I grew up in Uvalde and attended Robb Elementary School as a child. I was feeling a lot of sadness and anger after the shooting and spoke with Dr. Gardner. He helped me make a list of all the things that made me sad about the shooting and we identified 12 reasons for my sadness. He led me in a prayer and I told the Lord why I was sad, and asked the Lord to take my sadness from me. My mind was suddenly filled with hope and my sadness left me.

     Then Dr. Gardner asked me why I was mad and helped me make a list of 8 reasons for my anger about the shooting. He led me in another prayer and I told the Lord why I was angry, and asked the Lord to take my anger from me. My mind was suddenly filled with positive thoughts and my anger left me. It was suddenly gone! I felt better than I had for a month! A huge smile came over my face and I felt joy and peace in my heart. 

My mother and two of my nieces died on August 11, 2006 in a violent car wreck. It was very traumatic for me and sixteen years later I still felt deep sadness about mom on the anniversary of her death. I had been crying all day, when I met with Dr. Gardner, and he told me that the first step in releasing grief is to make a list of the things I missed about her, so he helped me make a list of the things that I missed the most about mom. I missed her phone calls, hearing her voice and talking with her every night. I missed her sense of humor, her love and affection, her teaching me about God, her cooking, her singing, and her generosity. After a short while we had a list of 34 things that I missed about her.

Dr. Gardner told me that the second step in overcoming grief was to tell God what I missed about my mom, and he led me in a prayer in which I told the Lord all the things I missed about her. Then I asked the Lord to take my grief from me and carry it for me. After that, Dr. Gardner prayed and asked the Lord what He wanted me to know. As I sat quietly, I had a visual picture of my mother come to my mind; she had a big smile on her face and I saw her standing and looking very peaceful and calm, with a serene smile on her face. I also had the words come to my mind, “She’s ok.” It felt true to me and the sadness and grief I had initially, was gone. After carrying these intense feelings of grief over the loss of my mother for 16 years, I finally felt at peace about her.

On another occasion Dr. Gardner prayed with me about some sadness I had, and I actually felt an embrace from Jesus! I am a counselor myself, but I have never experienced such profound emotional relief. I can tell you from my personal and my professional experience, that Dr. Gardner’s techniques work. I want to help him spread this message throughout Uvalde and see people get set free from their anger, grief, fear and shame as a result of the shooting.