Deborah H. Tainsh Surviving the Folded Flag Author & Speaker for Military & Civilians: February 2010

Psalm 35:9: "And my sould shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in his salvation."

This was the chosen topic verse by the women of First Presbyterian Church in Lynn Haven Florida for their conference on 2/27. I am so honored to have been invited as the keynote speaker by my now new friend and sister, Kathy Welsh. I wish everyone who reads this could have been there!

The sanctuary of approximately 60 ladies was blessed by special music presented by Krystal Moore of Graceville, Florida and the testimony of Patricia Murfee regarding how God worked in her family's life to bring joy after the birth of her son, a special needs child.

Following my talk, everyone enjoyed a beautiful lunch in the fellowship hall at tables individualy set and decorated by women of the church who brought their own special table coverings, center pieces, and place settings. The best part was how men of the church, including Rev. Dan Mitchell, in their white shirts and aprons, acted as servers.

I was greatly blessed with a full heart of joy after having the opportunity to bring a message before lunch to the group. The love and appreciation I was shown validated again for me that I am doing what God would have me do through sharing my family story and testimony of how blessed and joyful life can be even through the trials and tribulations if we "Let Go and Let God".

Before the program began, I handed out what I called "Joy Bags" to each lady. Inside the bag was an Almond Joy candy bar to represent the sweetness of joy; a glow in the dark bracelet for each lady to wear to represent that through living in God's will through faith, we can all "glow through the darkness" of trials and tribulations and amaze those around us who may see us as "Odd Ducks" as Patsy Clairemont, a woman of faith, speaker, & writer, says may happen for being joyful even through our most difficult times. Hence, inside the gift bag was a cardboard pink duck for each lady attached to a card with Psalm 35:9 and Patsy's expression about being "Odd Ducks". And finally, each bag held a party whistle that everyone could use to express a "joyful" noise unto the Lord at various intervals.

Because it related to my talk, I began my portion of the program with the following humor: "An archaeologist was digging in a desert in Israel when he found a casket containing a mummy. After examining it, he called the curator of a wold-famous museum to report excitedly: 'I've just discovered a three thousand year old mummy of a man who died of heart failure.' The curator replied: 'Bring it in, we'll check it out.' A month later, the curator called the archaeologist. 'That's amazing! you were spot on about the mummy's age and cause of death. How on earth did you know?" 'Easy,' said the archaeologist. 'There was a piece of paper in his hand that ssaid, "10,000 Shekels on Goliath."

I was happy that the joke brought out laughter, even from Pastor! Now, to share my presentation with you!

For a perspective on Psalm 35, I 'd like to return to King David and the events affecting his life. We know the story of David, the young shepherd boy that the prophet Samuel, without the knowledge of King Saul, called from the field and anointed.
Later, David and King Saul became acquainted after David was recommended for a job to play music for the king. King Saul, happy with David's great talent, kept him on as a musician.

Later, during an issue with the Philistines, and after 40 days of cowering by Saul's skilled warriors, David called on the name of God and with a slingshot and some stones, he brought down the 9 foot bronze clad Goliath. (Hence, the joke above: Don't ever bet against God!)

Well, Saul was so impressed that he made David commander of his fighting forces. However, with passing time and David's success against the Philistines, Saul became jealous and sought to kill David time and time again. It was probably from this experience that David wrote what we know as Psalm 35.

I'm sure there's no one here today who can't relate to David's plight and prayers. Non of us, hopefully, have a person so jealous of our accomplishments that they wish us dead, (maybe fired from a job, etc); but I'm sure that each and everyone here today has experienced being turned agains without cause because of pits of hidden agendas, experienced the tongue of a false witness, or experienced opposition in return for good you've given.

When such experiences fall on us and our hearts and spirits become filled with anxiety and darkness, I believe we can look at David's own human experience and the message he left behind.

If we take notice, David prayed for God to handle his adversaries in God's manner. He asked God to plead his cause. David didn't seek revenge by his own hand.

As I relate Psalm 35 to my own journey, I apply it to myself in this way: While going through anxiety filled experiences here on planet earth I appeal to God to use his way (for his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts) to dispel the darkness from my path.

After all, I'm a human being with the capacity to make bad decisions on how to handle situations. I need all the help I can get, and my Father, my Dad (my preference) in heaven surely knows better than I!

And with patience, which I'm not very good with, (Dad's still working on me!) as Psalm 35:9 says: my soul will be joyful and will rejoice that God has saved me from being over come by anxiety filled expeeriences that are inevitably a part of my personal journey.

At this juncture, I bet there are a few thoughts out there of "Oh yeah! Easier said than done!"

