GROWING SEEDS: "Victory Flows"

“I choose not to place “DIS”, in my ability.” 

Robert M. Hensel

VICTORY  (noun)

Success, triumph, conquest, win, favorable

FLOWS (verb)

Run, Course, Surge, Pour, Emerge

CAREGIVER (noun)

A family member who regularly looks after a child or a sick, elderly or disabled person.

When I was a kid, I was so preoccupied with my future....who I was going to marry, where I was going to live, what I would do for a living.....I thought about it every day.  In my mind, I had it all planned out.  I was going to marry a handsome dude with lots of hair, have 2 kids and live in downtown Dallas in a hi-rise condo just like Uncle Bill, Sissy, Buffy and Jody as well as Mr. French from "Family Affair".  It was going to be an "easy" life, I felt sure.

 

Turns out, I did indeed marry a handsome dude; a happily "bald" handsome dude, yes.....and a disease called endometriosis prevented me from having those 2 kids I had longed for.....and I don't live in a hi-rise condo in a noisy metropolitan area; I live in a quiet, surreal, slice of heaven called Mt. Vernon, Texas.

And in those same future childhood dreams, the term "Caregiver" never entered my mind.  But "Caregiver" is one of many descriptive words the Lord chose to use to DEFINE me.....hopefully with the same authority as loving wife, soul mate and best friend.  I am the wife of a man with Multiple Sclerosis.  A cruel disease that zaps the strength and feeling out of his body.  And as a doctor once said, "As his Caregiver, I, too have Multiple Sclerosis."  He is not living with Multiple Sclerosis alone.....it affects everyone that loves and cares for him.  It affects us as if we, too, had this same horrible disease.

 

So when I met Cheryl Hood and learned of her amazing ministry called Victory Flows a little over a year ago, I was blown away.  I had never heard of a ministry that ministered to the "Caregivers" as well as the families and the individuals affected by the disability.  What a unqiue concept! 

The concept of Victory Flows is one of Fun and Freedom.....a day of informal rest and recreation....a diversion of sorts.....for the caregivers, family and the individual affected by the disability.  It's a chance for the Caregiver to be pampered or have some much needed quiet time and the family to spend some time catching their breath and playing. RESTING.

And as someone very familiar with the Caregiver role.....and a husband very familiar with the Disability role.....we know all too well the importance of Rest and Play.

Do you know someone who needs to Rest and Play?  If so, make sure they attend this amazing event.  It's FREE and its made for THEM......

"The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. 

Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. 

Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. 

Try this for a week and you will be surprised."

Norman Vincent Peale