Psalm 139:16

by Sharon O | Mar 17, 2010 | Uncategorized

Sometimes I am nervous about having other people read my writings.
Especially if I know they have written a book, or they are well known in the field of writing. I think of my inadequacies in grammar and punctuation at times. I might not say the perfect thing or create the perfect story. Others can write better than I do and create word pictures so much better.
Then I hear a small, tapping, a slight nudging within my heart.
tap tap….tap tap…. I quiet myself to listen.

For I know it is the Lord,
Saying to me, “Did I bring you this far to focus on yourself and your fears?”
No… Lord you did not. I say in my most quiet voice.

Today I read something a lady by the name of Wendy Blight wrote. I don’t know her and
I hope it is OK to share it with you maybe you need these words as much as I did.
————-
Sweet friend,
God brought you here today.
He wants to remind you of a precious truth.
Hear it and never forget it…
before time began, before God spoke the world into being…
He had you in his heart.
God chose you to be His child.
God has a perfect plan for your life.
No one else has your plan, your family, your gifts, your talent, your heart, your education, your past and your present…no one.
He chose you to use you to do great things for His kingdom…things that only you can do.
He is preparing you… even now.

But, to be used by God, you must Trust Him with your PAST,
BELIEVE Him for your future, BELIEVE He has a plan for you.
SURRENDER your life to His plan,
and believe He will equip you to do what He has called you to do.
Psalm 139:16
“You saw me before I was born. Everyday of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (NLT)

When I opened this up and read it this morning, it was like God was saying,
“TRUST me. I make no mistakes. You are loved, You have always been loved.
I have given you gifts that I believe YOU can do even if you don’t believe it. Are you going to trust me in this process as I teach you, to believe more fully in your self?”.
It is a challenge for us all.

Trust His Heart

by Sharon O | Mar 16, 2010 | Uncategorized

Faith is trusting God in the dark.

I was reminded this morning of a song I heard years ago.
Our neighbor was a single mom.
She lived 4 houses away from us. She had a son who was about 15 and a daughter around age 12. The three of them created a new home together after a nasty divorce.
She was a wonderful encourager.
A powerful Christian witness, and a really nice person.
She loved her children and always did what was best for them.
One afternoon we sat in our kitchen sharing coffee and life issues.
She was tired. The hours at her work had been long that month.
The overtime helped for the holidays. She was looking forward
to a happy Christmas with her kids.
She was gifted in music and had been helping a church with their holiday programs.
The night drive was about an hour away from where we lived.
She left my house, and I waved goodbye as she drove away.
I was thankful for our new friendship.

That night about 11:30 or so I remember hearing a loud ‘knocking’ on our door.
We were sleeping.
It startled us awake.
My husband got up first and went to the door.
Looking out the window he saw a uniformed officer standing in the dark.
The porch light reflecting his shiny badge.
The slick black shoes, and the leather belted gun holder looking so official. As the door opened, he wanted to know if he could come in.
My husband rushed to our room to hurry me out; “you are needed in the living room”.
When I saw his uniform panic and fear walked with me, as I went out to where he was.
Our son was in college living in a different city, I had no idea why this man would be here.
I felt a deep sinking feeling move into my spirit.

The officer said to us, “Do you know your neighbor?”.
I answered, “Yes she is a friend of mine”.
He said very quietly, “Well we found her car overturned alongside the road, and she was killed”.
The numbing words slammed me against a wall.
Disbelief came forward first, “no I just saw her. She was fine”.
Denial moved in next to disbelief. “She has two children, they are teenagers she can’t be gone”.
She left my house hours ago, she hugged me and said ‘see you tomorrow’.

I looked across the road to the direction of her home.
The decorated windows and Christmas tree lights still turned on.
The officer told us he drove past it, and noticed the children inside.
He said, “Would you be open to coming over to the house with me, so that I am not the only one with them, when they are told what happened?”.
We answered yes.
It was very dark and the stillness of the night so quiet.
We walked in silence as the three of us headed towards her door.
I was remembering our last conversation only hours ago.
How would we have known that was our last conversation?

