A Problem to be solved | Tyra Garlington

When necessary, who reminds you who you are?

Posted on June 21, 2017 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

As they rolled me from recovery into my hospital room, I came more awake. The nurse adjusted the tubes and my pillows. She smiled and asked me how I was feeling. I opened my mouth to answer, and nothing came out. I tried again and again, and nothing came out. Each time the pain felt like more. The nurse responded to the terrified look on my face and gently explained that my vocal chords had been impacted during the surgery. They would need time to heal. But here’s the thing. The week prior to my unexpected surgery, I was sitting……
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With all due respect, ” I can’t want to!”

Posted on December 1, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

For some, this is the best of times. For others, it feels like the worst of times. For the wise, it is one season in the course of history. For others, it feels like an impending eternity of uncertainty. Words such as ‘us’ and ‘them,’ no longer describe diversity, but decree exclusion. Anger has become the overcoat that keeps our raw fear warm. Isabel Wilkerson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, National Humanities Medal winner for her book, The Warmth of Other Suns, and a woman of color, offers a more graceful description of our country’s current environment in an interview with Krista……
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When society and reality clash

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

Let me start by saying I am blessed! For most of my life, I have had everything I needed and a lot of what I wanted. However, there have been seasons when I was homeless, unemployed and critically ill. Even in those times, I was aware that God’s grace was ever present in my life. Those seasons were also opportunities to review, renew, adjust and reposition my perspective. My commitment to serve began to increase. In doing so, I learned to look behind the words that judge and images that redirect. And I found hope. Consider the story that follows.……
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Everyone has a soul story

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

While I was away, I spent time reading, listening to, and watching people whose journeys and messages resonated with me. It was uplifting and affirming. However, the power of their stories is minimized if I don’t share them with you. Here is one from Caroline Myss, the author, and internationally acclaimed wellness speaker. She has devoted her career to studying why people don’t heal. What she has come to realize, she says, is that ‘the instrument to heal is the soul.’ She asks each of us this question: “Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to move on from past……
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Did you miss me?

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

I had to go away for a while. I was losing focus. I was listening to the voice of numbers. The number of “likes,” “comments,” and “shares” became the main objective of my blog. I wanted lots; I wanted more. I had forgotten why I do what I do. Shame on me! It took me a while to recognize and say, “Yes” to God’s purpose for me. And when I finally did, my tears dried, my burdens were unloaded, and my joy was restored. I walked out of my lonely wilderness and into my worthiness. However, the critical success factor……
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Don’t look too closely.

Posted on July 19, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

The famous French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, also known as the Father of Modern Philosophy, said the words “I think therefore I am.” We have a large body of mental health research that supports the fact that our thoughts are our most powerful force. “When you step out your door to face the world, you are a force to be reckoned with. You are confident, determined, and very much in control in most areas of your life. This is your dominant mask that the world sees, and to others, you can be quite intimidating! You chase your dreams and get……
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Are you Officer Friendly?

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

It took me years to outlive the residue of my near fatal beating and accompanying incarceration for a speeding ticket in the late sixties. It was post-Jim Crow South. As a Christian, I have tried to hate the behavior but forgive and understand the officers. Thirty years later, I could smell my son’s anxiety when a police car followed him home from the basketball court with a warrant for his arrest. The warrant described a man five foot six inches tall. My son was six foot three inches tall. The man weighed 120 pounds. My son weighed 160 pounds. The……
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How certain instants in our lives make us who we are

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

I spent all last week with pre-teens at Vacation Bible School. Loving and listening to them reminded me that who they may see in the mirror may, for varying reasons, be created by the words of others. Shane Koyczan’s spoken-word poetry pays tribute to the consequences of our language. If you have children in your life, it is a magnificent read. I have provided an edited excerpt here. To This Day for the Bold and the Beautiful When I was a kid, I hid my heart under my bed, because my mother said, “If you are not careful, someday someone’s……
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Who I am does not mean how you treat me.

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

She is twenty-one now. She has graduated college with honors. Her family is proud of her. She has a good job lined up. However at unseen levels, she is missing in action. Never telling her parents has been a way of protecting them. Never telling anyone else has been a way of protecting herself. But those choices are not working. She is in a long-term relationship with shame. Sometimes her pain is incomprehensible. There seems to be no possible resolution. Her rape has left ever present residue. The memory of that night lives in a personal backward facing time machine over which she……
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How do you smuggle hope into hopelessness?

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

We planned to meet for some “quality time”. It had been a while since we shared a hug. As I approached the table I felt her sense of hopelessness before I saw the pain in her eyes. It was time for me to crawl into that dark space with her and be. I knew the story, I knew the journey. I knew her. I call her friend. So many things crossed my mind to say as I listened. I watched her mouth tremble as she tried to dam up the tears that leaked from her heart. We had been here……
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