How will you contribute to this world?

How will I contribute to this world? I lost my Mom last October and I can tell you this has been the hardest year of my life so far. As I reflect on the last year, I return to that question...what is my purpose? When you lose someone there is a sense of losing a piece of yourself. As you bury the physical body of your loved one, you symbolically bury some part of your identity. This may surface merely as an empty feeling on the quiet days, but none the less, it is ever present when you least expect it. I have felt some days that my heart is literally broken. I realize that my truth...my reality...has been shattered.

Where time is a healer for most circumstances, it becomes an enemy when dealing with loss. Each day is a gift and you realize how often you have taken it all for granted. How do we get through this in a healthy way? All I can tell you is that this journey we will all inevitably face is personal...it is our own personalized refinement, and it will shape us into the person we love or hate depending on how we channel the energy. Fortunately, we do not have to carry it all alone. The week my Mom passed away is a great example of how we are prepared and comforted in our times of need.

Growing up in the Baptist church I have heard the word "blessed" so much that it merely became a way to describe a state of mind rather than the deep, awesome meaning it should have. It seemed a southern way to say, "Take care" or "I'm doing well". I have not experienced true "blessing" until this year. My Mom had a weekly bible study that she had been doing for about two months. She had often mentioned it and wanted so badly for me to meet the women, her friends, in this group. She could no longer go to her church due to physical limitations, so this was an amazing way that God reached out to her during her greatest time of need. God and family were Mom's top passions...coffee and chocolate ran a close second. So knowing this, these women would bring a array of desserts and coffee to the house for these get-togethers. The week after Mom died would have been the last lesson in the study. My family and I decided that we should complete the study and the group came to the house that following week.

In continued tradition we had coffee, dessert and fellowship. We sat in the living area and left Mom's usual seat empty...a reminder that our friend, mother, daughter and sister was gone. We began the bible study that day and to my surprise, the last lesson for the group, already written and planned for us, was about grief. It was about great loss in the physical sense and a love even greater from God. It talked about God collecting our tears in a jug and his desire to walk with us through our loss. How great is our God. This lesson could not have been more perfect had they planned it post her death, yet in a printed book that no one had changed, this lesson was saved and prepared for us. Our timing may not be perfect...but God's is. I realize now that true blessings are the little things that get us through. My purpose in this life only becomes clear when I let Him lead. It is like a dance...a waltz...trust in your partner to lead you even when you cannot see. My purpose in this world is always changing so that my life...my story...will glorify Him.

May you all be truly blessed this week...

Love,

Lydia