A Lasting Embrace, When Life Unravels

By Beth Weikel

The book format of How to Live with a Broken Heart, Lessons in Loss, a one-day workshop given locally, nationally, and internationally that facilitates participants to move through varied forms of loss and make meaning from crisis. "Vulnerable, powerful, an offering of grace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beth Weikel
• Release date: Jun 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311027177

Beth Weikel

Beth Weikel's BiographyI’ve been the mother of two talented and godly sons of which my husband and I are grateful to God for and am the grandmother of a curious and outgoing seven year old, Ian’s son. Jonathan was nearly eight months old when a roadside IED killed his daddy during his second tour in Iraq, while doing his command with Ghost Troop.I’ve been a pastor’s wife, published writer of articles and features and editor of a Christian newsmagazine, a secondary English teacher in public school for over twenty years, a volunteer in ministry efforts and civic affairs that support healthy community. Since my retirement from full-time employment, I’ve rediscovered time to enjoy my continuing interest in art, photography, music, gardening and design. My husband and I each facilitate small group discipleship studies most of the year. In the past six years God has been my Sustainer, Rock, and Friend who has brought me through a series of losses I would have never imagined. I am a Bible student and teacher.

Book preview

A Lasting Embrace

When Life Unravels

Beth and Dave Weikel

A Lasting Embrace is written by Beth and Dave Weikel

Copyright 2012, Beth and Dave Weikel

Photographs Copyright 2012, Beth and Dave Weikel

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Beth or Dave Weikel.

Smashwords Edition

Licensing Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal use and enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, please visit Smashwords.com and purchase a copy for yourself. Thank you for respecting this author’s work.

Scripture quotations in this publication are taken from the New American Standard Bible (NASB), with the exception of Section One, Part IV and Section Three, which is taken from the English Standard Version (ESV).

Published by: By His Design Publishing

445C East Cheyenne Mtn. Blvd. # 139

Colorado Springs, Co 80906

byhisdesignonline.com

lifefromloss.com

E-Book by e-book-design.com

What the Weikels’ have discovered from a biblical perspective captures the unspoken cry of those in turmoil—A Lasting Embrace… that holds us close and lifts us up. Boundless mercy and compassion, power and strength offered at just the right time, in our helplessness. When Life Unravels, we need to assess the damage and create new avenues of support and stability. Questions surface: Is God there? Who else cares? What do I have control of? What does love look like? Dave and Beth have wrestled, battled through, and now aid the reader by uncovering his or her starting points to gain understanding, consider and incorporate practical strategies, a recovery plan, to redeem a life filled with meaning and purpose.

Thanks for consistently painting in Christ and yet not glossing over the pain and emotion.

Reloading! You guys are great!

Beginning of healing I didn’t realize I needed… I really thought I was over this.

The road to recovery, self-discovery, and a relationship with God.

Other titles by Beth Weikel:

What Do Daddies in Heaven Do? A Family Grief Resource

Heart of a Warrior, Dispatches from the Front

I AM, An Unchanging God in a World of Change

The Language of Hope, Finding the Way Through

Table of Contents

The One Day Workshop

Dedication

Biographies

Is the Lord Among Us, or Not?

Three Questions

Section One – REAL LIFE: Since we can’t escape living with loss, what is God’s plan?

Part I: Exploring the Implications of Loss in Every Life – Is God There?

Part II: Practical Strategies to Gain Understanding – Who Else Cares?

Part III: How to Avoid Pretending – What Does Love Look Like?

Part IV: Learning to Battle Through Grief – What Do I Have Control of?

Hard-Won Insights and Wisdom Learned in Submission

Salvation Offered and Clarified

Section Two – Garden Analogy

Section Three – Recovery A – Z

by His design: A Recovery Plan

The One Day Workshop

A one-day workshop, How to LIVE with a Broken Heart, Lessons in Loss, from which this material is taken, is available for churches and organizations who desire to help their hurting members. It provides a framework to see grace in action, as God does His best work. Those who participate will benefit from the following:

• Exploring the implications of loss in every life

• Practical strategies to gain understanding of how to walk through the pain and confusion toward renewal and growth

• How to avoid pretending and connect with God’s promises in authentic ways

• Learning to battle through grief with a recovery plan

Speakers:

Dave and Beth Weikel have worked in full-time ministry, business, and public education for over 30 years. God is using their season of loss to provide hope and healing for others. by His design is a discipleship ministry for those seeking authentic answers to life’s pressing questions. Their websites, www.byhisdesignonline.com and www.lifefromloss.com, have detailed information about this outreach.

"Over five years ago an intense period of loss touched our lives in myriad ways: a life-threatening illness, the death of our son serving in Iraq, strained family relationships surrounding this event, elder care and the home-going of three parents in less than a year, a near-fatal car accident of our other son and a few others. What we are learning, because this is not finished yet, is to trust in the faithfulness of our Lord in unseen ways." Dave and Beth Weikel

Continuing Follow-up:

Another vital aspect of by His design’s outreach is an on-line Bible study that keeps the connection workshop participants made as they went through the Life from Loss Workshops. Materials will be available to continue in a virtual classroom setting with others. There will be a sign-up at the Workshop for this opportunity, as well as a way to enroll on the website.

Dedication

To the Lord Who hears and heals

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18).

The Lord has heard my supplication (plea) and receives (accepts) my prayer (Psalm 6:9).

As for me, I shall call upon God, and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He will hear my voice (Psalm 55:16-17).

I love the Lord, because He hears my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore, I shall call upon Him as long as I live (Psalm 116:1-2).

