I just got the neatest Christmas email from a friend. I do the quarterly church newsletter for Forbes Church so I immediately printed off the email and put it in the church newsletter file…ready for next year.
Then I started to laugh. I am a great one for planning ahead and I don’t really know how much “ahead” time I really have any more. I guess nobody does but I have been feeling a lot closer to heaven than to earth the last few years.
My father-in-law’s last possessions included a tiny clipped shut paper bag with three fishing lure. We found them in his fishing box after he died. He never had a chance to use them but he sure had a positive attitude.
I have been trying to help a friend lately who is depressed. She had had a medical scare and had almost convinced herself it was “her time”. Of course she wouldn’t admit she was depressed but I once worked in a mental hospital, I recognize depression.
She is much better now thanks to her doctor. Yesterday she said she will be back to Bible Study if the weather improves. I whispered a “Thank you Lord” when she advised me.
When I look back at my life at what had been overcome with God’s grace, I realize that although there were sometimes positives missing, there was always “hope”. Like Churchill I would “never, never, give up.” The usual childhood diseases did invade my youth and I have been plagued with asthma most of my life, so I am not sure if I have been tested as so many of you. I was the “care-giver” after my husband’s heart attack and during his five years with cancer. Those years took a lot of “hope”.
But I learned that along with hope you need “acceptance”. There are times when you do have to accept…loss of spouse, loss of child, sibling, friend, job, much loved home or even that pet that meant so much to you. Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 says there is a time for everything and that is good advice, especially when there is a difficult crossroad in your life. But in the mean time don’t give up “hope”…it puts much needed sunshine in your life.
Photo by pol sifter via Flickr/CC
