Notes From A Broken Heart

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING... Well, actually it was only two weeks, but they felt like the longest days in recent memory.  Here's the deal. I had to check on my sister who lives on the West Coast, after she had experienced a health-related hiccup. Not to worry, she had survived a short hospital stay (worry if they keep you longer), so this would be more like a mini-reunion.  She lives near a public library so I'd be able to publish Blogs three times a week. Easy as 1-2-3. Since I'm a "vintage" English major (if you can't write a bestseller, then teach future novelists!), I packed legal pads containing numerous notes, lead pencils, sticky notes, and purse-size notebooks, and on my way I flew. My sister and I spent the first day catching up.  A condo dweller, she has the most spacious, one-bedroom, centrally located unit that welcomed me into a cozy beautifully decorated, and safe abode.  The bonus: located in a real neighborhood ! Her follow-up

Here come unabashed kudos for A Broken Candle Still Gives Light, a memoir that captures Pastor Chuck Lewis' lifework as Pastor, Counselor, and "Man of God."  The book presents vignettes of heart-wrenching yet hope-filled challenges that actually began at birth  A gut-wrenching "slice of life," it serves as a "cookbook" that resolves dilemmas and offers insights.  Most prominent are ways to invite the Holy One, the Supreme Being into your life. Significantly, also,   A Broken Candle Still Gives Light includes  a grief manual that guides you on the journey from mourning to joy as well as all the detours that pockmark the way. (And yes, joy can prevail even on the "rollercoaster of grief.") Pastor Chuck and I met when the senior Pastor where I worship gently suggested Pastor Chuck as a source who might help me through the throes of loss following the unexpected death of my daughter, Courtney. (Aren't all deaths unexpected, even when th