My Turn... (cross-posted at Stone Soup)

I have been greatly blessed by lots of wonderful people who have helped me when I needed it. I try to pay it forward when I can in whatever ways I can think of. Hopefully my blogs can be part of that.

I have a chronic pain condition, flare ups leave me physically and mentally exhausted so please forgive any lack of eloquence I may present in this post. There are some people I've been wanting to tell you all about, I have been distracted, but this post ain't gonna write itself so here we go...

When I am not feeling well I look for passive entertainment to get my mind off of things, and yesterday I turned to YouTube videos for that. I have been wanting to do this post about helping people, since so many helped me when I needed it, and I was looking for a nice song to add to the post. I decided that Lean On Me would work, and I found this neat cover of the original Bill Withers tune which I think is very cute:



The girl who made this video says in the comments section that she'd like to get more views. I hope this helps! Here's another, from her YouTube channel, because I think she's got a lovely voice:




I watched someone named Nichole337 in "related videos" and saw a girl who was getting a lot of mean comments based on how she looks, but she is a beautiful girl who happens to have a medical condition which effects the appearance of her mouth - she needs surgery to have it fixed but cannot afford it. Her singing is, uh, not my cup of tea, but Nichole strikes me as a very nice person and her fearlessness has made her a viral sensation with millions of views to her videos over the past three years. She gets trolled mercilessly but she is like a modern day folk hero for people who have been bullied or felt like they weren't "good enough" because of how they look. Her facebook fan page is here. You can learn about her medical issue here, read the description beneath her video. You can help her HERE. Rock on, Nichole!

I've told you about my friend Tlchimes before, she has the blog Blue Jeans and Lace and she also writes at Stone Soup. Tlchimes used to enjoy the life of a middle class mom before her husband lost his job and the fall into financial hell came hard and fast. Things started to look up when her husband finally found a new job, but he was struck with a debilitating medical condition and is now too ill to work. Tlchimes herself is also disabled, with a myriad of health problems that includes seizures. Two of her children suffer from developmental disabilities and her youngest, Rowan, is medically fragile - he has had many painful surgeries and will need more. His problems are frightening and heartbreaking:

There are some sounds that bring us to our knees, tears to our eyes, and strength to our spines. I'm going to tell you about one of them. It is a sound I hear too often. It averages about every three months or so.

The worst sound I have ever heard is the noise my son makes before he has a grand-mal seizure. I terrifies me, it breaks my heart, and it is one of the few things I can't fix.

It's like a loud intake of air when you really can't take in air. It's so loud you can hear it rooms away. The first time you hear it, you don't know what it means and then you spend the next moments losing your mind as your child spasms, coughs, and fights their way through it. And the second time isn't any better. The only thing to be said for it is that you know what's coming.

That noise means hours for my son to know weakness, pain, confusion. It means his mother will need to be strong for him though inside she has tears streaming down her cheeks. She will happily smack the next fool who tells her she shouldn't be carrying that little boy through the store. READ THE WHOLE THING

Tlchimes lives in the worst part of Detroit but does everything in her power to give her kids reasons to smile every day. She will often go hungry to make sure that her children don't. The lady knows how to stretch a dollar like nobody's business, but a few more dollars would make a huge difference for her and her kids. Tlchimes writes a lot of great stuff about special needs kids and the unique challenges that their families have. Although she is cash poor, she is always one of the first people to rush in to help someone in need even when doing so means she must sacrifice. There is a donate button at her blog, know that if you utilize it, it will be used wisely and for good purposes. While you're there, check out her posts, they will brighten your day, touch your heart, or teach you something new.

R.K. Finnell also writes at Stone Soup and is the author of the Celtic Mythology/Fantasy/Horror novel Kickshaw Candies. She lives with her beautiful disabled adult daughter. R.K. is a great writer who has been working very hard to get her novel noticed and she is working on a sequel. Something has come up which requires that she scrape together $400 by August 14 to pay for something needed for her daughter's care. Buying her book would help (it's a really good story) as would utilizing the donate button at her blog. R.K. has a kind heart, although she is broke like me, when I was down & out, she helped me without ever being asked to. She has also knitted really gorgeous adorable hats for my kids and sent them to us just to make them smile.

Pat Austin is a blogging friend of mine who writes at And So It Goes in Shreveport and is also a Potluck blogger. She's currently using her Tip Jar to run a fundraiser for an injured policeman and his family. Check out her blog for some great conservative writing and gorgeous pictures from her antiquing adventures.

I am planning to do a much bigger post very soon about the importance of supporting bloggers and I will tell you about many of the great people I know who help other bloggers in lots of ways, but as I said earlier in this post, I am not at my best right now, so I am just focusing on a few today who have immediate needs and who would benefit greatly from any kind of assistance that can be found in the hearts of good people. So I will wrap this up by telling you about two bloggers who are living in crisis, right now:

The following two people are a young man and a young lady who are honest and hardworking people. They had nice homes and savings accounts and nice lives. Then the economy tanked.

The young woman saw her hours get cut and her savings evaporate as she tried to hold on until things got better. She now lives in her car and although she still has a job, it isn't enough. Please read her blog On The Outside Looking In and help her out if you can. Even five bucks will help her to at least get a little bit of food, a larger donation can help her get out of the heat and allow her to sleep indoors in a bed.

The Homeless Patriot is a young man who lost his job and also went through his savings trying to hold on until things got better. He now finds himself living out of a backpack and sleeping outside. He has a sunny disposition despite the trouble he's in and is treating his experience as an adventure. He only been homeless for a short time, and he is looking for work, so hopefully he'll soon get back on his feet again, but I'm sure a few extra bucks would go a long way and help to keep his spirits up.

More and more Americans are living on the edge of disaster these days, I fear we will see more in crisis and more out on the streets. While so many of us are struggling now, we must always remember to be grateful for whatever little we do have and also that sharing when you are able blesses not only the person you help but will bless you as well, often in surprising ways.





This post is cross posted at Stone Soup where the precious few readers we have there are used to my softer side, and at the Zilla blog, where most of my readers may find this out of character from my standard fare there. Zilla readers can be assured that I'll be back to my usual stuff shortly.

This post is linked at WyBlog. Thank you, Chris!

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