We have an incredible woman in our church named Doris.  She recently lost her husband of 40 years.  They were the cutest couple.  They were always smiling at each other and were inseperable.  Doris suffers from macular degeneration and severe hearing loss.  Bob had had heart troubles for years.  He was her eyes and ears.  They were active and involved in people’s lives, caring and outgoing. 

Bob died suddenly one afternoon.  When I asked her how it had happened, Doris said, "Bob was out in the garden watering and just peacefully ‘went to sleep’ under a tree."  She would miss him, but wasn’t surprised or devastated… she would see him again soon.  The two of them had discussed their plans should one or the other pass on.  Their country property would be too much for either of them to handle alone, so Doris has been working at getting her home ready to sell and will be moving in with one of her daughters in Arizona. 

Wow!  As one who was widowed at 36 and has been through the pain, I’ve been watching her process this loss over the last 2 months.  She’s wonderful at expressing how she feels (not just stuffing things) and yet has a cheerful anticipation of the life that is still ahead to be lived and has chosen not to live in the past.  Our little church has Praise Reports and Prayer Requests each service and this Sunday Doris shared two praise reports.  Her praise reports were about how she was being helped out by their long-time gardening assistant and how she was able to bless him and his wife by giving him many of her husband’s tools.  She has  grateful heart that shines through the darkness of her circumstances.   I think there’s an important message to those of us who have experienced losses and will experience them yet ahead (which is pretty much 100% of us!)

Some older people stop forming new relationships at a certain point in life, because they fear suffering the pain of loss… "If I don’t get close I won’t feel pain."  Those that detatch from people and the world to protect themselves, most often begin to suffer depression and find it also impacts their physical health in many ways.  I think that God didn’t create us to live "risk-free" lives.  To love is to risk loss.  To love is to risk pain, yet to love is the core of our lives and our mission here.

My beloved Grandma Flint said to me in the last year or so of her life (she died at age 89 in December of 2004) that the closer she drew to the end of her life, the more she realized there were more friends and family waiting for her on the other side than remained here.  At times she felt torn between two worlds.  She felt that she would deeply miss all of her children, grandchildren, great and great-great grandchilren, but so looked forward to the reunions that were ahead of her.  And most importantly she longed to finally look upon the face and gaze into the eyes of her beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… the one she loved more than life itself.

Grandma Flint remained caring, connected and involved in the lives of her family right up until the day she died.  She died with a young spirit because she lived each day of her life with a young spirit.  Doris is cheerfully looking forward to the changes in her life with an expectation of the adventure that lies ahead… my prayer is that I live my life ahead with the same spirit.  How about you?

THE PROVERB OF THE DAY:  PROVERBS 1:1-4  A MANUAL FOR LIVING.  These are the wise sayings of Solomon, David’s son, Israel’s king — Written down so we’ll know how to live well and right, to understand what life means and where it’s going; A manual for living, for learning what’s right and just and fair; To teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality. 

Audrey Jeanne Roberts