Well, just as any of you has experienced enough to write about and create a volume of books, I have as well:

I was born into an alcoholic environment of Georgia country folk where as far back as I can recall I had to learn how to fix food for myself while all the adults were passed out from inebriation for days at a time. Because I had experienced Sunday School and church through the kindness of others outside my parental environment, I talked a lot to angels and God. This was my joy.

I remember how strangers taught me good things that I would never have learned from blood family. Hence, the reason it is important for all of us to contribute to the lives of other less fortunate children.

In my environment I was hit in the head with coca cola bottles and ash trays and whipped with leather belts. To escape alcohol and other negatives, I married very soon after graduating high school in 1971. My son Phillip, now 36 was born just before I turned 19. By age 28 I was divorced. By 29, in 1983 , I was married again to a U.S.Marine and acquired a "Bonus" son who came to be known as U.S. Army Sgt. Patrick Tainsh.

Part of this part of my journey is what I want to share today. The experience that so far in my life has been the one that has most shaken and strengthened my faith and joy.

As Saul was David's enemy who sought to kill him, my husband's and my worse enemy became death and grief and the insurmountable pain and dysfunction that threatened to forever steal our joy.

As you entered today you saw on the table copies of my book, Heart of a Hawk. This book became one of many responses to me by God during my most desperate cries for help after enduring the one thing that every parent most fears: the death of a child and the grief that can consume us.

I believe God has used Heart of a Hawk as a vehicle for my husband and me to share with other families that they are not alone in trudging difficult journeys and to help vailidate roller coaster emotions.

I've received words of appreciation from readers for writing with pure honesty about my family's journey, the good, bad, and ugly. I wrote as honestly as possible becaue I believe in sharing the worst and the best of my family life expereinces (with my husband's approval) because until someone someplace in my life shared "the junk in the trunk" of their life, I always believed I was the only peron in the world dealing with family dysfunction.

I've learned that without having "junk in our trunks" as part of this earthly journey, we'd have no way to understad compassion for others and we wouldn't need Jesus and His sacrifice.

I don't want to dwell on our entire story and Patrick's manner of death in Iraq because I hope you'll each take a book home with you, enter our journey, laugh, cry, feel God, and keep our son a part of your family. Also, your purchase provides support to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors of Military Personnel in Washington,, D.C., the organization that gave Dave and me a new path and purpose after Patrick's death. A joy and God Thing!
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Patrick entered my life when he was 13. His dad and I gained custody shortly after we married. Unfortunately Pat's birth mom died when he was 17. I will share that part of our journey dealt with Pat's rebellion and drug problem before he turned his life around to become an outstanding U.S. Army Cavalry Scout. He was my husband's only biological child and namesake. In 2002 after my husband's retirement from both the U.S. Marines and Orange County California Juvenile Justice System, we returned to Georgia, the state of our childhoods.

What I want to speak about is losing and rediscovering Joy in the wake of our greatest tribulation.

In our battle with death and grief, unlike David in Psam 35, I cursed God. We had depended on Him to return Patrick to us from Iraq on two feet, not in a flag draped casket. After all, things like this happened to other people, not us.

My husband had survivedVietnam and the 1st Gulf War. Patrick had overcome a drug addiction that he'd held to from age 15 to 28. He was a rebellious son who had quit school, survived as a cook to pay his way to surf and snowboard, but had given it all up to serve a purpose greater than self (before 9/11).

He had met the love of his live who was serving in Afghanistan while he was in Iraq. We loved her dearly as she did us. Our family, after years of conflict, rebellion, and separations had finally come together as a pleasant whole, only to have it torn to shred on 2/11/04. Patrick was 33.

With the death of a child, parents suffer what we call the great domino effect. Not only is the child lost, but all that was or could have been attached to their lives. A young fiance or wife has to move forward with life. It's hardly possible to stay a part of two families. Tracy did find another love and is now married. We are happy for her. But it doesn't mean we don't miss what she meant to us.

I had prayed for almost a year to God to deliver Patrick and our family from the enemy of war. Now I was angry. Not only did I suffer grief over Patrick, but grief for my husband who I could not help. I had always been the one of faith. My husband no so except to say there are no atheists in foxholes.

But now what little faith he had was lost and mine greatly shaken. In my anger, sorrow and loss of Joy, I still knew there was only one place to go to seek release from this enemy of grief that had fallen on our home.

I was reminded of Psalm 5l:8: "Make me hear sounds of joy and gladness, let the bones your crushed be happy again." and Verse 10: "Create in me a pure heart God, make my spirit right with you."

I sat on my back porch in Georgia that spring watching new foliage return to trees and plants. At the corner of my porch as a white dogwood tree. I would watch it daily and speak to God as the buds returned and that beautiful while bloom began to appear. I'd recall the story I'd been told as a child about how the dogwood bloom was designed to remind us of Christ's crucifixion, the nail scars in his hands.

