The Widow Woman’s Farewell Service

Hi everyone,
We are going to share the final story about our friend, The Widow Woman.
As I reflect on the last few weeks, we have gathered from her life some amazing strengths.
We have celebrated her champion heart, her strong stewardship of time and substance, and her determination to leave a living legacy.
The Widow Woman, is a lady whose story is mostly overlooked.  She has no name, but yet her life was so deeply relevant and impactful.  If we were to take the last few weeks of chats about her, we could very easily be sharing at her funeral service.  She is gone but her life still lives on in others.  We would say she lived as a champion over comer and affected all of our lives.
I see God blessed her so much, but on her way to that place, I wonder how many times she felt alone in her journey and alone in her struggle to survive.  I wonder if anyone ever passed by, stopped and said, “you are doing a great job”.  Probably not, but here we are at her farewell service saying exactly that, “she did a great job with her life”.
After the farewell service of a loved one, a common regret is that we didn’t celebrate that person enough while they lived.  As I write this blog today, my heart is that we can learn to celebrate each other so much more.  We pause for a moment in a busy world and say thank you.  We take the time to call and say your doing a great job.  We write and put words to how much we are impacted by someone’s life.  We show kindness by doing simple things for people in our world.  All of this, to call, to write, to do, is time we have invested in someone, that says this, “ I value you, you are doing a great job”.
One of the greatest gifts we can give someone, is to spend our time and simply listen. There is a speaker, Paul Tillich, he made this statement, “The first duty of love is to listen”. What an awesome statement.  Not listen just to respond, but simply listen.  It probably is the quality most needed to day.  People not only feel valued when we take our time to listen, but we see so much more when we do this.  There is a cute poem that says:
A wise old owl sat in an oak tree,
The more he heard the less he spoke,
The less he spoke, the more he heard,
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird.
As we celebrate the life of this widow woman today, we can take from it a powerful life value.
We can become more intentional about celebrating others while they live.  To stop, to listen, to do for, are values that are eternal.
No ones life is insignificant, it is filled with greatness if we will look to discover it.
Significance of life is not measured by riches, by titles or position.  It is measured by the life that is willing to take their strength and impact others.
This lady, a single mother living in terrible economic times, has powerfully impacted us and will continue to do so.  To her we say thank you.
To those around us who influence our lives, we can decide to stop more often, and say “thank you for you”.

God Bless you all, see you next week!