I have been very quiet for quite a while.
Resting, contemplating, and dealing with deaths in our family over the last month.
One family is a cousin in Venezuela. I knew her quite well, having spent some time in Caracas with my relatives. She was very kind and very low-key. The time I was there, she was falling in love with her husband-to-be.
Her beautiful spirit leaves a memory in my heart that I still treasure.
The other family member is related to my younger brother. His wife had a brother who died very suddenly. He took ill and was hospitalized for a short while before his last breath.
The feelings we undergo with such circumstances of human departure - pain, grief, crying, and reminiscing.
We feel old wounds as well as face new discernments.
My realizations from my prayerful meditations are that our God gives us His breath of life for how long He chooses. This makes us think of our time on this earth.
What we choose to do with that God-given time can be a blessing to others.
We grow closer to one another during this time of mourning. We share the memories with each other and we relive the moments.
One of my pastimes was taking photos of friends and family and saving those files in an online database.
Still today, I have many thousands of photos saved in the 'cloud'.
So, times such as these. I share photos of those members with all of the family. It brings feelings of joy, with accompanying crying and giving God thanks for everything that goes with life.
What this unearths is those we still have with us today. We then learn of others in our family circle and how we are progressing: Who are facing illness, and our call to care for each other with our love and prayers.
"Let all that we do, be done with love."
1 Corinthians 16:14
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.”
1 Peter 4:8