I'm mad God! I would say, but Jesus I need your strength that was shown in the Garden of Gethsemane. I need to be able to truly say, not my will Father, but thine.

Jesus had prayed for the cup of pain of the crucifixion to be removed, but ultimtely he knew His Father's will was for the greater purpose of mankind.

With time, I came to truly understand the Lord's Prayer and how truly accepting God's will as perfect helps to reclaim Joy.

I have come to understand that just as David in 1010 - 970 BC endured an enemy that wanted to take his life while he waited on God to answer and bring His plan to fruition, my family and all others are not so much different here in the 21st century.

Because I asked God to show me and lead me through my most horrific life experience, He's taught me to truly see things differently, to grasp that this present world is oh so temporary. We are in this world, but are not meant to be of this world forever.

And no matter the number of wars, earthquakes, or tsunamis, diseasease and other manners of tragedy in our lives that work alongside all the beauty and comfort we're privileged and blessed to encounter, I exist, we all exist, as clay in the potter's hand here and now to serve our purpose according to God's will for as the scripture said unto Pharoah, I have raised thee up so I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth (Romans 9:17)

All creation is part of the greater plan known only by our creator, our Father God, who sacrificed his Son, Jesus, for the salvation of the world.

Acknowledging, accepting, and understanding this without doubt, and living in a way that "stuns" and "bedazzles" others is how joy comes to be the foundation beneath all other human emotions.

When life shattering events and staggering negatives come at us unexpectedly and challenge that joy, there's only one place to take all those emotions and cries for help to restablish joy, and that is to our Dad in heaven.

Every hunan being including the sweet babies we women have given birth to, are creations that belonged to God long before we ourselves were known, and every single one has a path and purpose known to our creator since before the creation of the universe.

The paths will always contain enemies in one form or the other here on planet earth. It's learning how to outshine the enemy and remain joyful in both the light and dark through a prayful relationship with God, which makes us stronger.

I say this is where the rubber hits the road when we profess to be Christian people of faith and joy. It's truly learning to live above the negativity of planet earth and to smile through difficulties knwoing that no matter what happens in this physical earth bound lifetime, Psalm 35:9 will prevail: "My soul shall be joyful in the lord; it shall rejoice in his salvation!"

My enemy of grief and discord, the greatest of my journey thus far, could have literally killed me or my husband or forever killed being joyful again. And I won't lie, the culprit brought me to the depths of despair with questioning, Why, Why, Why!

I have prayed continually for strength, courage, peace, and joy of heart while waiting for God to answer my cry and bring to fruition His will in my life, and how to demonstrate a joyful spirit in the wake of Patrick's death, my husband's grief, and the grief of so many others around me in this time of war.

I needed to know how to make lemonade out of all the lemons.

I continue praying now, six years later, that the often turbulent relationship between me and my husband due to roller coaster emotions and differences in how we handle issues, will be calmed. And God has sent some answers and help as I've asked to be led as a model for my husband, I have seen a tenderness return to him. There was a time he refused to let me have a dog...long story short, we now have 3...two retrievers and a Yorkie... that have brought much joy to us with many smiles and my husband acting like a kid at times.

As the Psalmist prayed in Psalm 119: 18-19: "Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things; I am a stranger on earth.." I have prayed to see how Patrick's death served a purpose greater than the life we wanted him to have and so wanted and needed by our family.

In this aftermath of searching and learning great patience, God has answered and provided ways for me and my family to honor both HIM and Patrick while blessing others and regaining our joy in different ways.

As a writer once only of poetry and for a lot of cathartic purposes, I know God led me to write our family journey in Heart of a Hawk.

We've been told by readers what a blessing our story has been to their lives for various reasons. Through this, our hearts and spirits are blessed in unexpected ways by total strangers.

My family is not the first to lose a child and certainly will never be the last. Although we pray for the safe return of troops from war or a child from a trip in a car or bus, or from the grip of diseases, the bottom line is that every hour of every day parents are being accosted by the same enemy as my husband and I.

And a caveat here. I know that every church across the land prays for the safety of our troops, but I'm an honest duck and I have to say this...No matter the prayers, not all of our troops will return home...this is a time of war and death and injury is inevitable. What I ask everyone is that you remember our great men and women in uniform for serving to give us the freedoms we currently enjoy, to meet as we are today, and pray for the strength, courage, and peace they and their families require during these most difficult times.

Knowing the journey of grief and pain as my husband and I do, God has led us to become grief mentors to other parents suffering the death of a child serving inthe U.S. Armed forces and others.

Causes of death from training accidents, heart attacks from running, war and even suicide.

