My grand finale of 2012 ended with unexpected darkness that I struggled to fight through back to light. It felt like a heavy blanket of gloom that covered every inch of our community, and sadly even thicker and more dark for the community next door. Many dear friends messaged me through Facebook about reaching out and sharing my near-death experience as a way to help heal others. The truth is I could barely keep myself from feeling the heavy weight of it all while trying to make sense of something that took all of my security and hope away. I was afraid of my own shadow. I nearly committed to homeschooling, and I tried so desperately to get a goodnight sleep without thinking of those babies and their families mourning them just miles away. My experience didn’t have its place in this massacre but my prayers did. I didn’t want to reach out and making it about me and my story, but wanted the town to feel my love, my grief, for them souly.
Since, I have put a few things in motion to help long-term when the world turns away and stops donating and sending all their prayers this way. This, I believe, is the time I feel I could help. I want those neighbors of mine–regardless of who or where they were that day–to feel my love from every angle for the rest of their lives because it will take a life time of healing, not a media moment.
I start this post out with the gloom of 2012 to say that 2013 can be a movement. Random Acts of Kindness for 26 people is wonderful–but I wonder what it would be like if we just lived our lives doing that always. If a random act of kindness just developed without thinking to do so, like breathing. The need to post or blog about such wonderous things weren’t needed because it became who you are for only God to see.
What is 2013 brought families together, and friends who never seem to be able to make time for one another. What if new friendships were being made not by convenienceĀ but because of love.
You may be waiting for a video posting of me singing koom-by-ya, I get it sounds nieve. However, with so much evil in the world being splashed across our tv screens, and we continue to believe in it, why not try to believe in the goodness of others instead.
None of us are born perfect. I have flaws that are less than gleamingly loving. But while thinking of New Years resolutions and what just happened in my sweet sleepy part of this beautiful New England state I got to thinking about those parents who just got their kids backpacks with uneaten lunches from FBI agents this past week. If I gain 100lbs in the next year it won’t matter on my death-bed, nor will it matter if I will 100 million in the lottery. What WILL matter, and what I was asked when I died as a child is what difference had I made on this earth? Have I loved and been loved. Is God proud of the person I promised to be in this life. And so I committed to 2013 as the year I take careful consideration of the person I am and if this is who I am supposed to be.
I’m going to love on this world even when it tells me not to. I’m going to set aside my ego and say things that are hard. I’m going to make time for those that matter, and make time for those who matter in the future. I’m going to try to be conscience of what God intended of me. I may just even sing koom-by-ya my friends.
Why? because where I went when I died LOVE ALWAYS WON. The souls I met over there loved me like I was their own child. Everyone–just LOVED. I need to try to make this happen here. I need to love more. Because even here… where evil lurks and waits for someone to find darkness, LOVE ALWAYS WINS.
May 2013 be the years that makes the world sing as one.
Indeed, Love Never Fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8.
So very true…love ALWAYS wins!