Chronic illness Pain Support

NEW Rest Ministries Web Site

Well... it's done for now! Rest Ministries new web site it up! I still will be re-doing the store and then jumping on podcasts, but the web site that I've been working on since Christmas is finally a reality.

I know some of you feel a bit lost, but the new navigation bar is "really cool." Just read down it so you can get an idea of what sort of thing is on it and then come back as you need to. You will find our program links for things like Share and Prayer and Fibro Splashes and all those groups under "Programs - Make Friends."

I have provided tons of resource links, well over 1000 I think was the last count, as well as loads of books from Amazon. For example, if you are a chronically ill mom, we have some links and books for moms with illness or books your kids may like to read. If your child is the one who is ill, there are books for the kids as well as for you that I've found.

You'll also find lots of links under the area of "Resources - Organizations" broken down as Christian / Non-Christian / Interfaith where you can find other ministries, etc.

And if you are looking for something specific, don't hesistate to click on the search button. The web pages have been titled pretty well, so it should be rather easy (I guess we will see!) to find what you're looking for.

You may have noticed I've removed my email from most pages and have placed a contact form on the site. I know for some that is a pain. If you have my email, it's not changed. But I get about 1-2 spams per MINUTE (about 15,000 per week) and removing my email will help those decrease (or at least not keep multiplying).

I am off to relax for a bit. I hope you had a joyful Mother's Day

Lisa

Pain Blog Carnival

The March Pain-Blog Carnival is now posted at How to Cope with Pain, featuring the month's best posts. See  http://www.howtocopewithpain.org/blog/220/pain-blog-carnival-march/

Don't Miss 20/20 this Friday, March 28th

Amazing man... amazing faith

This Friday 2020 is featuring Nick Vujicic from Life Without Limbs Ministries.

Nick’s ministry, Life Without Limbs, is an affiliate of Joni and Friends, as Rest Ministries is.

Nick is an amazing guy and it’s absolutely WONDERFUL that he is going to be on 20/20 this week. I know he will inspire anyone and everyone who watches. How can you see the hand he was dealt from the Lord, and yet not also see the joy he radiates from the Lord and not be inspired or want to know more about the God he serves?

I highly encourage you to tune in. If you miss it, his web site alone will be an inspiration. And forward this to your family and friends.

He writes in his email announcement...

Several days ago ABC’s 20/20 program interviewed me at my home here in Southern California. What a remarkable opportunity to share about Life Without Limb’s ministry and the impact that we are having upon thousands throughout the United States and the world!

The 20/20 broadcast will air this Friday, March 28th at 9:00pm PST/EST. (Check your local listings)

It is my greatest desire to faithfully share the life-changing, obstacle-overcoming, gospel message with as many people as I can. As a man with no arms or legs, my very testimony breaks down barriers to express the hope that can be found only in Jesus Christ.

The country of the United States needs this hope right now! Would you pray with me that God will use the 20/20 interview to stir up souls for the Kingdom? This is my first national interview on American television and the questions of the interviewer guided the conversation continually back to hope in Christ.
Here are some ways we can work together to make the most of this incredible opportunity:

1. Please pray that God will use the 20/20 interview to awaken souls to Him.

2. Please forward this e-mail to all of your friends.

I am looking forward to hearing from you in the days to come. May our Lord bless you and ignite His will in your life today!

In His service,
Nick


If you go to his web site lifewithoutlimbs.org you can read more and also see a clip of the video while they were filming 20/20.

Hope you enjoy!

Lisa

Chat Mentioned Had Emergency Cancellation

Soon after I sent out the annoucement about the special chat guest I received this email from Shep. Please keep her and her family in prayer.

Lisa

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We received a call tonight that we need to head out to Florida right away.  My husband, Harold Wilson's father is in very bad condition and his kidneys are failing.  We must go and that means a 2500 mile drive.  Please, pray for his body to respond to the treatments and that he will not go into kidney failure, and that we will have safety on the roads and good weather along the way.  It is a 24 hour drive, and if you recall, I had blood clots just 8 months ago and am not supposed to do long drives -- please pray that we can manage to stop and walk and still get there as soon as possible!

