Joyful Mourning: A True Love Story
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About this ebook
This book was written for anyone who is in love, was in love, or hopes to be in love. Rebecca, a small town girl, meets Pastor Tedd, the man of her dreams! They shared an uncompromising devotion to God and each other.
This is the true story of Tedd Woodworth and his faithful wife, Rebecca and the wonder of a love which must end too soon.
The author takes you through the "God-incidences" which occurred and shows Rebecca's grieving process as she coped with losses in her life.
"It is an inspiring story that will breathe hope into your soul! Rebecca's story is one of God's love and redemptive nature, new hope and a new life!"
"An amazing story!" - Silvio S. - Business Associate
"A very encouraging story!" - Email from Australia
"You have a way of making me want to know what comes next! -Tekyla M.
Charles Pedley III
Charles was a teacher for some 34 years, ran a computer business, sold proprietary church software and hardware around the world. Charles has many blogs and sites on the web. Press4fun.com would be interesting if you ever need a joke or a funny video. http://Press4fun.com (most popular) http://www.schoolgenius.com http://www.cpedley.com http://saving-a-dollar.com http://www.doc-computer.com http://www.allipedia.com Charles majored in Psychology and Geography to obtain his BA degree and in Counseling & Education to receive his MSEd degree. He inherited his third degree from his Dad, C W Pedley, as this degree is passed on through the oldest offspring, the MUI degree. This degree empowers one to offer Useless or Useful Information to anyone and everyone. Hence MUI = Master of Useless (sometimes Useful) Information. When in youth ministry Charles was asked to speak at many youth retreats and several Christian biker's events. He and Ellen have enjoyed leading young adult, College and Careers, and Adult groups. Charles is married to his first real love and very patient wife Ellen, and has two daughters, one with three grandsons and one with two. Rebecca, the subject of the story has been remarried to another wonderful man, Pastor Scott Laird, of PCF in Arcade, NY. Her sister Ann is married to Jon Guinn and living in Attleboro, MA. Charles & Ellen have been married 51+ years. They were married at a very early age, I believe before the age of 10 :-) He has been active with his wife in teaching Crown Financial, and Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University, as well as Hebraic Roots courses through their church in Welland, Ontario. See http://www.faithwelland.com Since 2012 Charles has had his school bus driver's license and been driving children to and from school, an event that he said he would never do, but enjoys being with the children and young adults. Charles also since 2012 has owned Church Furniture Canada found at churchfurniturecanada.ca and Church Chairs Canada found at churchchairscanada.ca. In 2015, the company grossed over $120,000 as a home business and continues to grow and need help :) His favorite pastime other than spending time with his wife and family is riding his motorcycle as far as he can in the limited time he has. Trips to Cornwall, Elkhart, IN, Curve Lake PowWow, in Ontario, through New York state, around Western New York's winding hilly, curving roads, and north to Meaford and Collingwood. A passion that both Charles & Ellen share is traveling and photographing, especially beautiful natural scenes. See Trip-Ways.com for some samples of their photographs. (Trip-Ways.com may not be maintained.) Most of all, Charles wants his book to be a blessing to those who may be grieving and not even know it, to those who are mourning a loss and see no hope for the future. Rebecca's story proves that there is hope and often amazing God-incidences when you trust Him.
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Joyful Mourning - Charles Pedley III
Joyful Mourning
A True Love Story!
Charles G. Pedley
.
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Charles G. Pedley
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be 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 it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords. com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Son Media Publishing
Ebook Formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com
Cover by Imagetrance
Thank You Alex!
Thank You!
* Gary S. Page, teacher, preacher and author for encouraging me to write my book.
* My daughter Rebecca Woodworth Laird for giving me permission to publish this book from my point of view.
* Dr. Rosenbaum and Dr. Gordon for the wonderful care they gave Tedd. If any man could have cured Tedd’s cancer, it would have been Dr. Gordon.
* Pastor Mike Hargreaves for being like a father to Tedd when his own father was far away
* The People of Cumberland, Virginia who extended their love to Tedd & Rebecca
* The People of Shiloh New Covenant Church, Cumberland, Virginia for their wonderful southern hospitality and love for my daughter and son-in-law
* My wife Ellen, cancer survivor, for her 46 years of patience with me and for making constructive criticisms of my writing.
* Tom & Trudy Woodworth, parents of Tedd who loaned him to us for a time, and the other Woodworth children who are now adults.
* My daughter Rebecca’s friends for doing the first editing of this book way back when it was first written.
* Elizabeth Carden for allowing me to include her story of meeting my daughter Rebecca and Tedd in Virginia.
* Barrie Brown, Jamie & Martha Douglas, Christopher Bessette and Sue Augustine for helping me with the cover decision
* Dr. Bill Gautiere for allowing me to use his self-tests in the Appendices
* Dr. Tim Lowenstein of Conscious Living Foundation for permission to include his Stress Tests
* God for the inspiration to write
Memory is a funny thing. We may think we remember events perfectly and then someone else remembers it differently. My daughter has corrected most of my memory lapses. However this is my point of view of what happened. All major events are the same but there may be small points that I did not remember as well but nevertheless do not detract from this true story.