The children greeted us and, questioned why we would be visiting that late at night.
Their mom should be home soon, she was running a bit late.
The grim reality of our news broke my heart as my tears began to fall.
My husband sat both of them down.
The officer had suggested that it would be better for us to tell them the news, since we knew them personally.
My husband placed his hands on her sons face, looked him in the eyes and said, “your mom’s been killed. She’s gone”. The numbing silence followed, as they tried to understand what they just heard.
Our immediate need for phone numbers and relatives to notify was first on the list. She had a mother alive and a brother. The children could not help us. So we rummaged through her private papers till we found what we needed. It felt very intrusive to me but we had no choice.
The officer suggested we go back to our home as soon as we could. Hot cocoa was prepared and the kids made small talk. The officer stayed with us almost 9 hours until family could come the following day. He was a wonderful big shouldered man. I will always remember his warm hug. He told us he was almost retired and felt he should stay with us as long as we needed.
Her son zoned out on video games as the officer talked with him and her daughter fell asleep.
That tragic night would forever change their lives.
Her elderly mother took the kids in and eventually they moved back with their dad.

My neighbor had made a taped recording just weeks before she died and these are the words to the song, she sang at her own service.

“God is too wise to be mistaken, God is too good to be unkind. So when you can’t understand, when you don’t see his plan. When you can’t trace His hand, Trust his heart”

I think it was a clear and loving message for her children. When you don’t understand the plans of the Lord, Trust His heart. I don’t know where they are these days. I hope they will remember the neighbors who cared and the wonderful police officer who gave his time to all of us.
I pray their lives were forever richer for knowing her love.

A friendship

by Sharon O | Mar 15, 2010 | Uncategorized

The phone rang tonight.
I answered and said ‘hello’.
The voice familiar to me, it was an old friend of ours.
We met when I was twenty. I was young, in a scary sterile hospital setting.
Our first child was to be born and the doctor wanted to induce labor.
Not knowing what that really meant or what to expect. I listened to the doctor and felt he was the one who knew the most. When you are young you believe they know more. The doctor felt the baby was too big for me and wanted to watch the delivery really close.
Labor was slow. Inducement slow.
The clock on the wall moved into long anxiety inducing minutes, as the hands seemed to be frozen in time.
Very stressful for a young couple, not knowing what was going to take place in the next few hours.
Our lives would never be the same.
We would leave there with a baby.
The nursery at home prepared and waiting for the bundle of love to go home.
The three pm shift began. A new nurse came in said to me, “Oh you are not in labor yet, let’s turn this pit drip up and you can have a baby by dinner.’ A pit drip is an IV mixture that moves labor faster than a normal labor schedule. That is why they call in inducement. They force the contractions to move fast to allow the baby to be born through an unnatural process.
The intensity moved quickly, as I watched each liquid drip fall faster and faster down the IV bag.
The nurse got her wish. The delivery came very fast, from 3:30 to 5:35 pm I moved from no labor pains at all, to hard labor in minutes.
A whirlwind of feelings and emotions slammed me.
At 5:35 pm our beautiful baby boy was born.
We named him Christopher.
As I rested in my bed, I heard the moaning and groaning of another lady down the hall.
She was not quiet in her labor journey and I was feeling the anxiety with her.
Hours passed as I listened to her ‘difficult labor’.
I kept asking the nurse, who is that??? As I listened to her screams in the background.
The hospital was small, and I could hear almost everything that took place with her.
Eleven hours later she was wheeled into my room.
She was exhausted and worn, and I knew she needed her rest just as I needed my own.
As we both woke up we made small talk, and our husbands visited.
We both had our first born sons. They were so similar one weighing 6.3 and one weighing 6.8.
Our son was very beautiful
although the nurse had to reassure me his cone head ‘would go away’.
Their son had lots of hair.
Two boys born eleven hours a apart.
Each day we would visit and share small talk. Those days in maternity wards the baby’s went back to the nursery and the moms actually got to rest. They also kept the moms for 4 days so we had lots of time to establish a ‘friendship’.

When the time came, we bundled our son up and left for home.
They left for home a day later.
Weeks had passed and one chance meeting in a local grocery store, rekindled the friendship.

We exchanged phone numbers, addresses and wished each other well.
It has been 35 years. A friendship long and treasured.
At least once a year we get together and share stories of children and life.
Their children grown. Our children grown.
A friendship that has kept strong throughout the years.
We were young, they were almost ten years older.
It has been a friendship that has lasted, and it is very interesting to watch our aging process.

We have a warm understanding of ‘who we are with them’.
It is good. It is treasured, and valued.
We were two couples in different stages of life, learning together, the ideas of being a parent for the first time.
It is no different whether you have been a professional working person for years
or a newlywed young mom. She worked full time and I was a stay at home mom.
The journey is the same for both.
New babies: equal fatigue. New babies: equal anxiety.

It has been a warm wonderful friendship that has lasted for years.
We often joke about the ‘nurse’ who was not so gentle to both of us.
It is a story of friendship.

God is so wonderful to keep us close to those who really matter to us.
Friendship is wonderful.
I thank God for all of the special people in our lives.