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Blog2025-03-18T20:26:18+00:00

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Let’s face it

By Chaplain Joy Le Page Smith, MA, BCC  wwww.healinglifespain.com It took this pandemic for us to get a grasp of what it means to see a full face. Clearly, we know half-a-face is not enough. We feel cheated in only seeing the eyes of the person coming toward us. When READ MORE

Being free and fully ‘me’

Have you ever felt there were invisible boundaries around you? Limits that would allow you to go so far in achievements and risk taking, but no further?  I call this the “confidence barrier” and believe once we can break through we can find our full potential, while also realizing who READ MORE

Flying low and flying high

Nature speaks, when we listen. Perhaps birds can be the most frequent bearers of messages. While in Idaho, walking along a hillside, I met with an Evening Grosbeak. The breeze blew the feathers of his head straight up as he lingered on a bush. But the remarkable moments came while READ MORE

What bangs your shutters?

  We want extraordinary things to happen in life. Sometimes it just takes a quick story or a joke to give us that chemical change we need. And, “yes” when our emotions move into that sweet range of joy, hope, even surprise (which excites us) our physiology changes.[1] The other READ MORE

Back to school with the greatest of teachers

Do you ever feel dumb—unable to think as fast as you would like? Or unable to accomplish things as quickly as circumstances seem to demand? Maybe feeling “less than” at times? I have and frequently do. A parent’s early messages such as “Come down off your high horse,” and “Don’t READ MORE

Do we have to ‘see’ to believe?

I have thought myself to be a woman of faith. But in some situations anxiety has been a frequent companion. In those instances, my mind never seems to stop its efforts to “work it out,” meaning, I feel sure I can do something that will be more helpful, thus put READ MORE

Faith can change a child’s life

Some individuals have never known or attempted to understand how God can help them in their lives. I’ve known those who haven’t even tried to find out. Recently, a friend came to me after church and said, “Sometime, let’s talk. I have something to share with you. It’s about what READ MORE

‘Even the smallest words’ hold great power

Words heard as a girl changed my life. I was eight years old, when I first went away to summer girl’s camp in Mc Call, Idaho. It was a Quaker girl’s camp with a tabernacle made of logs and a sawdust floor. We girls had great times of swimming in READ MORE

Broken, but beautiful

The Japanese art form called Kintsugi is one in which “the breaks and repairs of a vessel are treated as a part of the object’s history.” The artist uses a mixture of resin infused with powdered gold to repair a piece, resulting in far greater beauty. Often in life wounds READ MORE

Feeling lonely, or that “something is missing?”

In 1662, Basil Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, theologian, wrote, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing, but only by God the Creator made known through Jesus Christ.” Forget all you have ever heard about Jesus Christ. READ MORE

We had best speak up!

Could it be we are on very dangerous ground with God—at least on a slippery slope? Wherever a pregnant woman is mentioned in the Bible, she is spoken of as being “with child.” Isaiah 49:1, gives a word picture for this, “The Lord called me from the womb, from the READ MORE

The ‘Setting’ of the Soul

A showcase of opals lay before my eyes—any one of them could be mine. My father stood watching as I studied them. After Dad retired he learned, through a lapidary shop in Scottsdale how to cut, polish and facet stones. And, here was Dad’s treasure stash, fresh work of his READ MORE

Prayer – a wondrous mystery

Prayer – a wondrous mystery While attempting to learn more about prayer, I have made a concerted effort to draw from others their perceptions of prayer. I am receiving three types of comments:  1) those claiming prayer to be a challenging yet rewarding experience; 2) those stating prayer to be READ MORE

Joy and freedom

Chaplain Joy L. Smith, M.A.  Mental Health Counselor – Spiritual Mentor The road to emotional freedom has bumps and detours.  Reaching peace and happiness involves both courage and effort, yet rewards can be gained beyond what is thought possible. The drawing, here, was done by a caricature artist at an READ MORE

‘I’m going home!’

About two decades ago, I met James[1]. He was one of my first patients in hospice. After talking a few moments, he said, “I haven’t been in church for many years. But, I was a Sunday school kid. Every Sunday, until I was a teenager, I was happy to go READ MORE

Living Ready

I learned to “live ready” very early in life due to having a tendency to form blood clots in my legs and abdomen. From age 18, these would travel periodically into my heart and lungs, bringing me close to death. There were also many hospital stays as my intestines seemed READ MORE

Making the most of our time

While telling a friend about my four-day weekend, which included a sudden jaunt to the hospital, three days on a stomach pump and a close encounter with surgery, I laughed at her response. For she told me about her dog, Pola, a beautiful Saluki. “Now, this is entirely off the READ MORE

A portrait of the Father–the one who created us

How do we come to know God who is Father and Creator of all? The One who’s vocalized words we have yet to hear? This One who we have never seen? One whose hand we’ve never touched? A little story told by a friend bears a poignant point. A man, READ MORE

Is ‘belonging’ something to seek?

Is ‘belonging’ something to seek? Two appaloosa colts ran about ever so carefree in my father’s pasture. They were beautiful and Dad seemed to have done a good job with them. I recall, here, what my father said back then, while still alive and working in his corral: “You know READ MORE

Good Friday’s impact on life

With Easter on my mind I reminisce of a Good Friday of yesteryears, while Gary and I were raising three children on a tight budget. “Gary the Great” as I sometimes call him is speaking to our household of five.  “We need to tighten the belt, here.” Belt? His words READ MORE

Mental Health tools – FREE at https://www.mhanational.org/taking-good-care-yourself

SOS— There is great need for mental health care—and not enough avenues for all to receive it. Mental Health America offers self-evaluations using the site’s Screening Tools at: https://www.mhanational.org/taking-good-care-yourself Free, anonymous and private! Easy self-help screening tools for the following concerns: Depression Anxiety Bipolar Disorder PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress READ MORE

The crux of the Cross

I was a high school student the day I met Jaylyn, a young woman that I will remember forever. I only encountered this person on one occasion. The three of us who were visiting had less than an hour with Jaylyn that day, yet, she became an unforgettable person in READ MORE

The soul: Earth’s richest resource

On an early Sunday morning, while away from home, I pondered with awe the beauty throughout the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Many things spoke of the Power and Presence of God. The hardness of marble altars, stone floors and wooden pews spoke READ MORE

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