BOTH SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS ARE POSTPONED UNTIL A LATER DATE.

Harold was to speak tomorrow Feb 1st 2 pm EST and Carold Krejci was to speak Thursday, Feb 7th.  I will send a note and reschedule when we know what is going on.

My apology for not sending more personal emails, I needed to just do this in one as I have family to contact, and packing to do and many arrangements to make regarding this trip -- including my own medications and refills and other things of that nature -- thank you for your prayers that we will not forget anything we need, and that we will have peace in the journey.

Thank you to the regulars in the room for doing me a huge favor by welcoming new folks to the room and for just helping to cover the prayer times, chat times etc.

ThereIsHope is the host for the room and she will be 'in charge' if you have any problems.  Blue and LRae have also agreed to try to greet people -- please, pray for those who come to the room in need of support during this time.  Lrae and Hope both have my cell phone in case there is a need to reach me or if there are other problems, BUT - this is GOD'S room and we KNOW HE is going to take care while we are unavailable to do the normal day to day stuff!

Bless you all,

Love,

Shep

Visit us at: www.shepherdofhope.org

How to Cope with Pain "Blog Carnival"

How to Cope with Pain is now offering a monthly Pain-Blog Carnival during the last week of every month, to include each month's best posts.  January's carnival is now posted.  New bloggers are always welcome to contribute.

Articles include these topics, one of which I am excited to be the author of!

Change - The Words We Use, with 10 great ways to weave habits into our lives.

• 6 Tools for Making Sensible Resolutions - smart choices might be better than the pressure of resolutions hanging over our heads. (Lisa's article)
• Getting Down With What Gets in Your Way, 3 resources to get past whatever prevents you from meeting your goals.
• The Measure of a Choice, looks at what happens when life doesn’t conform to our plans.  Are we capable of more than we thought?

Chat Event for Christians with Illness

upa I thought I would pass along this chat event that is taking place Feb. 1. Shep helped out in the Rest Ministries chatroom before we made the decision to close it. She's carried on a wonderful ministry on her own web site and I thought you'd like to connect with her.

Lisa

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Guest speaker, Harold Wilson, Tomorrow, Friday, February 1st, 2 pm EST at Shepherd of Hope Christian Chat and Chronic Illness Support Ministry.

My very own best friend and husband, Harold Wilson, will be tomorrow's guest..

Harold pastored for 18 years in the Free Methodist Church and was very strongly involved in the leadership and growth of several churches where he pastored.

He has had more experience with Chronic Illness than he will share about, but in the 9+ years we have been married, he has had plenty of practice at being the spouse (and a super supporter) for me. He raised his own four children mostly on his own (due to his first wife's severe mental illnesses) and then when we married, took on my three children so together we have raised 7.

The topic of Harold's session will be based on our BELIEFS ON HEALING as stated on that link on the website -- if you have not already read it, please take time to go and read it by clicking on the link above.

The topic will be "Being a Believer and Being Sick"... I think a few of us can relate!

Again this will be tomorrow, Friday, February 1st, at 2:00 pm EST.

You are welcome to share this page link with anyone who would enjoy hearing this talk!

www.shepherdofhope.org is open to any one who wishes to find support and Christian chat as well as prayers and worship time with other believers!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

God bless you with a great day of health and peace!

Love, Shep

New "Doc" Show in 2008 Fall

A new show will be premiering this fall called "The Doctors" featuring 5 doctors that will talk about hot medical topics each day, share individual stories of people and answer (and argue about?) different issues and treatments. Should be interesting! It's produced by Dr. Phil McGraw and he and his wife, Robin, personally chose the doctors who will participate. Dr. Phil's son Jay is said to also be a part of the producers.

Here is what one newspaper has to say about it...

