Finding miracles in Wounded Times

Inspirational reminders of miracles

PTSD Patrol
Stories from Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 13, 2020

With all the bad news in this country because of COVID-19, it is easy to become depressed.  Social media has been spreading the bad news, division along with outright lies. Hopelessness follows. 

But within the pages of friends sharing thoughts, there are messages of hope, love, humor, inspiration and miracles. Hope is fueled.

I take more comfort knowing there are people out there trying to make our days better than they would have been, than those constantly focusing on the negative.

A couple of days ago, I started searching the web for stories on miracles for a book I was planning on writing. In all honesty, I was searching to help my own mood as well.

Then it dawned on me that out of over 32,000 posts on Wounded Times, there is a treasure trove of miracles intended to fuel hope.

I opted to drop the book idea and decided to put the posts up here until I run out of them. Judging by the ones already discovered, that should take a long time to happen.

I am always being reminded that my work is saving more lives than I will ever know. I do believe that and it gives me hope that my work does mean something, even if people forget about where the good news came from, they do not forget the feeling they received.


Most people know that Jesus sent out 12 Disciples. They were average men who ended up working miracles.

1. Simon (who is called Peter) 2. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother 3. James, son of Zebedee 4. John, James’ brother 5. Philip 6. Bartholomew 7. Thomas 8. Matthew, the tax collector 9. James, son of Alphaeus 10. Thaddaeus 11. Simon the Zealot 12. Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

But few know that Jesus also sent out 72 others.

Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two
10 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Luke 10

And when they returned to Jesus,

17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

While what they did changed the world one life at a time, no one knows their names. Those 72 did not do it for fame, but for the Glory of the Lord!


Each one of us has the power to change a life by spreading lies and bad news, as well as spread hope and love. It is up to us which way we choose to do it.

Martha Gellhorn,“The Face of War” an inspirational story for all of us!

More than a footnote

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 20, 2020

My buddy Gunny likes to try to top me on discovering things I did not know. Well, he succeeded this morning. He told me about Martha Gellhorn. Funny thing is, he stumbled on her looking for something else.

As I listened to him tell me a little bit about her, I thought it would be a very inspirational story to share, especially while most of the country is under shelter at home restrictions. We all need something to inspire us, and yes, that includes me too.

It is very hard to even attempt to find something inspirational to share, when you do not even want to get out of PJs. Lately either I have been on Facebook sharing videos on cats, dogs or other animals from my sweet friends...or really sick jokes I am usually embarrassed by how hard I am laughing.

Anyway, before I get too carried away with that, back to Martha. She was married to Ernest Hemingway. Noteworthy as it is, they met while she was a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. She was on the beach on D-Day after being a stowaway and got her hands on a nurses uniform. The list of accomplishments in her life goes on and on, but the thing that got me was, for all she accomplished, she still felt like a footnote in Hemingway's life.

That is exactly how my buddy Gunny found her story...as a footnote.


Martha Gellhorn, Daring Writer, Dies at 89
Obituary
New York Times
By Rick Lyman
Feb. 17, 1998

Martha Ellis Gellhorn, who as one of the first female war correspondents covered a dozen major conflicts in a writing career spanning more than six decades, died on Sunday at her home in London. She was 89.

Ms. Gellhorn was a cocky, raspy-voiced maverick who saw herself as a champion of ordinary people trapped in conflicts created by the rich and powerful. That she was known to many largely because of her marriage to Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945, caused her unending irritation, especially when critics tried to find parallels between her lean writing style and that of her more celebrated husband.

''Why should I be a footnote to somebody else's life?'' she bitterly asked in an interview, pointing out that she had written two novels before meeting Hemingway and continued writing for almost a half-century after leaving him.

As a journalist, Ms. Gellhorn had no use for the notion of objectivity. The chief point of going to cover anything, she felt, was so you could tell what you saw, contradict the lies and let the bad guys have it.

"Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival."Martha Gellhorn

Right now, it is hard to get through all of this but that quote is something we should hang onto. "Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival." No matter how bad it is right now, when you think about all the things this woman went through, she survived all of it and lived to a good old age.

If it sucks for you right now...like it does for most of us, try to think back about other times when it sucked. When you didn't know how you would get passed it and then suddenly you did. We will get passed this too and there will be joy again. We will see our family and friends again. We'll be able to hug our kids and grandkids. We will get through this because right now there are angels moving all around us to make this world a better place in whatever way they can.

Enjoy the following about Martha and trust me, you jaw will go back into place when you are done with this.


