I am Mary Chamberlin. This page is about me and how my experiences with bereavement affected my life.
“ You have collected all my tears and preserved them in your bottle! You have recorded every
one in your book” Psalms 56:8
God laid this verse on my heart when my daughter was six years old. She had a goldfish that languished all summer long. Finally one Saturday night in the fall it lay floating at the top of the bowl. My daughter was devastated as this was her favorite fish. I told her about the verse because I wanted to help her through this experience. She asked me to show it to her, but I had no idea where to find it in my Bible.
The next morning in Sunday School a dear old saint found it in her concordance, so I could show it to my daughter.
About a month later, her father suddenly died, and I decided to put that verse in a tangible form that she could see and touch. I found a small perfume bottle and put some tiny, teardrop shaped beads in it. When she came home from school, I had the bottle ready to give her while I told her about her father’s death. I wanted her to remember that God knows and cares that she was crying.
As we prepared for the funeral, she wanted to place a bottle in the casket. She also wanted me to make one for myself.
When I realized how much comfort it gave us, I began to wonder if others would benefit in the same way. So I made a few other “teardrop bottles” and gave them to family and friends when they went through times of
bereavement.
I felt that I couldn’t reach enough people with this special message, and I wanted to share God’s comfort with everyone. After all, this really isn’t about me, this is about His promise.
I sold the teardrop bottles to local gift shops.
Deciding that was too small a sphere I decided I should create a website.
When I started looking for website servers, I came upon one called SiteSell. They claimed they were not a get rich quick scheme, and if that’s what you were interested in they were not the right program for you.
I planned to do just a few little selling pages.
They emphasized how important providing valuable information was. This actually is a very Biblical method: hard work, and genuine effort. God wants things done in a quality way. I started realizing that God wanted this to be a bigger ministry than I had imagined (after all this isn't about me!). He often does that to us! That’s God’s style; to lay down your life for others. This is my life’s motto.
I have been working on this site, as time permits, for over four years now and am starting to offer a few things for sale.
My main goal is still to continue to build more web pages offering helpful information to those who are experiencing grief and for those who want to help their loved ones through bereavement.
I know how hard it is to think clearly when you are grieving, so my desire is to make things easier by doing the work for you, both with helpful website content and now by me taking the time to hand pick quality items for you.
Guy (my second chance!), me and Sadie
My experience with bereavement is personal. First, losing my first husband to mental illness and death and lately the death of my father who suffered with Alzheimer’s for 10 years before succumbing to the disease.
I do not have a diploma from a university that hangs on the wall. I guess you could say my education comes from the school of hard knocks.
Just plenty of experience with grief in my own life and the lessons I learned from it. Don’t get me wrong: even though I didn’t study bereavement in college doesn’t mean I haven’t been a life-long learner!
My father was a pastor, and I have been going through all his files on the subject of bereavement. I love to learn and always am reading 2 or 3 books at once. I also learned how to live with grief along with other aspects of life through Bible study. The Bible has so much to teach us!
I hope this page about me gives you an idea of the website authorship.
It is my intention that this website, and any products I put on it, can aid in the healing process that must occur in bereavement.
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A site that is…
Uplifting
Encouraging
Comforting
Content to help you heal
Hand picked bereavement products
Let me do the homework and research for you.