“Muse, Ponder or Meditate.”

Oh, I do like the word, “muse.” It means to ponder or to meditate. It’s a great word to have roll off your tongue. Lately I’ve been musing or pondering just what our lives are all about. How are we seen by others. How are we an example to others.  I have had a hard time getting started on this thought because it is so personal to me. Recently I heard a saying, ” In life if you want a good view, take the moral high ground.”  Think about this, deeply.

During this past year I’ve attended more than a dozen funeral’s, home goings, or celebrations of life. As I sat there I could see a “thread” running  through out the entire sharing of each life. Each and every life was an example of what to do, what to be, what to be an example of or what to be remembered. As family members or friends of the departed loved one shared, we could see that some really took that “high road” and some were just an ordinary person  who was used by an extra-ordinary God.

I guess it is because of my last  birthday and I’m a year older.( “older than dirt.”)  When I was a young wife and mother all I could think of was getting up, packing lunches, getting boys off to school, getting hubby a lunch packed and off to work,  and later, getting myself off to work. Then there was the Kapiolani Community College in Honolulu, Hawaii. Going to school myself, studying, doing chores, cooking meals, doing wash loads, checking the job list, who did what and who didn’t do what. Attending church, Sunday school, just doing what needed to be done, day in and day out. We were so busy just living life.  We didn’t have time to think, “gee, I wonder who is watching me and how I behaved or reacted to whatever.” Now that I’m older, I do begin to wonder.

Several years ago at City Bible Church, after Howdy had died,  a woman came up to me and told me she had watched me for years. She watched how I greeted people, how I reacted to my husband when he led worship. She watched how I hugged other women and children in the church. I was totally surprised at her statement. She said that she wanted to be more like me. Now that I was a widow, she watched me even more intently. Wow! No pressure here! She got me to thinking. What kind of an example am I to others. Do I walk with Christ every step of every  day. Do I act different when I’m in church as to when I’m in my living room or at the store. I hope not! I hope that I react in every way and every day that is pleasing to the Lord.

Titus 2:7 says, “in everything set them an example by doing what is good, in your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about you.”

At my “home going” or “celebration of life” what will be said of me. Will it be positive, oh I do hope so. I do hope that they will say, “she took the high road” to be an example. Will they say that I had been a woman of integrity, a person who was sensitive to needs of others. Will they say that I have been honest and dealt honestly in the market place. Was I kind to dogs and cats, a little humor needed here.

I do want to hear the Lord say to me, “come up thou faithful servant.”

What kind of example are you?

More later.