Life lessons | Tyra Garlington

Everything you need is somewhere.

Posted on July 27, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

This morning I as sat down to write I thought, “I’ve got nothing!” Lately, I seem to spend most of my creative energy fighting negative images and messages that crowd the 24/7 communications cycle. I was too exhausted to put on my positive attitude. Halfheartedly I visited one of my favorite inspirational sites. The following testimony reminded me of the power and provision of grace in my life and that sometimes similarity provides comfort. It read. “In the last four years I have been let go, promoted and even quit jobs. I found myself to be in a constant search for “my……
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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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For every mountain; for every trial …

Posted on June 7, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

So, I am sitting outside on a bench reading, marveling at what a tease spring is and I ran across this article. You want a pick me up? Check this out then see what you are leaving on the table when it comes to making a difference in your life. It’s a little longer than usual and worth it. “In 1955, Ella Fitzgerald had a professional music career that spanned nearly two decades. She was a critically acclaimed Jazz musician, and yet she was hardly known by the general public because she was an African-American doing amazing things at a……
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What does it cost to be a living memorial?

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

Before starting to celebrate Memorial Day, let’s take a moment to review the history behind the observance. It’s more than just a long weekend full of barbecue — it’s a patriotic holiday intended to honor the Americans who have protected the country. Memorial Day was started as a way to remember the more than 620,000 people who died in Civil War, which has been called the bloodiest conflict on U.S. soil. The first official Memorial Day observance took place in 1866 in Carbondale, Illinois, but the official “birthplace of Memorial Day” is Waterloo, New York, according to CNN. At the time, it was referred to……
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Being you is the right thing to do.

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

Sitting in the large stadium enjoying the commencement festivities, I watched graduates exchange enthusiastic handshakes for rolled-up pieces of paper symbolizing the successful end of a season. Apparently graduates brought along their own cheering section with specific instructions on how and what to scream. In the midst of the noise, the echoes in my mind traveled back to my graduation day at Ohio State University. As I walked across the stage, I looked down at my beautiful engagement ring and squeezed the simulated diploma. I just knew that I was walking into that happily ever after I had been waiting……
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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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Are you in need of your immediate inner strength?

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

She had disappeared from my life years ago. I was so happy to hear her voice. She had been a wonderful friend to me in my time of need. Her story unfolded amongst sobs. I listened. She recently became singular as a result of rejection from her significant other. She was unemployed, about to be homeless and estranged from her only daughter. I listened. The few times I asked, “Have you…?” Her response was, “I can’t because…” I realized her pain had her stuck in anger and shame. I was reminded of how proud she was. She was used to……
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Gone but not forgotten.

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Tyra Garlington • 0 Comments

When spring was in the air and I was a little girl, I imagined the bright colors it would wear through the door. It would smell and feel good and I could play outside much later. Spring meant bike rides and skipping rope and no more heavy coats and mittens. March was the month that signaled spring was near. I had little girl visions of what March would look like dressed as a “lion” or “lamb”. Much later I discovered that people who came long before me believed there was a balance in the weather and in life. So if……
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