A Memorial for the Remarkable Martha Gellhorn
The New Yorker
By Sam Knight
September 18, 2019

The writer Martha Gellhorn, who reported on the Spanish Civil War for The New Yorker, and from the beaches of D Day in a nurse’s uniform. Photograph from AP / Shutterstock

*******

Gellhorn was born in St. Louis, in 1908. She moved to Paris when she was twenty-one, to write novels, and found her journalist’s voice during the Depression, while reporting on the lives of textile workers for the Federal Emergency Relief Association. She became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt, who invited her to live at the White House for a while.

******* 

Her first war was the Spanish Civil War, which she went to cover in 1937. “I was always afraid,” she wrote, “that I would forget the exact sound, smell, words, gestures which were special to this moment and this place.” Gellhorn’s writing was percussive and intimate. She was an exceptional witness. In an early piece, for The New Yorker, a convoy of tanks in the dark outside Madrid looked “as if six boats, with only their harbor lights showing, were tied together, riding a gentle sea.” She married Ernest Hemingway, in 1940; they divorced five years later.

******* 

On D Day, Gellhorn stowed away on a hospital ship and reported from the beaches in a nurse’s uniform. Her stories of war were populated by anonymous stretcher bearers, exhausted truck drivers, German prisoners of war, Vietnamese mothers, female prisoners in El Salvador. “I always liked Tolstoi’s crusty remark that ‘governments are a collection of men who do violence to the rest of us,’ ” Gellhorn wrote in the 1986 introduction to “The Face of War,” a collection of her reporting. “But now I think the old Russian was a prophet.”

 ******* 

Twenty years after her death, Gellhorn’s young chaps remain protective of her achievements. Since 1999, the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism has been awarded for work that exposes what Gellhorn called “official drivel.”

Are you struggling with getting through pandemic crisis?

Advice getting through another crisis

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
April 8, 2020

"So now go do the best things in life

Take a bite of this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life"

Disturbed - Hold on to Memories

I am going to start this the way I usually end a video...with what you are empowered to do. "...go do the best things in life...make the most of the rest of your life."


Right now the world is living through global pandemic trauma. Life as they knew it ended. As of yesterday "There are at least 387,547 cases of coronavirus in the United States and at least 12,291 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases." according to a CNN running update. That means at least that many have experienced the trauma of fighting for their lives. Even more have experienced the trauma of it coming into their families and the fear of it happening to those who have thus far escaped it.

While some people take a callous attitude to take advantage of the trauma, many more are going out to make sure others stay alive, even if it means they are subjecting themselves to more trauma.

Aside from hurricanes and this pandemic, I survived life altering trauma 10 times. I know what it can do to lives, but the key is, only if we allow it to gain control.

This is from ABC News

Calls to US helpline jump 891%, as White House is warned of mental health crisis

Last month the “Disaster Distress Helpline” at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) saw an 891% increase in call volume compared with March 2019, according to a spokesman for the agency, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

In fact, this March – ending little more than a week ago – saw 338% more calls to the helpline than in the month before, when the deadly virus began to take hold inside the U.S. homeland, and government officials began taking more extreme measures to stop its spread.

There are 57.8 million Americans currently living with mental or substance use disorders, according to SAMHSA.

Two ways to look at the report are, it is terrible that many are in crisis, or, there are many more fighting for their lives and acknowledging they need help. Please take that as a sign it is OK to ask for help if you need it too.

But what else can we do against something we have no control over? Look at what we can control. We can control how we act and react.

We control what we do if we are healthy enough to help others.

We control if we act out of kindness and patience, or react with selfishness.

We control if we show that we are suffering too and are afraid to comfort someone else, or react with judgement unwilling to show we are not super-human.

I controlled what I did with my life the second I went from victim to survivor. So can you. We can be defined by what we do with our lives from this second onward.

One more thought is that if you have PTSD, these days are harder on you but now most Americans are sadly experiencing what you have been trying to explain to them for a long time. Use the opportunity to share it with them so that they finally understand and then, heal together.

One of my favorite groups is Disturbed. One of their songs, "Hold Onto The Memories" is a good way to look at life the way we know it now.

Disturbed - Hold on to Memories [Official Live Video] - YouTube

www.youtube.com

Lyrics

Listen, everyone

The time will come when all of us say goodbye

Feel that aching in your heart

Leaving you broken inside

But we're never really gone

As long as there's a memory in you mind

So now go do the best things in life

Take a bite of this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life

Make a ride of this world while you can

Take the ones you love

And hold them close because there is little time

And don't let it break your heart

I know it feels hopeless sometimes

But they're never really gone

As long as there's a memory in you mind

So now go do the best things in life

Take a bite of this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life

Make a ride of this world while you can

And hold on to memories

Hold on to every moment

To keep them alive

The world's greatest tragedy

Souls who are not remembered

Cannot survive

So now go do the best things in life

Bring the fight to this world while you can

Make the most of the rest of your life

Shine your light on this world while you can

And hold on to memories

Hold on to every moment

To keep them alive

The world's greatest tragedy

Souls who are not remembered

Cannot survive

And hold on to memories (Hold on)

Hold on to every moment To keep them alive (Keep them alive)

The world's greatest tragedy (Hold on)

Souls who are not remembered

Cannot survive

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Dan Donegan / David Draiman / Kevin Churko / Mike Wengren

Hold On to Memories lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

Easter is a season of redemption! Many are struggling with the fact that they cannot go to church to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. Think of it this way. We can go to church and thank Jesus for the resurrection of humanity when this is all over.

