 

I believe we can use this instruction as encouragement right now. Lift out the important directives and you have a list of positive, action-oriented words.

A to-do list for living, and multiplying, and prospering. Things you can build hope and a future on.

  • Build
  • Live
  • Plant
  • Eat
  • Get married
  • Encourage your kids to marry
  • Have babies
  • Encourage your kids to marry and have babies, to produce another generation
  • Multiply
  • DO NOT decrease.
  • Seek the welfare of the city in which you’re living, (no matter what the circumstances).
  • Pray to God on the city’s behalf, so
  • You can enjoy the welfare the city enjoys.

 

God didn’t want His people to shrink back, stagnate, wallow in despair over what they lost and didn’t have, and disappear.

He wanted them to THRIVE.

And I think He’s calling us to do the very same right now, in the midst of the dire warnings, the fears, the hammer slinging and smashing.

He doesn’t want us to shrink back, stagnate, or wallow in despair over what we’ve lost and might not regain.

 

So whom will you heed?

The fear-mongers?

Or the God who loves and gives and guides and directs?

 

No matter how long this pandemic goes on, I’m fairly certain God wants you to settle in, raise your family, be fruitful, be a valuable member of your community, and prosper!

 

Confronting realities—

I know many of us will have tremendous difficulties regrouping and planning futures. They may take some time to re-establish.

For others, we feel as though we were living the good life, minding our business and then abruptly flattened on the sidewalk of life. Unable to peel ourselves off the pavement and keep going. We’ve lost our jobs, our paychecks, our resources.

Or we’ve had to say goodbye to family members through remote funerals.

Some of it seems too overwhelming to confront or think about.

In order to emerge from the mess, right our family’s life and us, and build, multiply and prosper, it may take time.

But what better time than now to take stock of our time and our talents, pray for guidance, and formulate new plans? To build and architect hopes for a new future.

As author Dr. Jeff Meyers says in his new book Unanswered Questions, we are “no more than one heartbeat away from eternity.”

And that’s true for all of us.

And because of that, each day—each moment—should be regarded and treated as a gift. As Dr. Meyers emphasizes, it will “change the way we think about God, other people, and, well, everything.”

With Christ in your heart and at the helm of your life and thoughts, meaning will emerge out of fear, hopelessness and emptiness.

 

The future—

A recent ministry newsletter I received pointed out that in the best-case scenario, there will likely be genuine and serious challenges for many of us as a result of what happened.

And even in the worst-case scenario, our God and King is still in control, and our hope has ever been in Him, not in the situations and circumstances of this world.*

And they highlighted one of my favorite Bible verses; one I’ve leaned on innumerable times in scary situations:

“Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

 

Those algorithm results—

So what did data experts in my husband’s company discover from examining the infamous modeling we’ve heard and seen in numerous news reports?

That the curve flattening data and numbers didn’t weren’t lining up. The results weren’t validating the projections.

But does that really matter now that businesses and jobs are lost, that lives are in shambles, and life has been drastically altered?

 

We can’t rewind the clock three months and request a do-over. We need to take what we’ve been given today and make the most of it.

We need to ask: Where do we go from here? What do we need? What do our family, city, state and nation need? And how can we contribute to those needs?

The sooner we ask and answer these questions, the better off we’ll be, and the better headed in the right direction to rebuild our futures. And to prosper in them.

 

 

Invitation—

I invite you to ask yourself some of the same questions my family and I are exploring.

  1. What does my life look like now, and what would I want it to look like next month, by year’s end? Next year?
  2. Given my circumstances right now, how can I achieve that vision? (And how could I change my circumstances to make the achievement more likely?)
  3. What research do I need to do, what counselors do I need to seek out to help me achieve those goals and make that vision vivid and real?
  4. How can we build, plant, eat, multiply, bless, pray and contribute to prosperity so we can all prosper? (Have a brainstorming session and write down ideas. Don’t be afraid to dream, like you did when you were a kid. And don’t knock any ideas you write down. You can evaluate them in a few days or weeks to decide which ones are most important to you and doable.)
  5. If I have the time (and health), whom can I help or volunteer with? If I have the financial resources, whom can I support or lift up with my resources?
  6. Is there anything good I experienced during the lockdown that I would like to continue in the future?

 

NEXT WEEK: We’ve all had some dreams fritter away, abruptly evaporate, or be put on hold due to COVID-19 and the lockdowns. Rather than ignore them, it’s important to identify and validate the emotions this life-altering pandemic has unleashed. And grieve losses of all types.

I’ll be giving you tips for accepting and being comfortable with those emotions and grieving those losses.

You won’t want to miss this valuable post!

Until then,

pray, plan, build, multiply, bless, and prosper.

Andrea

Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

*Jews for Jesus April newsletter

COVID-19 Virus Battle Emotions: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

The world has fought a lot of wars throughout history, and it feels as though we’re fighting a war now. A battle against a tiny microbe—officially named COronaVIrusDisease-19 (COVID-19)—invisible to the naked eye. That’s one of the problems with this particular battle. We like to see our enemy, be able to predict what he’s going to do next, calculate how to handle him and thwart his plans.

But with this little halo-surrounded enemy, it seems we can only develop hypothetical models that keep changing, shut everyone behind closed doors, and hope for the best.

It’s obviously a little more complicated and sophisticated than that, but to the average person on the street—who has now been told in some places to continue staying off the street (or beach) or get arrested—it all seems about that simple.

A time of stark contrasts—

The times we’re living in, the battle we’re fighting, brings to mind the opening line from one of my favorite books, one of the best books ever written: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. A lot of you could probably recite it without looking it up—

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

This beginning of the very l-o-n-g first line pretty much says it all for us. We can relate.