Biographies

Beth Weikel

I’ve been the mother of two talented and godly sons for which my husband and I are grateful to God and am the grandmother of a curious and outgoing six-year-old grandson. I’ve been a pastor’s wife, published writer of articles and features, editor of a Christian newsmagazine, a secondary English teacher in public school for over twenty years, and a volunteer in ministry efforts and civic affairs that support healthy community. Since my retirement from full-time employment I’ve rediscovered time to enjoy my continuing interest in art, photography, music, gardening, and design. My husband and I each facilitate small group discipleship studies most of the year. In the past few years God has been my Sustainer, Rock, and Friend who has brought me through a series of losses I would have never imagined. I am a Bible student and teacher.

Dave Weikel

After being discipled into ministry through Peninsula Bible Church’s Intern Program, I have been a pastor of churches in the Colorado area. I also served as a church administrator in California. My ministry would be categorized as verse-by-verse Bible teaching, creative outreach ministries, and in-depth discipleship of men. I was also a public school teacher and school administrator focused on leadership skills to aid organizations.

When God calls you into a season of loss and grief, He becomes your All in All. He meets you and builds into your life a dependence on Him, as He states in II Corinthians 1:9, that we do not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. My desire is to share this message of dependence on the sufficiency of Christ.

Is the Lord Among Us, or Not?

Beth’s Part

The Annual Christmas Letter

I’ve never written one of these before that I remember, for many reasons, least of which how does one distill a year’s worth of living into a few paragraphs? Most of the ones I’ve received seem skewed in contrast to real life; just the good news, thanks. I can remember phases when blessings were so rich that I, too, wanted to share the good feelings with one and all.

There was the summer when our younger son graduated from high school and entered the Air Force Academy, our older son was doing well at West Point, and we were celebrating twenty-five years of marriage. Just the sheer sense of accomplishment and launching into this new phase of life were exciting and glorious to consider. Within a few summers again, we were celebrating by welcoming two new daughters-in-law into our lives, three weeks apart. What a swirl of emotion and pride as my husband officiated at both ceremonies. All the anticipation and future dreams that surfaced couldn’t be held back.

It’s been ten years and many trials later, small and great. God’s blessings are still with us, but with a darker backdrop. Those who are receiving this know of many losses of recent years—family members one by one, a serious health challenge, and now family life as we had dreamt it to be seems lost. But the message that I want to convey is that God has brought us through. His blessings are different these days; some tangible, but mostly we are aware of His intimate presence and extravagant life in us. He is our Life-Coach, our Comfort, our Deliverer when nothing else seems possible.

This year we buried my ailing father-in-law, an integral part of our lives for the twenty years that he was a widower; I co-operated with the Lord on two writing projects that were birthed from pain and hope; my husband and I had an interval of time with our critically injured surviving son, as he lay in the hospital; then, our ensuing overseas missions trip where we learned to see God in new ways, because of many prayers; and now, our continuing struggle to walk faithfully and wisely amid formidable obstacles and personal attacks from those whose understanding would mean so much.

So, as this year draws to a close, we find ourselves looking to our Maker and Sustainer in anticipation, as we wait on His continued leading–He will bring us through. His goodness and mercy are always with us, every halting step. We serve Him first and praise Him for His miracles in our lives–past, present, and future. May the Christ child shine His abundant love, peace, and mercy in all our hearts, as we worship Him this Christmas season. Our prayer is that you give Him your struggles and lay your very lives before Him, who, alone, can help in uncertain times. Paul, the Apostle, understood this when he said, "Most gladly, therefore, I will boast about my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may dwell in (rest upon) me…(That is why) I am well content with…insults (reproaches), with distresses (needs), with persecutions, with difficulties (hardships), for Christ’s sake, for when I am weak, then I am strong."

May His grace be enough to complete our (those who trust Him) weakness. May we make up our minds to have a deeper experience of His love and power right now, and in the coming year. And we especially thank our Lord for our connection to you.

In humble adoration,

Beth and Dave

It Can Get Worse Before It Gets Better

It’s been just a couple years or so since we sent this letter, and life is still a challenge. Unplanned-for events and their effect on those we care about is not under our control. Living with loss is a delicate balance, as well as an effective tutor. We don’t want these losses to dominate our lives and define us, but they have changed us. We are not the same people as before. In some ways we are kinder and more sensitive, and in others, less tolerant. We feel more compassion for people, even strangers, experiencing the pain of life when it hurts, and we want to distance ourselves from anything false. There is also that urgency which doesn’t seem to go away. We only have a limited time to reach out with the message God has been developing in us; which is, He is sufficient for all of life. His ways are holy and right, in spite of circumstances and how others may treat us. We have an enemy; that is a fact, but we also have divine aid and oceans of comfort for those difficult days that any of us has to face. He is our treasure, and we still praise Him.

How to LIVE with a Broken Heart, Lessons in Loss came out of this struggle to make meaning out of devastating life events. If I itemized the list of losses that started less than five years ago, it would seem over the top. So now I’ve learned to focus on the God who takes my hand and walks with me in the midst, as well as the aftermath. He knows the way through any kind of loss, large and overwhelming, or smaller, but no less significant. He knew we’d need Him for all of life, and He won’t desert us.

This past summer Dave and I celebrated forty years of marriage by inviting friends far and wide to an evening in our garden, complete with a multi-media slide show that we put together to give a picture of the seasons of a marriage. We wanted to keep it manageable in length, so we were selective. We also reflected the intimacy of life in marriage and family life by including memorable quotes by authors, ranging from fairly obscure modern ones to Shakespeare. Stages of life flashed by: the wedding ceremony, packing to leave my parents’ house to make a new home for ourselves while still college students, to the birth of our two boys and their growing years, a few holidays, camping trips, graduations, and finally the transition to the empty nest, and an active retirement with new pursuits, all accompanied by the soundtrack