Many years ago, my dad gave my mother a wonderful old book called Moments of Light, and when they both went on to heaven, it was left to me. I call it my treasure.
Each chapter is one small page in length and packed with a tender insight, hard to forget. Sometimes I pick it up and sit for a few minutes to read just one reflection and I know I am all the better for doing so.
Moments of light often come to us through the people and circumstances God allows us to experience. Consider the friends and acquaintances no longer here on Earth who have been a moment of light for you. Many will come to your mind.
Ed, my wonderful friend whom God took to heaven just a few weeks ago, was a gifted and selfless pediatrician. He recognized God in the work he had been given to do all his life. It was a beautiful experience to be with him at the end of his life and to see him prepare to meet the one he had loved and served so well.
Bobbie was an exquisite woman, inside and out. She reflected a gentle, tender and compassionate spirit and everyone was drawn to her by God’s own design. If you felt lonely, afraid or sad, the mere presence of Bobbie would lift you as if Jesus himself had entered the room. She went on to heaven recently too, surrounded by the gentility and grace with which she had covered everyone God sent to her care.
Father John died much too soon as far as his friends were concerned. Always ready with a kind word, tender thought and quick Irish wit, he left in the middle of the night with no chance to say goodbye. If you were different, thought outside of the box, were quirky and impatient, Father John understood you. He arrived often for dinner with flowers that died the next day and laughed harder than anyone else when it was suggested that he should stop buying the cheapest flowers he could find.
Funeral plans arranged for about 300 friends turned into a standing-room-only crowd of nearly 700. He touched lives in a way few do by sharing his humanity, however imperfect that may have been. He taught us to love the way Jesus loves, with all our hearts. Our lives were greatly blessed by his presence and we will always miss him.
Heaven has all three of these friends now. Knowing we have been touched by God’s tender embrace through them is indeed a great gift. Watch for your own moments of lght in the coming year, you will be surprised whom God sends your way.