We see miracles happen when a long list of fellow citizens knowing risk their lives to help others. None of us could make it without these heroes. They leave their own families and friends so they can take care of us.

They are doing it without the equipment they need to do it as safely as possible, endless stress piled onto all the other days they have been facing traumatic situations flooding in. Yet still, they show up and do it all over again.

Sunday morning empowerment zone talk about the power of forgiveness. When you address the mental health part of PTSD, the healing begins. It gets better when you add in doing things for your body. But what about your soul? That is where PTSD lives. When you begin to heal that, you begin to see miracles in your own life!

Healers and protectors in isolation right now need to help each other

When you know your work is not worthless

PTSD Patrol
Kathie Costos
March 25, 2020

During this time of isolation, it has been really hard to fight depression, especially when my life has been about helping veterans and their families. My husband and I are both over 60 and have health problems. Being out with people is dangerous for me, but more so for him. It is also dangerous for all others. Knowing that isolation is very hard on veterans, especially when they have PTSD, rips at my soul!

I just put up a video for the leaders in Point Man International Ministries, knowing that if I am going through all of this, they must be too. Sharing pain is often healing for us and gives comfort to others going through the same thing. Knowing you are not alone is empowering!

None of us can stand very long on our own. Sure, we gain strength from our faith and reliance on God, but we gain more by following our own advice. We tell veterans to share their pain with others and support each other. We need to follow that same advice but all too often, we fear letting others know just how human we are. We fear asking for help because we are supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit and faith enough to not be afraid of anything. Still not sure how we got that idea or the notion that we are any better than the people were have dedicated our lives to helping, but we did. 

We are just as human as everyone else and most of us are not ashamed to admit that. Even Jesus was not afraid to ask for help, yet we have a problem with that?

After I recorded this video I was thinking about all the others who are healers and protectors in isolation right now because they were exposed to COVID-19 on the job, or prevented from doing their work for other reasons. It hits us even harder because our mission on this earth is to help other people. When we cannot do it, it crushes our soul.

Please keep in mind that right now, the best thing we can do is help each other get through this time so that we will be there, rested and restored to help all the others who will need us, when we get back to whatever normal is again.

Not being able to work with other veterans is hard during this time of isolation for any of us. Take comfort knowing you are not alone, just as we give comfort to others with that same message. My heart and prayer are with all of you.

UPDATE from Hong Kong

Steven Chau: Who will heal the healers? The psychological aftermath of covid-19

On top of these stressors, healthcare workers tend to be more reluctant to seek help for mental health problems due to worries about confidentiality, stigma, and the fear of losing their medical licenses. A study on disaster preparedness in Hong Kong conducted in 2015 found that 75% of healthcare workers were unlikely to seek help from mental health professionals for psychological distress secondary to their handling of a disaster. It is therefore critical to plan stringent, proactive psychological support measures early on to facilitate distressed workers in seeking help and to prevent unintended secondary injury being inflicted upon them. The prevention of further psychological harm should be a major consideration in any post-pandemic policies that follow and which are related to healthcare workers.

How one Army vet is lifting female service members

'It's a harder identification': How one Army vet is lifting female service members

Yahoo Finance
March 23, 2020

“I was a bit of a Private Benjamin,” she said. “I didn't know what I was getting myself into.”

When Lucy Del Gaudio parks in a veteran space, attends events for former service members, or is out with her husband on Veterans Day, she hardly is recognized.

“They're like: ‘Oh, thank you for your service, Mr. Del Gaudio,” said the Army vet from the Desert Storm era. “That's something that women face all the time... it's a harder identification and they automatically assume that he's the veteran, not you.”

That invisibility hurts female veterans in bigger ways — from homelessness to health care — and Del Gaudio is working hard to combat that. But it was a long journey for her as she had to first overcome sexual trauma she experienced in the military before giving back.

“I felt like my service was tarnished. I really didn't discuss it” until a friend in 2014 convinced her to join a veterans organization, se explained. “He goes: ‘Lucy, you should join. Your story should be heard. Other women veterans should know what you experienced and you could help them.’"
read it here

Private Benjamin (1980) Official Trailer - Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan Movie HD