Prologue
Please refer to my website at www.JoyfulMourning.com for photos and more information about this book. Also the personal experience of one young lady just entering the the youth group which Tedd and Rebecca led at Shiloh Community Church in Cumberland, Virginia.
An interesting God-incidence
is the amazing fact that the pastor of Shiloh for the last few years, up to 2012, Pastor Bill Beni, was a member of our New Christian’s class in Faith Tabernacle, Welland. See Faithwelland.com I believe he met his wife Mildred, through the group. God has many marvels in store for his children. How Bill found out about the vacancy at Shiloh was another God-incidence!
Why another book on grieving?
I showed my rough draft of this book to another author, an English teacher thinking that I would get some modest praise. Instead he said, You have to communicate why you are writing it. You have to put your heart and soul into it.
I thought I had! Obviously something was missing!
Why should someone pick up your book rather than any of a myriad of other authors, most of whom are much more well-known?
Good question!
So here goes. I will try to tell you.
I believe that God has put a burden on my heart to write this book even from before the time of my son-in-law’s death in 1998. Even though it was over four years later when this was written, I still grieve the passing on of Tedd. Oh, boy!
you say. Another fanatic saying God told him to do something!
Alright, if you want to believe I am a fanatic, that is OKAY! Remember that the short form of the word fanatic
is fan
. Yes, I am a proud fan of the fact that God has always wanted to speak to us, always desired our friendship. We were created by Him because He was lonely! Read Genesis!
So, yes I am a fanatic, who believes God still wants to guide our lives, when we understand he is there and when we do NOT understand! My daughter’s song, Beautiful
from her Broken Clay
CD says it best.
.
Lovingly He sees your tiny hand
And dreams of all the plans He has for you
Tenderly, His finger
Has molded the inner parts of you
And as each part He created
A smile on His face, a tear in His eye
Walking in the smallness of life
Growing in the little things you do
Pressing on although scared and frightened
His gentle hand pulling you through
He was there.
And a lump of clay molded, fitly fashioned
Created in the image of His son
Your heart now beats as one with the Father’s
You’re made a man, it’s done
Beautiful ...
From the baby to the man
Oh, beautiful
Even though you don’t understand
Beautiful
Meet for the Master’s use
A lump of clay in His hand
The thoughts that He has planned
You’re an instrument in His hand
Beautiful, so beautiful
Beautiful
.
You see, when I asked God how I should pray for Tedd the last time he got sick in 1998, I had the distinct impression in my mind of the words, "Joyful Mourning". I did not want to believe at the time that God was telling me that Tedd was going to die, so I thought, "No this cannot be from God. Why had Tedd recovered so many times, including at least one time when his heart appeared to stop, if he was just going to die anyway a few years later? I must not have heard right."
That is what I thought. But it was wishful thinking. God had been honest with me. He told me to prepare to mourn but He would still give us joy during our mourning time, but I did not want to hear that. Who would? Even then in 2008, I would occasionally have a particularly vivid thought will come back to me. For a moment I am there again. I am living the joys and sorrows they went through.
Yes, even though my daughter is remarried to a wonderful husband and she has three sons, Ian, MacGregor and Nathan who of course are the smartest little grandsons in the whole world! I am very happy for my daughter. I love my new son-in-law and admire him very much. So why do I still grieve sometimes? Is that healthy? Shouldn’t I forget the sad past?
I will discuss that later, but it is not a bad thing, unless of course it consumes my thoughts almost ten years after the fact. It doesn’t. But so many times we expected and it looked like God was going to give us a miracle. A miracle of healing Tedd. But, …. I am getting ahead of my story.
Table of Contents
A Miracle?
Experiences with Grieving
Rebecca
Tedd
The Shockwave
The Call
Virginia is for Lovers!
The End of New Beginnings
Rebecca the Strong
The Miracle
My Way or No Way?
Grieving Your Loss
Body, Meet Soul & Spirit
The Grieving Process
Coping Strategies
The Investor
Do You Have Anxiety?
Are You Depressed?
Life Stress Test
What is Your Image of God?
Do You Esteem Yourself?
Do You Over-react Emotionally?
What is Your Emotional IQ?
Links to Help You Cope
Mental Health & Counseling
1 A Miracle?
11:45 P.M. July 20, 1998. The phone rang. It was my daughter, Rebecca. Dad, the doctor said he noticed considerable improvement!
Is this the miracle we had been waiting almost four years for? She explained that Tedd, her husband of less than four years, right now, was able to do what he had not been able to do for months. Lie down!
He had spent the last weeks sitting upright in a recliner, sleeping little cat naps when he could. Lying down would allow the fluid around his lungs to squeeze in and choke him. His life was living in that chair. We both felt encouraged that maybe, yes, maybe this nightmare was at an end. Maybe, Tedd was getting better! Maybe healed forever!
Tedd had been diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Disease about six months after marrying Rebecca. It had been an up and down battle. Declared free of the insidious disease twice before. Only to have it return a few months later.
Through the struggle, they were as positive as anyone could be. During his first bout with chemotherapy, it wasn’t unusual to see all the nurses gathered around his room watching Tedd and Rebecca’s wedding video. I thanked our friend, Guy, the sound man for his help with the wedding, He said, Wedding? That was no wedding! That was a production!
[Sadly this year 2012, our friend Guy Desjardins, passed away from