Dickens tells the story about life in another war, the French Revolution, and he continues with a string of contrasts.

 

…it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,

we were all going to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”

 

A far-flung range of emotions—

How many of us have gone through, or are still going through, these wildly contrasting emotions?

For those of us who cherish our families and time spent with them, we feel doubly blessed to be around them so much.

But domestic violence is on the rise, and tensions are developing in families suffering from too little personal space, or outdoor space. And upended orderly, hyper-scheduled lives.

Drunk driving accidents and arrests are way down; but drinking and drug use have increased dramatically.

We’re looking to trained professionals to give us answers, and we get a multitude of opinions.

A possible breakthrough medication is mentioned, and a couple thinks their fish tank cleaner containing some of the same chemical will work for a homeopathic treatment. After all, they don’t want to get the virus, so—without doctor recommendation or consultation—they ingest their fish tank cleaner. (Who does this!?) The husband dies, and his wife blames our country’s president for her stupidity.

It’s a time of people being terrified and too self-protective, and a time of people throwing caution to the wind, inviting trouble, and putting God to the test.

It’s a time marked by notable events, when we desperately want to believe someone, and a time when we’re so shocked by the unfolding circumstances we doubt everything.

For believers in God, it’s a time when they see Him moving, showing His power, fulfilling prophecy; for the unbeliever, it’s a time of sadness, anxiety, and paralyzing fear.

For those able to maintain their jobs and support their families, it’s a blip on the inconvenience scale. (For some, like my husband, it’s a blessing to not have to rush to and from work every day.) For those watching their lives and livelihoods unravel, they feel stunned, betrayed and helpless. Their futures look dark and impossible. Hopeless.

 

For them, there is nothing before them.

For others, their greatest fear is whether or not they’ll have enough toilet paper to last through the lockdown. For so many around the world, they don’t know if they’ll have food to feed their children their next meal.

For all of us, we only know what we have right now—before us—and see only a question mark for our and our countries’ futures.

 

What next?

When will this end, or will it? Will we have to permanently adjust to a “new normal?’

Will staying quarantined, hunkered down, and apprehensive change our brain chemistry so much that we wouldn’t be able to return to normal even if we wanted to?

 

Rarely in history have we felt the collective “we” we’re now experiencing. The global “we” that for a brief blink in time puts us squarely in the human fragility boat.

As a young man said during an international prayer call I joined in on a week ago: “Thank you, Lord, for bringing us to our knees and showing us just how small, helpless and vulnerable we are.”

It was an admission of humility, of God’s omnipotence. And it was also a plea for mercy to a God that listens when His people cry out to Him. He’s not the detached, aloof God of the Deist; He’s a God of His creation, His people, His children, who listens when they say, “Abba (Daddy), help!”

It may not seem as though He’s listening or moving, but He is. He always is.

 

 

What’s in a name—war or not?

 Some people don’t like referring to this pandemic as a war. While it may not be in the strictest sense, for many people it certainly is a battle—emotionally, physically, spiritually and financially.

As during Dickens’ story, we are living in a time of stark contrasts:

  • hope and fear
  • knowledge and ignorance
  • trust and suspicion
  • resignation and obedience and blaming and rebellion
  • hope and hopeless
  • Light and Darkness
  • hope and despair
  • joyful solitude and despairing isolation
  • resolution and waffling
  • meditation and anxiety
  • acceptance and rejection
  • prayer and self-focus
  • gain and loss

 

Good emotions versus bad emotions—

 I could fill pages with these contrasts. And strike up a passionate discussion.

Are these negative emotions bad?

No. They’re honest emotions, reasonable and human reactions to upended lives, unknown futures, unanswered questions, and death.

The negative emotions aren’t bad, unless we allow them to swallow up or control our thoughts, kill the positive emotions, and rule our lives.

But the ultimate question is: which contrast do you want to cling to, to practice, to emulate? To grow in. To emerge from this pandemic a better person than you were when you entered it.

Because it is a time of change and growth. A time when we’re confronted with difficult decisions. And we need to look to Someone who can shine a Light on the best ones and guide us down the best paths.

Ultimately, we do have a choice to make it our worst of times or our best of times. Or the opposite.

 

I don’t mean to imply that this is easy. It’s not. It may take every last ounce of energy we have to successfully emerge and resume a more “normal” life. One that’s hopeful and purposeful. God’s been known to do that to people throughout history to make alterations permanent.

 

It helps us remember.

A little encouragement—

Before I sign off with the invitation for today, I want to leave you with a couple of encouraging truths:

 

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”                                                                                                                      —Thomas Merton

 

“It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”                                                                                                                                                         —Lamentations 3:22-23 (KJV)

 

Invitation
  1. Write down all of the emotions this pandemic and chaos has caused you to experience. Don’t judge them, or yourself. Just jot them down.

Then write down why you think you’ve felt these emotions—like fearfulness, anxiety, weepiness, peace.

Draw pictures to accompany your feelings.

Continue to do this as your lockdown progresses or restrictions are eased.

Do you see changes in your emotions and their ability to control you?

  1. Write the steps you can take to make sure your emotions and physical and spiritual life end up on the positive side of the contrasts.

Or turn it into a prayer, asking God to help and guide you to accomplishing those attitudes and behaviors.

Better yet, turn it into worship. It’s hard to feel negative emotions when you’re singing praise and worship songs!

Here’s one of my favorites to get you started.

 

 

And I’ll see you back here next week (or sooner)!

Blessings,

Andrea


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a fitness pro, chaplain, and award-winning inspirational writer. She works and writes to help people recover from grief and loss and to live their best lives — physically, emotionally, and spiritually.