Susan B. Mead: Moving From Grief To Dancing With Jesus

Everyone's Story welcomes author and speaker Susan B. Mead. Susan joins us this week from Israel with the Proverbs 31 Ministries. I admire Susan for both her inner strength to move forward with her eyes on God despite life's stresses as well as her willingness to help others through tough times. It's my pleasure to host her and I hope you will enjoy her video, short interview, and her BookGiveaway offer. Both Susan and I look forward to hearing from you!

BookGiveaway:

Susan is offering 1 copy of her non-fiction book, DANCE WITH JESUS, to 1 randomly chosen commenter. The winner will be announced here on Friday, November 6th between 5-6 PM EST. To be entered in the Giveaway, please leave your contact information within your comment (you may choose to use the Contact Me form to privately send me your email address--the form is in the right-hand sidebar on the blog's main page, toward the bottom).

Questions for Susan Mead:

You come from a very tender place in wanting to help others move from grief to grace: the passing of your sister by her own hand, and then the passing of your son. Has this helped in your healing process?

I needed to see and or read about someone else who had lost and was living again-joyfully. I found a profound need to share my path for the next individual needing a helping hand and a guide along the healing journey. Someone who has been there and understands without any questioning, that’s one thing I bring to the table.

Does the calmness you speak about finding in the midst of chaos change daily? How can we learn how to be so adoptable?

Calm in the chaos of life does change, however, I choose to recalibrate often by renewing my mind daily. When I start my day in the Word of God, He calms the chaos of my day and orders my steps. Does it solve everything? No way! Yet it changes and settles the atmosphere. 

The song Lord Jesus Come is playing in the background right now.  How appropriate! To me calm is spelled J E S U S. He calms our chaos, just like He calmed the stormy seas, saying, “Quiet. Be still.” And the storm was quelled. So I invite Him into my storms and ask Him to quiet them for me.

Do more women than men tend to deal with guilt issues over “lightening up” after tragedy? If so, how can we overcome this?

I’m not an expert in this area. More women TALK than men, that we know, so the perception may be this is so. I learned that we have to accept the differences of individuals as they grieve. 

We can offer some possible things folks may (MAY!) experience, yet people simply grieve differently. And each person deserves respect for their needs, as long as it is not self-destructive or destructive to others. Then that would need a referral to someone else to guide them from a destructive to a constructive path.

So many folks simply need to know what they are experiencing is NORMAL feelings/behavior in an ABNORMAL situation. That brings a measure of calm into the chaos and is where being trained as a chaplain comes in handy!

On a lighter note, do you have a go-to favorite comfort food or other indulgence for one of life’s just-plain-old-yucky days? Myself, I find comfort watching movie-musicals!

How fun! I’ll have to try that sometime too. A great book with me curled up, tucked in and snuggled under a soft blanket on my little red love seat or sitting on a dock over water calms me. Or a massage – that always works to dump the junky stuff!

And Nestle’s Toll House chocolate chip cookies…RARE treat that my 91 year old mom makes for Thanksgiving each year-and we are getting close, so I’m thinking about them already! (Why is my mouth watering?)

Susan's Ah-hahs To Tweet: 

Everyone’s Story: Visit with author/speaker @SusanBMead to see how she went from chaos to calm. (Tweet This)

#BookGiveaway of @SusanBMead’s DANCE WITH JESUS: From Grief to Grace. (Tweet This)

@SusanBMead wants to know how you spell the word “Calm” and no, this isn’t a trick question! (Tweet This)

Author's Bio:

Susan Burfoot Mead is blessed to be married to my soul mate, Holt Mead, since 1979. She is the mother of two sons, Matthew, who lives in South Louisiana and Kyle, Forever 20 and in Heaven, where he is doing a Dance with Jesus. Kyle’s been there since March 29, 2008.

She wrote the book Dance With Jesus: From Grief to Grace as the answer to a question posed in the Experiencing God Bible Study she was in the midst of doing. The question asked was what does God want you to do, right now?

With the passing of her son Kyle, Susan realized things get broken, discarded or replaced. People Matter. She HAD to create time for the people who mattered MOST to her! Susan believes God gave her this gift of time to do what He wants her to do. Make His name known. Hold the hand of others as they walk a path of healing towards hope. Help others be transformed.

In 2014, Susan was ordained as a Sr. Chaplain with the International Fellowship of Chaplains, Inc. (IFOC) and certified by the International Critical Incident Stress Foundation in Critical Incidence for Stress Management (CISM) in Individual Grief, Group Grief and Grief Following Trauma.

Places to connect with Susan:

Webiste

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

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Please note:

--I have a title change for my novel coming soon from Elk Lake Publishing: Always With You.

--I will soon launch a specially designed website that will incorporate Eveyone's Story blog. I hope you will follow me on this new site. When it goes live, I'll make the announcement!