Dear Ones,
Hope you have a peace filled day! Yesterday we had a wonderful day with friends and today we are blessed again as we anticipate lunch with dear friends from the lake and trying a new restaurant. I hope to get some baking done also and Bible Study is tonight.
Devotions from Judy’s heart,
I was reading an article by Ron Rolheiser who shared about the 3 struggles in life: to get our lives together, to give our lives away, and to give our deaths away.” The first two we can easily understand but I wanted to read more about what it means to give our deaths away. I am getting older and would want to leave behind not sadness but what nourishes and warms the hearts of my family and friends that I leave behind. How does one do this?

Perhaps what prompted this was a conversation I had with a friend at my exercise class recently who had just attended two funerals that week of neighbors who had died. She told of the one man who had been confined to bed in the Nursing home and one morning as the nurse came into his room, she found the man not only out of bed but kneeling by the bed. He was dead but fixed in a kneeling position praying to the Lord. I just got goose bumps as I thought of what a way to go! What a message that sends to his loved ones of Who was most important in his life to the very end.

When a loved one dies in peace it is consoling and a gift to all of us left behind. None of us know what the dying process is like for we have not been this way before. It is unknown but we do know that the Lord will be with us and we will be ushered into glory. When someone dies in bitterness and anger what they leave behind is harmful and toxic but if they die in peace, it is nourishing and a gift that warms our heart even in our grieving. I know when my parents come to mind, I am left with such warmth and gratitude for all they left behind.  Let us live with the desire to leave a spirit of peace for our family and friends and not a burden.

Challenge for today: Live today with eternity in mind and be at peace with the Lord and others.
Blessings on your day and prayers and love, Judy