"Angel of Promise" by Sam Oliver is a story about a man who made 7 promises to his angel the moment he was born. You will enjoy the reflective nature of this story as it reveals various aspects of a man's soul. It is a story of hope, revelation, and inspiration.

You will find yourself in this story and experience ways you of living similar to your own. It will challenge you and give you hope. Let it inspire you believe in deepest self again.

This book will be published in 2010 through fideli publishing. Tell your friends and family. You will want to share this intriguing story with those you love.

For more books by this author: http://www.pathintohealing.com/

Review

"An excellent book on how to go beyond mere understanding of our problems to healing." -- Charles Kraft, Fuller Theological Seminary

"Dr. Wardles gives us not just good insight but practices that work." -- Ken Blue, author of Authority to Heal

"caregivers will find his insights helpful for both their personal and professional lives." -- Gary Moon, author of Homesick for Eden

Product Description
"Christian caregivers want more than 'better' for hurting people," writes the author. "They want to regularly position the broken for the transforming touch of Jesus Christ. How to do that is the subject of this book."

This inspiring and practical book introduces the practice of inner healing prayer as a tool for both professional and nonprofessional caregivers. The first five chapters address the personal spiritual lives of caregivers themselves. Subsequent chapters include "The Structures of Inner Healing," "Dysfunctional Behaviors and the Cross of Christ," "Emotional Upheaval and the Lies that Drive It," "Healing Deep Wounds," and "The Relationship between Spiritual Warfare and Inner Healing Prayer." A rich and balanced book for all who seek to bring healing to hurting and broken people.

More Healing Resources: http://www.pathintohealing.com/

Hospice patients come to our care after being cut, burned, and poisoned. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment are the normative methods of care for most of the patients who enter a life-threatening disease. Hospital staff members are trained to be aggressive about curative care.

Hospice care is a phase of care whereby aggressive treatment is no longer appropriate. Palliative care becomes the norm. Patients have been probed physically, mentally, and emotionally. In many ways, patients may be reluctant to any type of care beyond the experiences that led to his/her doctor sharing that no more can be done.

The purpose of this article is to claim that much more can be done. Our Doctors and Nurses are trained to help patients receive medication that stabilizes and even diminishes pain and suffering physically. Social Workers are trained to help patients and families deal with emotional, practical, and legal issues surrounding loss and grief. Spiritual Counselors help with the integration of emotional well-being and a sense of faith and hope beyond one's self-awareness.

There are three aspects of the grieving process I wish to mention in this brief article:

1. The Heart of Care,
2. The Heart of Compassion, and
3. An Awakened Heart

1. The Heart of Care
   
   

   The heart of care centers it's attention on the needs of the patient who is dying. Any attempt to move a patient away from his/her authentic character becomes a war of wills. As we listen and care for a person just as he/she is, we are allowing a person to die the way he/she lived. Our ability to meet a person in unconditional love will draw out the desire to be fully known by the patient. Here, we are given opportunities to meet him/her in grace and mercy.

   Patients are not a disease. Patients are awakening into soul. Mary was a strong-willed person who did not want to die. She had a strong personality. She had many roles she carried out in life, and she wanted to hold on to them all. She was a mother, friend, wife, among many other roles.

   About two weeks before Mary died, she shared with me that she became aware of two identities: one was her strong personality and the other was a presence of peace she could not explain. The closer Mary came to her dying, the more she could identify with wanting peace over suffering. This identity with her soul became more appealing to her than living in a body that was failing her. She was awakening into her authentic self.

2. The Heart of Compassion
   
   

   A dying patient gives up so much in their dying that he/she is tempted to hold on to what is left in their life. Even if holding on means more pain and suffering, some patients do try to do so. As care givers, we need to be sensitive to this aspect of a patient's letting go process. A patient needs support and guidance to simply learn to move from letting go (an act of the will) to letting be (getting into harmony with one's dying). A person offering care will enter into the heart of compassion by giving a patient space to enter into this process of moving from "letting go" to "letting be."

   As a person dies, their personality will give way to their soul. In the process, a heart is broken. This desire to escape a painful body and embrace peace (one's authentic-self) is complicated by the desire to remain with those he or she has loved. This built up tension creates a path one has to choose inside them that transcends individual and collective conscious awareness. In essence, this is a matter of survival for the soul. This path moves a person's soul forward.

   Funeral services remind us, it is the soul of a person that draw us to face death and not the deceased body. These services serve as a symbol of transition for the loved one who has died and those reflecting on the life of the deceased. A relationship that once was created outside us and in the body of another person no longer applies. Now, relationships with the deceased are internal and completely within us creating an invisible bond forever linking our awareness to a spacial quality within us drawing those left behind deeper into soul.

3. An Awakened Heart
   
   

   An awakened heart knows there is more to life than what appears on the surface.

   Dying people lead us to this place where eternal relationships are forged into the deepest aspects of our nature. It is our nature to love and feel love. Even grief has the capacity to deepen our sense of sacredness toward those we love.

