Because Not Everyone Loves Big Booms

Tonight I am sitting on the floor in my bedroom with a small fan on for noise. My dogs sit huddled against either side of me. Outside, fireworks fill the sky. In my bedroom, fear fills my dogs’ minds. One shakes uncontrollably, and the other’s face is crinkled with anxiety, her skin jumpy to even my touch. The loud booming terrifies them. Their brains do not comprehend the house-shaking explosions. They only understand the fear it causes.

It isn’t just my dogs. Last year we found three dogs around our backyard the morning of July 5^th. Three dogs. Three different owners. All the dogs ran away because they were trying to escape the sounds that terrified them.  Facebook reeled with pleas for helping folks find missing dogs, and it ran post after post announcing a dog found here or there. I don’t think the owners are bad owners. I think they just don’t realize how much terrifying the flash and boom of fireworks can be. Unfortunately, some of those pets will never be found, and it isn’t because they are badly behaved or wild pets. It’s because they run so far to escape their torment, they cannot find their way home.

As I sit here and look at my dogs wrapped in a fear they can neither escape or even understand, I think of so many veterans who are affected the same way. Unlike my dogs, they understand fireworks. They know how they work, understand the reason, know to expect them. It doesn’t matter. The screaming of bottle rockets and popping of firecrackers hit their nervous system like rockets big enough to blow up a tank and machine gun fire. And those explosions that can rock the house rock their psyche like the ones that rocked the ground when they were in combat.

I sit here looking at the clock wondering how much longer the noise will go on and how long it will take before my dogs are able to recover from their fear response, and I am wondering if there are veterans wondering the same thing.

I’m wondering how many veterans are trying to drink away the torment. I am wondering how many anti-anxiety meds it takes to get through tonight. I am wondering how many are doing what I am doing, filling the air with exaggerated noise that is innocuous, sound they can control, just to drown out the noise they can’t. I wonder how many are running away or trying to simply escape the torment and end up running so far they cannot find their way home and are lost forever.

Tonight my heart is sick, and I am praying.

I will be honest. I’m praying for the terrified pets and their owners, and I am praying for the runaways to be found.

I am also praying for the veterans and those who love them. I am praying for their peace because God knows they’ve earned the right to have peace, and I am praying for those running, that they be found or find their way home. And I am praying for those who, for a war full of reasons, don’t find their way back.

If you are a veteran, I want to thank you for service that allows us this freedom we celebrate, and I pray for you and our brothers and sisters who are still fighting wars no one can see. May God bless you with the peace you so greatly deserve.

With deep gratitude and sincere prayers,
Jerri

@2018 Jerri Kelley

 

Is Healing Possible?

I have been asked if I think PTS is actually curable. Yes, I do, but there are key things required. Here is a list off the top of my head:

1. You have to own your part of the situation(s). I'm not saying take responsibility for someone else. I mean take responsibility for someone else.

2. You have to forgive yourself.

3. You have to forgive the party that inflicted the trauma.

4. You have to forgive the people involved in whatever conditioning or authority it took to put you in that place to begin with.

5. You have to quit blaming others. Stop being a victim. Something happened. Absolutely. But there is a different mindset in remaining a victim and saying, "Your actions don't have power over me."

6. Decide to take responsibility for your healing and work toward what a good life looks like to you. I don't just mean a nice house. I mean no panic attacks. I mean no trust issues. I mean all the mental and emotiona parts of a happy life. Choose them and work toward them.

7. Believe God is the ultimate word. This was the biggest thing in my healing and becoming whole. I decided from the get go that no person had the right to define me. Nothing they did defined me. Only the God who made me had the right to define me, and I would bow to no other words or actions but His, and He treats me GREAT and He loves me HUGE. THAT is where I live. That is what I own.

