Thoughts From A Friend
©2005, Lani Wiens
a fresh flowers not-so-original
The last few weeks have been pretty heavy. We’ve attended two funerals a 90th birthday party, visited a friend who is a mom with young kids who is battling cancer and have continued to fight our own battles. Our visit with our friend was very enlightening, hard, wonderful and exhausting. While her body is as ‘good as dead’, as she put it, we saw more life in her than we have for a very long time. So I would like to share with you some of the wisdom that our dear sister shared with us. What I write from here on will be from her perspective, not quotes, but her thoughts.
On letting go…
All of us need to learn to let go. I am in the process of letting go of my husband and my kids as my body wastes away. We like to hold on tightly to what is dear to us; our friends, our family, our hopes, thoughts and dreams. We need to give each other the freedom of letting go. You need to let me go. I need to let you go and be whatever it is that God is calling you to be. You need to let each other go so that we can all achieve the purposes to which God has called us.
On resurrection…
Anyway you slice it, I win. It’s resurrection, resurrection or resurrection. Either I get Abraham’s resurrection, where his body was as good as dead but God brought life out of him and then spared that life at the last moment or I get a Lazarus resurrection. The resurrection that comes a few days post mortem. Or I get the resurrection of those who have fallen asleep in Christ. I can’t lose!
On hitting the mark…
My rest is in God. He is my salvation. My salvation isn’t in keeping commandments, following rules or trying hard. It’s in YAWEH, which means, salvation. But, because I love him I will do my best to keep his commands even though I might miss the mark at times, I will do my best to aim at righteousness. Sometimes I will hit it and sometimes I won’t but because I love him, I will do my best to at least aim.
On living and dying…
I am not strong. I’m finding that as I get closer to seeing heaven that it’s actually pretty easy to die. It is much harder to live every day the way God has called us to live. It takes much more grace to live than to die.
This flower is in honour of my friend, who, if she finds this and reads it needs to know that I love her dearly and she has impacted me greatly, you truly are a Sleeping Beauty.
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