by Sharon O | Sep 28, 2011 | Uncategorized
This last week the blog world lost a good friend.
She was beautiful and kind and even though I never met her
they say she was someone who you would want to spend a long time with sharing and praying
and just enjoying each others company.
She had a rare disease that kept her in her apartment for the last three years of her life.
The way she saw people or stayed in contact with them was through her computer.
They say she always thought of others and reached out to them
even when her own difficult journey continued to be a burden for her health.
When I heard about her she reminded me of a friend of mine
who I had in high school and throughout our early married years.
Her name was Claudia.
She was a kind sweet spirit and always thought of others before herself.
She had cystic fibrosis a horrible lung disease that did eventually take her life.
Claudia loved people.
When I would call her the conversation left her and moved to how I was doing before I even realized what was going on.
She loved deeply and knew the illness she suffered from was serious.
She was beautiful and radiated the love of God and his faithfulness in everything she did.
When she passed away I was given a Bible with her picture inside
it is something I will always treasure.
When we lose someone
we think of them in a new and different way.
We remember conversations.
We remember moments shared.
We remember what they looked like and how much we cared about them.
But I often wonder
does it also make us think of what others would say about us
should it be our time to leave?
Would would they be able to share about us?
What would our epitaph say or describe?
Epitaph means: a commemorative inscription on a tomb
or mortuary monument about the person buried at the site.
A brief poem or other writing in praise of a deceased person.
I often have told my husband if I leave before he does I want my stone to say:
“I told you I was sick.”
But really a stone does not represent me or who I was as a person.
It would be nicer to have a small maple tree planted.
Where one could observe the changing of seasons as the leaf colors reflect the passing of time.
Our lives do have seasons.
We have good ones and some that are not so good.
Colors are vibrant when we are younger and then as we age and enter into the autumn season of our lives the colors deepen and grow darker as we reflect the beauty of growing old.
When it is my time to leave my hope is to leave such a ‘meaningful’ reflection that others will say,
“She loved the Lord and she cared for others too.”
When the end is near I pray our lives will have meaning and purpose
so that others will know
who we were and who we loved
when it is our time to say our final goodbye.
by Sharon O | Sep 24, 2011 | Uncategorized
The other day as I was reading a blog
there was a line of words that stood out for me.
“Love that isn’t afraid to speak truth,
love that loves me enough to risk the necessary words.”
Someone who loves me enough
to risk the necessary words
someone who cares enough
to love and confront and walk alongside.
To risk means:
exposure to the chance of injury (in this case ’emotional’) or loss;
to venture upon;
to take the chance; another way to think about it:
lay on the line, put on the line,
a person considered with respect; vulnerability
At some point in our lives each of us will have to risk something
in order to keep our most intimate relationships healthy.
It might be a family member or it might be a good friend
but we may have to take a risk
in order for that relationship to go to a deeper level.
To risk is hard.
It often brings out the uncomfortable moments in a relationship.
It is very similar to saying,
“I love you enough to not let you stay this way.”
When I was in counseling my counselor would often say to me,
“I know this is hard for you to hear
but I am telling you because I care.”
It is in our ‘caring’ where risk plays a role.
Truth telling is always risky.
It seems to me that if we care deeply and love honestly
the truth will be a door that can open the opportunity
for the words that need to be spoken
and prayerfully the heart and ears
that need to listen
will hear.
by Sharon O | Sep 21, 2011 | Uncategorized
I read this on someone’s face book page and
I decided it was such a good comment that it was going into my blog as a starting point for a post. Throughout the years when growing up attachments were very important to me.
Perhaps because of the way we were raised as children
or perhaps it was just my personality.
In our address book there are names that we have known for years.
My famous tease is:
“Once you have met me I am hard to get rid of.”
Some of our friends even go back to elementary school years.
These friends have been treasures to me.
They have been great encouragement and great prayer partners.
Sometimes in church my mind will move into a direction of,
“oh I want to meet someone new and build a good friendship”
then the reality comes to me.
If time allowed it the friends who have walked with us
through good and bad are only a phone call away.
If you think of it even Jesus only had twelve
who he chose to share his ‘life’s most intimate journey with.
Why do we expect ourselves to have more than that?
The friends who have been with us through those hard places in our lives or the good times and perhaps even the funny times they are the ones we hold dear to our hearts.
We have made memories with them.
Age has slowed me down and as that has happened the desire of my heart has been to have real friends.
Authentic friendships that demand nothing other than to be real.
There is no time for acquaintances who need maintained like a car in a body shop.
We all have met those kind of people
they are high maintenance they pull the life out of you any time they can.
When I have a need to share with someone and that someone is my husband
plus a good friend it is way more beneficial
to share with someone who values me and who listens and who
really sincerely cares about life as I experience it.
That is what it means to be real.
Real friendships stay real and whole and true
no matter how much time goes between visits.
Years can go by and one lunch visit makes it feel like nothing ever changed.
When one of my ‘good friends from junior high’ became very ill,
I prayed and prayed for her.
My tears were so deep and heavy wanting her to survive and live.
She is healthy now and doing very well but it surprised me how deeply I cared for her.
Real friends are gifts we can give ourselves.
Have you given yourself any lately?
by Sharon O | Sep 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
As I have matured and grown older the ability and desire
to ‘please others’ has moved away from me.
Pleasing others is not necessarily the best goal
for others may want or expect things that are not good or positive for us.
We need discernment and wisdom to make good choices.
Pleasing others is different than caring for others
the way I see it
pleasing others is for them
caring for others is for ‘us’ together.
I am not sure what a ‘free self’ is as stated in the above note
but what I am sure of
if we please others and lose ourselves in the process
then we have become the losers in the end.
Learning to be true to oneself is the best gift we can give
to
our hearts
our spirits
and our loved ones.
We do not live our lives alone.
We can love others and give to them with a deep compassion and faith
but within that process
we also need to realize that our freedom comes
when we can say no
this isn’t good for me or to say
I need rest today.
When life gets so busy and we give and give and give
and not listen to our hearts need
then it becomes time for rest
and reclaiming oneself.
Even Jesus pulled away from the crowds and
took time for himself to rest and find strength.
When the crowds pushed at him and demanded of him
he knew his need for quiet and restoration through prayer.
I pray this weeks writings have challenged and given us
something to think about.
Life is about choices.
May we all learn to make good and positive ones
so that we can love and live in a more free and healthy way.
Perhaps then we can claim our identity as a free self.
by Sharon O | Sep 15, 2011 | Uncategorized
I wish sometimes I could have met Mother Theresa.
Not to worship her or anything like that but
to thank her for her gentleness
and to thank her for her kindness
and to thank her for her caring spirit.
How does one who lived in poverty and a life of giving and giving
always have such wisdom for us to live by
that is applicable even today in our ‘world’ so different from hers.
How many times have we grumbled at our children
or our spouses
and then ended up in a public setting as friendly as ever and always approachable to anyone who needed us.
This is definitely something to be challenged by
and even to think about.
