ABIDING

Who Am I?

This is a strange question to be asking myself having almost reached the seventh decade of my life, wouldn't you say? Yet that is the very question on my mind today.

No one came today to Bible Fellowship that I lead. Home here writing, I'm okay with that. Once again I'm reminded that God is in control, not me. Today was another reminder.

I'm a relatively new member of a church in my neighborhood. I left my other church to be closer to home when my husband suffered heart failure last year. So, I'm a new member of another church family. And I'm wondering who I am, where I fit as a new member of a new family. Looking back, it seems a question I've been asking myself my whole life.

A quote came up in my email today. "One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

Sigmund Freud

Thus began my day. Then I read messages from friends and family about the difficulties in their lives. And I thought about my own. At age 31 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I thought my life was over then. My uncle, my mother's brother, died of the disease at age 52. My husband and I were a young married couple, we hadn't yet had a child. What frightful things did life hold for us, I wondered. Who was I? What had happened to that joyful, optimistic person I was?

So, the Einstein quote. Here I am, having had a wonderful marriage for 46 years, a son who makes us so very proud, a daughter in law who is a wonderful person and mother of our granddaughter. I taught for 34 years. I can walk, see, despite further immune disease, thyroid, Graves, and I still find joy packed down and overflowing - after all these years. Life is good. God is good.

So, the Bible study today which I had prepared, prayed, studied, and re-studied as I sat in the church lounge today alone.

ABIDING

1 John 4:7-21
4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 4:8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 4:9 God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 4:11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 4:13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 4:14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 4:15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 4:16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 4:17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 4:19 We love because he first loved us. 4:20 Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 4:21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

These were the words of Scripture for me alone today in the church lounge. Often it is in the still quiet that the still small voice of God is heard. I must never forget "So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them."

Life's journey is not the getting there; it's the going. God speaks if we have ears to listen: See, Ann? You know who you are in Me.  And your path may look rocky and crooked to you but it is never such to Me. Abide in my love for you.

Another quote I read yesterday about relationship.

FRIENDSHIP is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn. A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die. --David Whyte

A reminder that I need to be a better friend, that with God's great mercy and understanding there is always another chance for us all.

AJA May 6, 2015