   A year ago, I gave a talk for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in Los Angeles, CA. I was gone about a week. When I returned, my youngest son gave me a big hug. I missed him and he missed me. I could feel him literally fill my heart with love. In a real way, my soul was touched by my son's soul. An awakened heart knows that this is the heart of relationships.

   In the landscape of the soul, what matters in life IS NOT matter. When we begin to look through our eyes and not with them, we enter into a view of life from the perspective of soul. Insight, to see from within, enables us to encounter death with hope, with faith, and with love.

   As we grow in our capacity to see from within, we enter into the heart of grief. This emergence into the nature of soul will sustain us through death and into life - eternal. May the Creator of us all give us strength for the journey.

Sam Oliver, author of, "The Path into Healing"

Healing Care Resources: http://www.pathintohealing.com/

Product Description
The Path into Healing is a model for healing through the feminine side of the soul. The purpose of this book is to outline a process whereby a person can understand and acquaint him or herself with an aspect of our awareness often neglected in our world today. Much of the emphasis in our world is on what a person can achieve without regard to how these achievements affect the world and the people living in these achievements. The Path into Healing is an attempt to give acknowledgment to the inner qualities of living that our outer world thrusts upon us. Just think for a moment what a child does and says when he/she gets hurt. They want their mommy. Why is it that when we are hurt, we look to the feminine soul to give us strength and direction. On September 11, 2001, the first thing we did when New York City was bombed was to turn inside ourselves in prayer, for direction, and for hope beyond our external world being destroyed around us. This inward look into a world that is with us throughout our life is a womb like state of being. Inside us is an incredible source of strength and energy capable of nurturing a dying person through death, helping us rebuild what is destroyed in our external world, and transforming the most drastic event into a presence of peace. Thus is the world of the feminine spirit.

About the Author
Sam has cared for the needs of the dying in palliative care for over 17 years. During that time, Sam has served as the Chair, and now, Co-Chair of the Hospice Ethics Committee at a Hospice Care Center in Northern Ohio. He has served several years as a State Continuing Education Chairperson for the Association of Professional Chaplains. For well over a decade, Sam has been an active editorial review board member and contributing writer for Healing Ministry Journal, The Journal of Terminal Oncology, and The American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care. Sam began his speaking about spiritual care over 15 years ago and continues to speak at public engagements on the local, national, and international levels. He has spoken at several college campuses and keynoted at several Hospice Conferences. His first book of four What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living is a Doubleday Book Club, One Spirit, and National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization selection.

To Order this Book: http://www.pathintohealing.com/

Hello,

I’m writing to let you know that my new book "God a Logs on Living and Dying" by Sam Oliver is now finished and in print. It is simple, clear, and direct, so as to be easy to understand and apply. I put my heart and soul, my highest and best in this devotional/journal. My intention is that it will bless the lives of everyone who reads it. 
I was wondering if you would be willing to put a small promotion for this book on your web site or blog. If you would like to know more about this book, you will find reviews of it on amazon.com

Blessings,

Sam Oliver

What do you want me to notice today?

     I want you to care about other people today. When you focus on caring for others, something profound happens to you. Your attention will shift. You will move from self-centered awareness to life-centered awareness.  Believe me, life centered awareness is a much greater perspective. Here, you will find yourself making decisions based on what is needed as a whole; rather than, needs based on fulfilling your own personal objectives.

How can I get there?

     When you begin to realize that you are part of a much greater awareness, some of your personal challenges seem smaller. Why? You will notice that everyone has needs, wants, and desires. Many times in life, we focus way too much on ourselves and not the needs of others. If you do this too much, you will become isolated and let no one into your life. Although there are times when you do need alone time to charge your batteries from so much outward focus, you will find that fully focusing on what you are doing for others is a distraction from self-centered awareness.

     At the end of the day, do take some time for yourself. You will need to find ways to balance the needs of others with the needs of the self. In the end, you will notice that one of the greatest gifts we do have to give to others is to give our lives away knowing we have helped another person's day a little bit better. This will also meet your own need to fulfill your reason for living or purpose in life.

     Not long ago, I did a funeral for a man whose wife asked him to share with her the most important thing in life he could think of at the time. Without hesitation, he told her that the most important thing in life is to "care about other people." He was a man who had won several awards for the contributions he made in the community. He was a Psychology Professor and planted many many seeds in the souls of his students. These seeds of awareness will allow his students to have perspective and have a purpose filled life for years to come. In caring about other's needs, this Professor will live on from generation to generation to generation.

Taken From: "God a Logs on Living and Dying" by Sam Oliver

The Wind in my Heart

Wind, where is it?
It comes, and it goes.
It makes it's way through the leaves of a tree,
yet I am not able to see
where the wind comes from, or where it will go.
I like the way the wind makes the tree leaves sound.
It is a peaceful tone much like a gentle rain
on a cool summer night.
There is a similar wind in my heart.
It makes it's way through my soul,
and I am fresh again.
It is the air I breathe,
and the force that gives me life.

   Samuel Oliver, author of, "What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living"