As a grief mentor I have bonded with a mom whose son commetted suicide during his 2nd tour to Iraq. She was distraught about how to respond when she was asked how her son died.

I recommended that she simply reply that how her son died wasn't important or what she wished to talk about; but she would love to talk about what her son's life and what he meant to her. This mom found comfort in this and as it became her mantra and finds it easier to cope.

I've spoken often with a civilian friend whose son had a drug problme and committed suicide. In offering comfort to her I reminded her that God's love is beyond any human comprehension==certainly beyond the love of any human parent, and for those reasons her peace can be found through her personal relationship with God and Christ's promise that He came to save that which was lost and thru Paul's message that as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. That the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Just over a week ago, this dear friend, age 81, met Jesus, her husband of 65 years, and I'm sure the son lost to her by suicide over 40 years ago.

I've learned that praying for and reaching to others who are walking the path similar to my family is part of God's answer to me. When we become concerned with others'

pain, the weight of our own becomes lighter.

Because I opened my heart and continued seeking God to lead and show me what I could do in the wake of tragedy, I know He led me to create my new book, Survivng the Folded Flag: Parents of War Share Stories of Coping, Courage, & Faith due to release in late March.

This book will not only be a blessing for the families to keep their loved one's memory and legacy alive through the written word, but will provide any reader with testimony of the strength, courage, and faith lived by 20 fallen heroes and their families.

Knowing God provided me the gift of writing and that he opened doors for me to put this invaluable project together to bless others, my joy is strengthned and I continue to find purpose in the madness of planet earth.

Although our personal family life now lacks more stories to tell because the son that was part of our present and future is from sight, and we feel a void, I am trusting God that Patrick's life and death served a perfect purpose known only to God.

In the wake of Patrick's death, I had no where to go but to God to ask Him to lead and show me as David prayed in Psalm 16:11: "Show me the path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy."

God has led me to share testimony with you today. To bring hope and encourage you that although enenies of all sorts come at us from left and right, we have to let go and let God as David did.

We must seek God in the darkness as well as the light because our faith and joyfulness shines and "bedazzles" others greatest in the dark.

In the joy bag you received today, inside was an "Odd Pink Duck" with a tag with words I borrowed from author and speaker Patsy Clairmont: "Joy must be the shocking pink thread in our tapestry, because people seem stunned by this flamboyant stitch. When we exhibit joy during trying times others view us as "odd ducks", "cause everyone knows life ain't no ride on no pink duck!"

You also received a glow in the dark bracelet and an Almond Joy. I wanted each of you to have these items to carry out of the meeting today to always be reminded that we learn lessons, gain strength and courage in times of darkness that we may never have learned in the light of day.

And we have the opportunity through difficulties to show others that our faith and joy is as real as it gets! That it is possible to shine the message that our God is the living God of hope, love, joy and salvation, even if we don't feel those things at the very moment of a crisis, they are the foundation beneath the turmoil that we can and will dig to reach and bring back to the surface.

Does all this mean that I walk around during every waking moment with a cat grinning smile, singing and rejoicing? Of course not. My flesh and spirit battle constantly. My temporaray earth bound being meets earth bound negativities on a daily basis.

I deal with melancholy and depression. I miss my two sons together at the dinner table telling jokes and calling each other silly names, making me laugh. I miss the wedding that will never happen. I hurt for and my husband and miss his extra glow. I miss the dreams of holding granchildren and so much more hoped for our family.

It is when these dark emotions try to overtake me that I return to God, sometimes shouting into a pillow, and I recall Paul's teaching in 2 Corinthians 4:8: We have troubles all around us, but we are not defeated. We do no know what to do, but we do not give up hope. We are pesecuted but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but not destroyed."

When I find myself falling into the pit that the enemy of grief can dig for me, I also write letters to my heavenly Dad on my computer.

I am truthful about my less than joyful feelings of the day and all I can ask is Dad, show me, lead me and as David said: Psalm 35;5: "Let them (my enemies) be as chaff before the wind; and let the angel of the Lord chase them.

It is inevitable on planet earth to not face struggles that can bring us easily into pits of darkness.

Through prayer and meditation in whatever manner feels right for us, we can continually srengthen our relationship with God, stay close to the Dad who truly loves and cares for us.

We must always remember that no matter how things are in our lives or on planet earth at this very moment or during a lifetime, all things will pass and be renewed. Our strife, struggles, tears, and burdens will cease. Disease, death, and grief will be destroyed forever. Because of this we can all shout Psalm 35:9 " And my sould shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in his salvation!"

So when experiening our most difficult times, let's bedazzle others with our joy, let's be "odd ducks" and bring hope to the hopeless...let's shine for God, be joyful, and demonstrate that "Joy is not waiting for the storm to pass, it's learning to dance in the rain!"