What do yellow irises, a winter planter and a $10 bill have in common? They are all parts of amazing stories in today's podcast. The holidays are an especially difficult time to be grieving. It seems that everyone around you is happy. Their smiling faces often make our pain feel even more raw. Happiness seems so distant.

Two years ago, shortly after starting the podcast, as Christmas arrived, I felt like I needed to do something different for a Christmas episode. It needed to be special and it needed to be uplifting. I settled on doing an episode called "Messages of Hope" (Episode 17). I was attending a Christmas party for bereaved women and I took time to hear a few inspiring little stories as well as read emails of others I had received. It was so moving and inspirational to me that last year, I decided to do something similar (Episode 67: Messages from Heaven).

The stories in these episodes did more for me than give me a little hope for the holidays. They helped give me hope for life, hope that our children, although gone from this earth, are still ok and that God can give us little signs from beyond to show us this is true. Although many episodes of my podcast still give me tears of sadness, these stories only make my heart feel joyful.

This year once again, I wanted to help others feel happiness during this otherwise difficult time. Gwen and I recorded this year's episode as a Livestream which can be seen on Facebook or my YouTube channel. I felt lighter after recording it, more able to face the difficulties of the season. I had a tiny bit of peace in my soul. I guarantee that you too, will never look at yellow irises, winter planters, or even $10 bills in quite the same way again.