Good Sunday
Morning to you!!
Or good day, evening, or night to
you, and may you have a warm and pleasant – or excitingly vibrant - day, evening
or night, wherever you may be!
This morning
I find myself very thankful for my family, my friends, and all those who fill
my life with love, friendship, smiles, laughter, and yes, even anxiety,
confrontation and conflict.
What would I
do without the love I am lavishly and freely given from my family? How bored and lonely would I be without the
invaluable encouragement and acceptance from my wonderful friends? How simple minded and dull would I and my
brain be without the anxiety, confrontation and conflict I am rewarded with
from my daughter (sorry Tiffany) husband (sorry again Honey) and family and friends
who sometimes heatedly sport different religious, social, and political views?
Yes, for me,
it takes each of these crazy emotions and people to make my life interesting, rewarding,
and livable. A huge, from-the-bottom-of-my-heart,
hug-wrapped thank you to each of you for so beautifully enriching my life! I am
grateful and thankful for each of you!
Now, to what
brought me to these thoughts this morning.
I was reading an update on Facebook from one of my all-time favorite
authors, Karen Kingsbury,
regarding a family not far from her; Brandon
and Megan Bouge, their 3-yr old daughter, Wyncie, and 2-wk old son,
Emmett. On Monday, Jan. 28th,
Megan, her mother, and her 2 children were involved in a collision with an
unlicensed driver who crossed many lanes of traffic and hit them head on. Megan’s mother died in the crash and Megan
and children were sent to the hospital with critical injuries, with little
Wyncie on life support.
Megan remains in critical condition, little
Emmett was treated for a broken leg and released. However, little Wyncie went home to Heaven
yesterday at 5:45 pm.
This precious family desperately needs our
prayers, for hope, for healing, for comfort amidst unimaginable grief and a surrounding
and enveloping of love and support. As
Karen Kingsbury said, they have a long road of recovery and loss ahead – even as
they cling to their faith and Jesus in a beautiful way.
Will you please join me and Karen and others in
prayer for this precious, young family?
Our country has, and continues to suffer devastating
and unthinkable tragedies, provoking many emotions and reactions from all of
us. Yet one fact I can’t help seeing - life is fragile. We cannot take anything or anyone in our
lives for granted anymore.
We must take and run with every moment given, with every
loved one in our lives,
as well as those we meet by chance.
I would invite and encourage each of you to
think about the relationships in your lives; family, friends, loved ones, or
casual acquaintances. How do they enrich your life? What would you miss if they were no longer in
your life? Are your quarrels with them
really that important? How long has it
been since you told them that you loved them?
Have you ever told them? My
friends – don’t wait any longer.
Seize the moment – for you don’t know when you might have
another.
One of my greatest regrets in life is that I
did not take the opportunity to tell my son one last time that Mommy loves him,
on the morning of the day that he was tragically taken from me in a terrible
school bus accident when he was just 9 years old. It was a normal day, like any other day. The last thing I ever expected was that a
semi-truck would hit my son’s school bus, or that I would never get to hug or
hold my baby boy again.
Many of you have similar stories and share a similar
engulfing grief.
This I know.
And I grieve with you as I lift you up and pray for you.
This I also know – The loss of a loved one,
especially a child, is a lifetime loss, one that no one “gets over.” It is an empty feeling, an empty spot that is
always there – no, it never goes away.
Rather it is a feeling that, over time, you simply get used to
feeling. However, over time, the feeling
does lessen; you can learn to live with it.
There is a Scripture – Psalm 30:5, which
says – weeping may
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. And very true it is. We weep for a time – a dark, mournful time
where we pour out all our anguish and desperation. And after we are spent and empty, the dark
begins to turn to grey, the grey to pale light, then amazingly the pale light
to the sunshine of morning and a new day.
And we find a tiny spark of wanting to go on, beginning in our hearts,
and the desire to see and feel the sunshine once again. The timing of this darkness is different for
all of us; for some - weeks, some - months, some - years. And some of us need more help wading through the
layers than others. But one thing is
certain;
We all need to know that our sorrow matters;
We all need to know that someone else out there cares that we
are hurting.
So my thought and prayer for today is that each
of you will contemplate the relationships in your life and have the courage to
reach out and take advantage of every single moment given to you, to grow and enrich
those relationships, and to enrich the lives of those around you, by your
sincere caring of and for them. And to
give generously, from your hearts to those who are hurting around you.
Won’t you reach out and make a difference
today?
With much love, prayers and gratitude for each
of you,
Mindy
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