Important sidetracking...please visit

Yesterday evening, while praying at church, I kept on thinking about Tamara as well as praying for her. Even though I had other plans for today's post, God kept her on my mind until I finally got the message...I need to post about her and then kindly ask all of you wonderful people who read my posts if you could just take a moment to leave a small comment for her on her very short post yesterday.

All of Tamara's posts have been short, so it's easy to go back and see what she was all about...lovely and easy meditations with some small personal insight. I 'accidentally" (no, there are NO accidents with God as I was 'sent' there) came upon her Blog site just as she was starting it.

It kind of amazed me that she didn't get more followers as it was such a quick and yet spiritual read. Think the most comments she ever got was when she and I posted back and forth and that would have been four.

Although she seems to be healing, the heart attack she experienced recently (while doing her awesome prison visitation and ministry!!) has taken its' toll on her emotionally as well, so either click on Tamara here please or on my sidebar under Tamara's Treasures (in case I do something wacko and you can't get to her by clicking and end up on some site about watching snails cross the Rio Grande in a yacht).

Tamara might not want to be on your head, but on your mind and in your heart...

Just a little gentle nudge with kind words would be healing....

Her heart will need all kinds of healing and we are all healers, you know....

Can't ever give too many positive, happy, loving strokes....

We can make our hearts pop over to help her heart and soul heal....

Love and kindness and prayers are the answer to every healing of every sort....

And, now, here is part of a report I found on the Internet:

UCLA Study On Friendship Among Women

An alternative to fight or flight
©2002 Gale Berkowitz
"A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.
Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight; In fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is release as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something."

☻FRIENDSHIP IS....
FRIENDSHIP isn't how U forGet but how U forGive, Not how U liSten but how U UnderStand, Not what U see but how U feel, and not how U Let Go but how U hold oN!!!

ANGEL FRIENDS
I believe in angels, the kind that heaven sends. I'm surrounded by angels but (for sure, in blogland) I call them my friends.

And we all know that laughter is healing!!:

(I must put in a disclaimer here...NOT my list...found on the Internet strictly, but I can still chuckle about most of them).

"Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good, But never actually come close to reality?

Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of true friendship. You will see no cutesy little smiley faces on this card- Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.

1. When you are sad -- I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey.

2. When you are blue -- I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you..

3. When you smile -- I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.

4. When you are scared -- I will rag on you about it every chance I get.

5. When you are worried -- I will tell you horrible stories about how much Worse it could be until you quit whining.

6. When you are confused -- I will use little words.

7. When you are sick -- Stay away from me until you are well Again. I don't want whatever you have.

8. When you fall -- I will point and laugh at your clumsiness....

9. This is my oath.... I pledge it to the end. 'Why?' you may ask; 'because you are my friend'.

Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone can see it, But only you can feel the true warmth.

*****

Two friends went out to play golf and were about to tee off, when one fellow noticed that his partner had but one golf ball."Don't you have at least one other golf ball?", he asked. The other guy replied that no, he only needed the one. "Are you sure?", the friend persisted. "What happens if you lose that ball?" The other guy replied, "This is a very special golf ball. I won't lose it so I don't need another one."Well," the friend asked, "what happens if you miss your shot and the ball goes in the lake?""That's okay," he replied, "this special golf ball floats. I'll be able to retrieve it.""Well what happens if you hit it into the trees and it gets lost among the bushes and shrubs?"The other guy replied, "That's okay too. You see, this special golf ball has a homing beacon. I'll be able to get it back -- no problem."Exasperated, the friend asks, "Okay. Let's say our game goes late, the sun goes down, and you hit your ball into a sand trap. What are you going to do then?""

No problem," says the other guy, "you see, this ball is fluorescent. I'll be able to see it in the dark."Finally satisfied that he needs only the one golf ball, the friend asks, "Hey, where did you get a golf ball like that anyway?"
The other guy replies, "I found it."
******

The minister of a city church enjoyed a drink now and then, but his passion was for peach brandy. One of his congregants would make him a bottle each Christmas. One year, when the minister went to visit his friend, hoping for his usual Christmas present, he was not disappointed, but his friend told him that he had to thank him for the peach brandy from the pulpit the next Sunday.In his haste to get the bottle, the minister hurriedly agreed and left. So the next Sunday the minister suddenly remembered that he had to make a public announcement that he was being supplied alcohol from a member of the church. That morning, his friend sat in the church with a grin on his face, waiting to see the minister's embarrassment.The minister climbed into the pulpit and said, "Before we begin, I have an announcement. I would very much like to thank my friend, Joe, for his kind gift of peaches ... and for the spirit in which they were given!"

*****

WHEN IT RAINS, YOU DONT SEE THE SUN, BUT IT'S THERE. HOPE WE CAN BE LIKE THAT. WE DONT ALWAYS SEE EACH OTHER, BUT WE WILL ALWAYS BE THERE FOR ONE ANOTHER.

~~~~Thank You, Heavenly Father, for the blessing of healing with which you gifted all of us to one degree or another, may we use it generously.