8. YOu won't ever be past trauma until you let God and the Spirit heal your soul. You cannot be whole apart from Him.

 

Trust me, I was not going to be a functional victim. That was not the "other side" for me. I am a whole person with absolute peace and confidance in God's plan and purpose for me. I know my value, and I am actively working with God to bring about His promises in my life. This is my other side I worked toward, and it was worth everything it took to get here.

 

Stay on the journey!

Jerri

Introducing...Semper Tails

 Some of you may remember, my favorite dog Fred. We called him our Lab-experiment. He was a rescue dog that was supposed to be a 20-pound beagle mix that became an 85-pound embodiment of love with 4 paws. We lost Fred to liver disease in December 2014. I pretty much decided we would never get another dog. I couldn't imagine loving another dog like I loved Fred. I certainly couldn't imagine bonding with another dog like I bonded with Fred.

Fred was more than a dog. He was a quiet consoling presence. He could read emotions like no one's business, and when I was at my end, he knew how to handle it, usually by slipping his hand into my hand.

When Fred was a year old or so, I started researching therapy dogs. Even then, I thought he would make a great one, but he had to big issues:
1. He loved jumping up on people.
2. He hated elevators

So Fred didn't become a therapy dog for anyone outside our home, but inside our home, he was amazing, especially when things changed so drastically in 2010 and 2011. I would sit on the couch just trying to breathe some days, and he would lie beside me, his head on my leg, breathing for us both. When I lay on my floor and cried, he sat outside my door and waited. I often thought everyone should have a Fred. The world would be a better place if everyone had someone like that. Someone who simply loved, who didn't care if you yelled, who wasn't afraid of tears, who walked into the hard to find you.

Periodically, I have considered Fred, therapy dogs, and the power of love with four paws, but I was not going to do that again. Until two weeks ago. When I finally listened closely and realized those thoughts were not my thoughts but God's voice.

I had been praying again for direction on "specializing" my ministry. "Pastor" can be so many things, and I was thinking about going back to school, possibly getting a second degree or maybe even a master's. Except, I kept finding myself perusing puppy pictures, and one day when I was kneeling at my altar, taking communion, I asked for a clear vision of what God wanted to do, and I saw myself with a dog beside me, and we walked into a hospital with injured soldiers and walked out and into a hospital with children, and we walked from that room into a room at the library where children were reading and from there into a funeral home where someone was grieving. Then we walked into someone's home where this dog lay on the couch and let the person pet it while the person talked about hard things, and I dismissed it all because I was not going to get another dog.

But then, I was sitting at the house I have been renovating to rent, and I texted my friend Morgan, who is a 3rd year veterinary student. I tossed her the idea of a therapy dog that I could take to different places, that could work with soldiers and marines, people grieving loss, folks trying to find courage to face hard things, people dealing with anxiety and panic issues...folks who have suffered trauma and need a safe place to heal. She asked if I wanted help finding a dog.

Within minutes, she was checking shelters near me, and we were comparing notes. About two weeks later, this happened.

Semper Fidelis.

Not because of the marines (although y'all know I love them), but because

Dios semper fidelis.

God is always faithful.

Sometimes we just need to be reminded. Sometimes we need the calm presence that reminds us of His peace and His presence. Sometimes Love shows up with four paws and reminds us of  the Love that shows up in the darkest places.


Because a good dog can do more for some folks than all the pills in all the pharmacies in all the world. Because sometimes the best way to get a handle of life is to feel the body of a gentle dog touch your hand.

So, this is Semper Fidelis, and we have just started our adventure together, and you can read more about our adventure at Semper Tails. It is more than just the daily adventure. It will include information about trauma, loss, grief, PTS (previously known as PTSD), healing, important contact information, and so on. As she says on her page, she is "therapy puppy growing into the great bigness off my heart and all the goodness packed inside me." The page will grow with her.

I hope you will join us...or even more, point someone toward Semper's page who needs someone like her because, as she says, maybe in her tales, that someone can find themselves.

Shalom and Puppy Love,
Jerri and Semper Fidelis