Nugget #121 Life lessons from a dear friend!

Hi friends,

Hope this post finds you all in the best of health and spirits. Its after a long while that I am able to share something. Exactly last year this day I lost a very dear friend of mine, (let’s just call her ‘S’) who passed away due to a stroke. She was just like an elder sister to me. Anything I went through I could share with her and she would always see me through, rather pray me through it . There was always an understanding ….even after a long gap, we would meet and connect as if we had never been away. Whenever she called , there was always a chuckle in her voice as she called me by my name…Till today her chuckle haunts me and sometimes I just feel as if this is all just a bad dream and she would call me and  we could just pick up from where we left.

We had met in Church when her son and my son had become friends and we mothers just smiled at each other and that was our first introduction and the beginning of a life long friendship.

Life lessons :

I’d like to share some lessons that I have gathered from her life over the years of our friendship!

1. Life is a wonderfully gift- wrapped present and never let fear nor inexperience keep you from unwrapping it! Otherwise you would never enjoy the gift in all its fullness.- She always used to tell me – “Hey ! Laurie I was just a small town girl when I came to this place but how much I have learned over the years!”
2. Use every talent you have – ‘S’ always spent every waking moment doing something creative with the manifold talents that God had so graciously bestowed on her. An artist, a singer, a speaker, a Bible- study teacher , a wonderful cook, a compassionate person and best of all a wonderful smile for anyone who needed it!
3. Time is precious!-  I have yet to find a person who was so conscious of time that she actually divided time into small segments. She knew how to prioritize her time so well its as if she knew that time was short and she squeezed every moment to be a blessing to her family and friends.
4. An Animal lover- It was about 1 month before she left us that her pet dog Duke had left them and she was so sad about it ,she sent me a video about dear Dukes life!
5. Honesty- She is one of those few people who know how to be refreshingly honest! She would tell us the truth whether we liked it or not but also never in a blunt or unkind way. For her, every person was a soul who needed God. She was one person who always used to cheer me on whenever I wrote a new post. ‘S’ would encourage my writing for the Glory of God.
6. An Intercessor– ‘ S’ was that kind of person who devoted a great deal of her time in praying for others. Anything that I went through I could share with her and she would go to God with that matter on her knees and pray for it as if it was something for herself. Later when the matter was resolved we would forget but she would remember and ask how that matter was. Such was her sincerity and earnestness in prayer.
7.  Yes to all the Opportunities that came her way-  No matter what it was, whether big or small, given a chance she would do her best in the given circumstances. I still remember how when I was going through a tough time, she came through for me and even spent time teaching me from the Bible.
8.  Discipline-‘ S’ always used to study voraciously from the Word. When I commended her for being such a diligent student, she just said simply “ Laurie, now I have the time to deposit the Word in me , I don’t know about later so I will do the most I can now.”
9. Simplicity and Humility– In this world, where glitz and glamour is what the vast majority of people are after, she came across as someone so simple and humble and yet so classy and tasteful in all that concerned her.

I could go on and on forever but I’d like to end with my favorite  quality or life lesson ‘S’ taught me in her 47 years.

10. Loyalty- This is particularly a quality that one rarely finds especially in today’s use -and -throw culture …where we find absolutely no faithfulness or devotion to anything. In order to explain this quality better, I’d like to share the life-changing lesson that ‘S’ taught me.   As we were quite close, there was frequent communication between us, either through messages or calls or emails or in person but somewhere along the way, she became busy and I felt forgotten. This hurt me and in spite of my repeated calls or messages, I couldn’t get things back to the way they were. So one evening, I called her up in anger and told her Goodbye and that I was going to delete her number from my contacts. Her response startled me and brings tears to my eyes even today as I am typing this. She simply said “Laurie, if you want to delete me, you can but I will never delete you and I will always keep loving you and praying for you.” – Now that’s love and loyalty. So now , I still believe especially when things in life go bad , that she’s there somewhere out there praying to the Lord for me and then suddenly everything seems alright!

I’d like to end my eulogy to my dearest ‘S’ with this song “We’ll meet again!” because we believe to meet again in Heaven someday. This song is dedicated to her :

Nugget of Life: “ When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I could not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”- Erma Bombeck

Have a wonderful week!

Cheers,

Sparky laurie