The show features five doctors taking on people’s health issues. Emergency-room doctor Travis Stork, who appeared on ABC’s The Bachelor, will be joined by Lisa Masterson, an obstetrician/gynecologist; Andrew Ordon, a plastic surgeon; Tara Fields, a licensed marriage and family therapist; and Jim Sears, a pediatrician.

All five doctors will appear periodically on CBS’ Dr. Phil this season in advance of the show’s debut next fall.

The Doctors will be produced by Stage 29 Productions and executive-produced by Jay McGraw, Dr. Phil McGraw’s son.

Lisa

Chatroom is Closing

a season closes

Dear Friends,

After a great deal of prayer, consideration, conversations and reflection. I have decided to close the Rest Ministries chat room –effective immediately. Since many of you use this room and we announce the scheduled chat times through the devotional list too, I wanted to personally notify you.

I began Rest Ministries in 1996, incorporating it in 1997 as a non-profit organization. During this time many of our programs/ministries have gone through seasons. Sometimes a ministry is particularly active and other times it slows down. At times, an area of ministry is thriving, and at other times it is not benefiting as many people as we would like.

As a ministry who seeks to reach out to those with chronic illness or pain, I never really made it a goal to have a chat room because of the variety of emotions that can be displayed without any moderation. But our little room that we used for occasional chats turned into a place to come, then we had special guests weekly, which led to CARE chats and more. It’s grown into quite a ministry, but at this time we are stepping back to see if it is still fulfilling the goals of our ministry.

Some of you may remember years back when we closed down our Share and Prayer group for about 6 months to regroup and re-prioritize what we believed God’s calling was for the group.

As with any ministry, hurt feelings and misunderstandings do occur. This is inevitable. With a chatroom, the ability to moderate such an environment, however, is impossible.

Ministries who typically have chatrooms, have the chatroom as their entire ministry, not just one of the many programs. So in this manner, they are able to train and equip their leaders whole also providing 24-hour moderation in the chatroom.

As people come into contact with Rest Ministries for the first time through the chatroom, we need it to be a place that is safe one-hundred percent of the time.

We have done our best to provide the support needed, but it’s an overwhelming task, particularly with all of our volunteers having an illness.

All of our volunteers are to be graciously thanked for the pouring themselves into this ministry and providing unconditional love to those who have entered our chatroom. I personally thank you for all you have done to try to meet this impossible task! And your help during Invisible Illness Week made that week possible. I could not have done it without you.

We will continue to offer ways to connect with others. I am also working on redesigning our web site to make it more user-friendly so you can find support. We will also begin offering the Hope Endures podcasts in January and our magazine will be coming out.

At this time, if you are in need of a place to connect with others I recommend doing a search on “Christian chat” and seeing what may best meet your needs.

I know that many of you will be disappointed. At this time, please know that I will read your emails, but will not be able to respond personally to each one of them.

Ministry is hard. It’s even harder when I feel that I must make these decisions, knowing full well that it will make some people very upset with me. I’ve shed tears over this decision (some privately and some in the bathroom at church because I couldn’t make it through worship) I do not take these decisions or the responsibility lightly.

My parents are arriving Saturday from Oregon to stay for a couple of weeks and we are in the middle of a million things to get ready, cleaned, etc. so please know that my lack of immediate response is just due to the fact that I won’t be on the computer as frequently as usual and not because I am ignoring you or do not care about you.

I’ve learned the hard way in the last ten years, that despite my feelings of my own inadequacies, I must follow God’s prompting for the decisions regarding Rest Ministries and keep my focus on what He most desires. It’s not something I enjoy. But I am humbly making the decision I believe God has led me to make.

Taking one day at a time,

Lisa Copen
Rest Ministries director

How to Cope with Pain "Blog Carnival"

How to Cope with Pain is now offering a monthly Pain-Blog Carnival during the last week of every month, to include each month's best posts.  November's carnival is now posted.  I was honored to participate!

Lisa