Day 90 - Remedy for Loneliness: Develop a Hobby or Skill

365 daily emails to help you through the grieving process Grief support groups: Click here to find a GriefShare group near you. If you would like to find a group for a friend or relative, try our Search Page. Want to read ahead or resend a previous daily email? Click Here Remedy for Loneliness: Develop a Hobby or Skill Day 90 Starting a new hobby may sound unappealing and uninteresting at this point in your life. But we encourage you to do it anyway. Remember, you are not developing this hobby for the sake of the activity; you are using it as a tool to deal with loneliness. "My life was so much a part of my husband's," says Patricia. "He was so dependent upon me; he could not function without me on a twenty-four-hour basis. When he died, I said, 'What am I going to do?' All of my time had been spent taking care of him. I was totally lost. I didn't know what to do. "It was just a few months later that my daughter worked in vacation Bible school, and she said, 'Mom, why don't you come and help me?' So I did. That really began my ministry here. I began working in the nursery on Sunday evenings, one night a month. Then I saw an opportunity to help in the children's department during the week on a volunteer basis. "The Lord has just opened up a whole new opportunity, a whole new life for me. I knew from the beginning that I was not going to stay home and get the rocking-chair rot." God has appointed you with certain gifts to use in helping others or in bringing joy to others' lives. Try out a new hobby or volunteer to do something you've never done before. Again, you may not be doing this because you desire to, but because you need to. "There are different spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit gives them…. The evidence of the Spirit's presence is given to each person for the common good of everyone" (1 Corinthians 12:4, 7 NLT). Lord God, place in my path a new opportunity to serve You and to take great steps forward in healing. Amen. Grieving with Hope This GriefShare-based book contains short, topical chapters addressing issues that grieving people face but are often hesitant to mention to others; it gently guides people to determine whether they're grieving in a way that leads to hope and ultimate healing. Look for Grieving with Hope by Samuel Hodges and Kathy Leonard at a local or online bookstore or at griefshare.org/hope. If you would like to recommend these daily emails to a friend, please click here and choose one of the options under Share. For more information about GriefShare, including how to sign up for these daily emails, please click here. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2003-2013 by The Church Initiative, Inc., All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from Church Initiative. You subscribed to this daily email through www.griefshare.org. We value your privacy! We will never give, sell, rent, or otherwise share your email or personal information with any other organization — EVER. To remove this email address from further mailings Click Here while connected to the internet. If you have any problems or concerns, please contact dailyemailsupport@griefshare.org. GriefShare 250 S. Allen Rd. Wake Forest, NC 27587 (800) 395-5755