These past few months have been a bit difficult. Quite. Starting this summer with the passing of my beautiful mother, taken by the awful disease of Alzheimer's. Then in December came the awful Sandy Hook tragedy that shook the entire nation. Just a little after that my sweet friend Erin, at the young age of 29 went home to be with the Lord after some sickness. Then came March 8th which shook me to my core as I found out my dear friend Angie had gone home to be with Jesus.
There is a common factor as I think about all of these amazing, beautiful, special people, that continues to come to mind.
My mom was a daycare provider for over 22 years at our home. She was a Sunday School teacher, Junior Church worker and nursery worker. She loved children! I think that's where my love for kids came from! My mom was great with kids, she loved them, took great care of them, taught them so much (even though she had no formal education in childcare), it was just a part of her, just who she was. She truly cared about all of her children, from her daycare kids, to her church kids. She loved them...unconditionally! Many would come back to visit her. That's what made it so hard to see her with this wretched disease that took her communication skills and her confidence and made her more introverted, nothing like the strong, confident, people person that she used to be. Though, even with the disease, when she would be around children, there would be a little spark of that old self that would reignite... just a little. That's why it makes me so sad that I was never able to give her grandchildren, she would have been an amazing grandmother, I just know it!
Then I think about all those children and the staff at Sandy Hook. Precious, beautiful lives gone senselessly. Of course I didn't know any of them personally, but just thinking of these lives lost brings such sadness. First of all, the children. Children are so loving and caring, they teach us so much by how they can love unconditionally and without reserve...no stipulations, no judgement. Twenty children...just think of all that love...so much love ready to be shared with the world, just taken away! Then, of course I think of the teachers and staff members who obviously loved these children...loved them enough to give their lives to try to protect these children. They were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice! They definitely had unconditional love for all that were under their care. As the stories came out about these precious, sweet children, and the amazing staff, they were all stories of how caring, kind, sweet and loving they all were.
When my friend Erin died, that was tough for me because she was so young. She was a precious daughter, the only child of her sweet parents. She was a loving wife, but had only been able to share that love as a wife for about two years. She was an awesome teacher. One of her students got up at the funeral to talk about how much Mrs. J meant to her, how she encouraged her, listened to her, helped her, and loved her. She was someone else who had that unconditional love that she showered on others. So many students with tear-filled eyes because they were going to miss one of their favorite teachers. She was so young and I know had so much more love to give and shower on others, but the Lord saw fit to take her home to be with Him.
And then with the recent death of my beautiful friend, Angie, that topic has come up so often. We are all just in awe of this woman who had so much love to give. She was an amazing wife and mother and had so much love for her family! She also shared so much of her love with her church family, she touched so many of the young people's lives in her church! She had so many friends at church that she enjoyed special times and memories with. Even with all of that she still had more love to share with all of the students at ECA. She was the school Mama to them. I shared in my previous post about how great she was with them. And then to top it all off, the staff, faculty and families of the school also felt that love. It boggles my mind how one person can have so much love, shared so equally and specially with so many. But yet her priorities were right, she loved her Lord most of all, then filtered so much love to her family, then to all the rest of us. She had such an amazing ability to love unconditionally, and she wouldn't judge...just genuinely loved people!
Did you catch the common factor? It's simply love. But not just simple love, each of these people showed unconditional love. They are no longer here with us to shower the world with that love. That's a huge bit of love lost in this crazy world! Who will step up? Who is going to help fill that void? How can we hear these stories and not want to strive to be different? This world needs more people like these have truly impacted people and made a difference in their lives, simply by showing them love. And no, don't worry, I'm not naive enough to think it's just all about love, no. I know personally, for a fact that a couple of these had to and were willing to do the hard part many times and rebuke and discipline, but that was also done with love so people accepted it with the right spirit... though not all the time. But they were willing to do the hard part because they loved people enough to help them strive to be exactly what the Lord would want them to be.
These losses changed people (I know they changed me), changed their way of thinking, and made people want to be different. People hugged more, shared more, connected more, appreciated more, strove to be more loving and kind. Are we just going to hold onto this for a little while, and then forget, or are we willing to strive to be different and keep these things going? Unconditional love is not the easy norm for everyone, but are we willing to work towards that end? This world definitely needs more of that.
Lord, these have been some difficult months, there has been much sadness, and such great loss. I can't help but think of you with these losses, especially the ones I knew. They remind me of how you lived your life, coming to earth to love all, even and sometimes especially, the unlovable. You loved so unconditionally that you were willing to give your life for all, even those who would never love You back. There is no greater love! Help us to be more like You! Help us to remember the lives of these special people you gave to us and strive to shower that kind of love on others, and to be different and to make a difference in people's lives as these wonderful people did for us.
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