{"id":7071,"date":"2015-12-18T07:19:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T12:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=7071"},"modified":"2015-12-18T07:19:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T12:19:22","slug":"5-friday-faves-housing-the-homeless-christmas-cookies-sunrises-in-winter-healing-from-trauma-and-a-christmas-cactus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=7071","title":{"rendered":"5 Friday Faves – Housing the Homeless, Christmas Cookies, Sunrises in Winter, Healing from Trauma, and a Christmas Cactus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blog<\/a>This Friday came in so fast. I wish the time would slow down some…so much to savor and celebrate. Even those painful realities of life need time to process and make good decisions about…time… We grab hold of the minutes and squeeze the good out of them before they scatter. This is one of the reasons I write…I write to remember… all the good…and the hard… to take nothing for granted.<\/p>\n

1. Housing the Homeless<\/strong> – The journey to housing for our homeless neighbors is complicated. Some we see at intersections in our cities, with their cardboard signs, have made a life, of sorts,\u00a0on the streets. I have no idea how they survive winter. Others are freshly homeless, living in hotels, until they can’t anymore. Homelessness doesn’t come with its own guide of how to regain normalcy…the homeless need a compass. Thankfully, there are agencies who help these neighbors of ours, and help us learn how to help better. In our city, two agencies I want to highlight are Caritas<\/a> and\u00a0Hilliard House<\/a> (or Housing Families First). Find out how you can get involved. “Homelessness isn’t a lifestyle, it’s an emergency.”<\/strong> – Caritas<\/p>\n

\"L.A.'s<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Blog<\/a>Photo Credit: BPNews.net<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Christmas Cookies – <\/strong>Once a year, plates of cookies come out that speak love like none other. Home-made, cut-out decorated Christmas cookies amaze me. I don’t bake them but am grateful for the hands that do. So much work in making the buttery cookie dough, cutting them out, baking and then decorating them. A frosted Christmas cookie and a cup of coffee in front of a fire…bliss.\"Blog<\/a>Photo Credit: Facebook.com<\/a>\u00a0– Cookies by Patricia Good Eckard<\/p>\n

3.<\/strong> Sunrises in Winter – <\/strong>I don’t know what it is about sunrises in winter, but they catch me by surprise every morning. Rolling out of bed in the still cool darkness, pulling on socks, sliding into slippers, and making my way to bathroom, and then kitchen. Somewhere in the middle of that first cup of coffee, my eyes are drawn to the window…and then glory! The light of the morning sky… Maybe it’s because the trees are bare and we are able to catch the hues of light earlier, but I love winter sunrises best. They take the chill off and fill me with anticipation of the day. Joy…\"Blog<\/a><\/p>\n

4.\u00a0Healing from Trauma<\/strong>\u00a0–\u00a0Recently I have been learning more about Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and wrote about a valuable resource here<\/a>.\u00a0 Then, a friend told me about training she received last month\u00a0in Amman, Jordan. It relates to caring for non-western peoples who have experienced severe trauma. The\u00a0Trauma Healing Institute\u00a0<\/a>provides training in the US and internationally.\u00a0“The Trauma Healing Institute at American Bible Society is equipping people, churches, and NGOs around the world to care for the more than one in seven people worldwide who suffer severe wounds of the heart and spirit<\/strong> in the aftermath of conflict, disaster or abuse.”<\/em> I\u00a0hope to sign up for this training in 2016. Watch the film Hope Rising <\/a><\/em>to<\/a> learn more.<\/p>\n

5. Christmas Cactus <\/strong>– My mom-in-law is a master gardener. Her sunroom is its own botanical garden. She is always encouraging us to take some of her plants and we have two blooming Christmas cacti right now, because of her. My husband is our gardener (fortunately) or we would not have house plants. I love how these cacti, (or cactuses), “know” to bloom around the holidays (Thanksgiving or Christmas). From the\u00a0plant family Schlumbergera<\/a>, the Christmas cactus can be nurtured<\/a> to bloom right on time. I am pretty sure Dave doesn’t follow a particular plan, but our plants are very forgiving…and are blooming just as they were meant to… Merry Christmas.\"Blog<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Friday came in so fast. I wish the time would slow down some…so much to savor and celebrate. Even those painful realities of life need time to process and make good decisions about…time… We grab hold of the minutes and squeeze the good out of them before they scatter. This is one of the … Continue reading 5 Friday Faves – Housing the Homeless, Christmas Cookies, Sunrises in Winter, Healing from Trauma, and a Christmas Cactus<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1229,813,2126,1067,2340,147,249,1454,1801,440,1267,109,1262,1732,795,870,434,1266,55],"tags":[2540,2536,2524,1802,1219,2541,550,2442,2539,2542,2495,2537,2534,2535,2538],"class_list":["post-7071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beauty-of-gods-creation","category-christmas","category-community","category-cross-cultural","category-displaced-peoples","category-family-2","category-food-drink","category-fresh-start","category-friday-faves","category-give","category-healing","category-home-2","category-kindness-of-strangers","category-leadership","category-love-2","category-neighbors","category-persecuted-church","category-recovery","category-transitions","tag-caritas","tag-christmas-cactus","tag-christmas-cookies","tag-friday-faves","tag-healing","tag-hilliard-house","tag-homeless","tag-homelessness","tag-housing","tag-housing-families-first","tag-ptsd","tag-sunrises","tag-trauma","tag-trauma-healing-institute","tag-winter-sunrises"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pauPAB-1Q3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7071"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7168,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7071\/revisions\/7168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}