Give, Oh! Give Away

I went to the funeral today of a dear friend who died suddenly and unexpectedly last Sun.  He was just a few months younger than me. Births and weddings and funerals cause me to reflect on life. Not about do babies really come directly from God's home in heaven, or whether marriages can last for eternity, or do we continue to live after death, in heaven, because I know those things are true. 

But to reflect about my life.  About the life I am living.  Am I living a life that will leave the earth a better place for me being here?  Am I practicing what I profess to believe?

If anyone was an example of that, it was my friend.  He showed that the important things in life were not things, but people, and showing love and kindness to them.  He showed it by asking his family each day, "Have I told you yet today that I love you?"  He showed his wife of 30 some years by still treating her as the love of his life.  He showed it to others by helping in any way he could.  He would of helped you if he could have, never even having met you before.  In his eyes, everyone was God's child who deserved and he expected should be treated as such.  And he did just that.

I wrote how devastating my divorce was here and it was he who helped me in an ecclesiastical way to get through it.  Because I was emotionally incoherent at the time, I could not accurately tell you how many times in at least a year, I sought his help and counsel to get me through that period of my life.  Even calling him at his home at all hours, being it early or late.  He not once told me to just get over it, to come back or call later, or that he did not have time right then.  He listened, and he encouraged and he believed.  In me.  He believed in my value and worth as a daughter of God.  And he helped me to believe that, even when there was not even enough self love and self esteem within me to fill a teaspoon. He gave me hope.  He literally helped me stay alive when I no longer wanted to.

He is a modern-day living example of Christ like love.  Something I would like to be tried and convicted of someday.

Thank you Dan.  You are a Good Man!

Here a song his family sang each week which is the life he lived:

“Give,” Said the Little Stream   

                                                                             

“Give,” said the little stream,

“Give, oh! give, give, oh! give.”

“Give,” said the little stream,

As it hurried down the hill;

“I’m small, I know, but wherever I go,

The fields grow greener still.”

Singing, singing all the day,

“Give away, oh! give away.”

Singing, singing all the day,

“Give, oh! give away.”

Words: Fanny J. Crosby, 1820-1915

Music: William B. Bradbury, 1816-1868

Deuteronomy 16:17