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Each month Rev Philippa Donald or a member of our Joint Council writes a letter to the Benefice – here is August’s letter ….
Dear friends in Seven Towers,
As you start reading this letter you may be aware that my mum died at the end of June, just short of her 93rd birthday. She had been bedbound, disabled, muddled and frail for quite a while and had become increasingly disillusioned with life, as can happen when people reach a very old age with different health challenges. In the event, she died very peacefully and without pain, falling asleep and gently drifting away over a few days.
I’ve received all sorts of kind thoughts, messages and cards, from friends and family and people in the Benefice, all much appreciated.
My cousin wrote, in her card ‘Mothers never really leave us. Every time you look in the mirror, she’ll be there.’ Yikes! I do actually look like my mum, though we were very different personalities.
A friend who is a retired priest wrote ‘Ah, it’s the orphan thing. There’s no-one ahead of you now.’ Yikes again! That’s a bit of a thought.
And there were a few surprises -a neighbour in mum’s village wrote
‘When I launched the greeting card project for our local nursing home, Rosemary came to help me get it off the ground. We sat around my kitchen table surrounded by card, glitter, glue and other bits and bobs. Not sure our first efforts were going to make a fortune but eventually they did sell well and £20,000 was raised for nursing home funds.’
And a teaching colleague from the past emailed ‘Dear Rosemary – a delightful colleague and friend, a first class musician and an inspiring and dedicated teacher.’
Of course, with respect to the last two comments, I hadn’t known about those, as I was a child at the time. Isn’t it often said that at a funeral service you learn things about the person who has died that you didn’t know before!
At a recent funeral I led in Sandhurst we had a Bible reading from the book of Ecclesiastes, in the Old Testament, which talks all about time.
It lists lots of different times, some of which we have control of –
- A time to be quiet and a time to speak
- A time to keep and a time to throw away
And some which we don’t really have control of, such as
- A time to plant and a time to harvest – the seasons dictate that for us.
- A time to be born and a time to die. God knows when it is time for each of us to be born and to die.
And when we gather to remember someone whose time has come to die, as we did for my mum in July, it makes us think again about time.
What are we doing with our time? The time left to us in our lives? Are we living the best life that we can, in our different circumstances? Do we ever think about how much more time we have, and whether there is something we want to do, or somewhere we would like to go, or something we might want to put right or someone we might want to forgive, or ask forgiveness from, in the rest of our time?
However we are feeling, God offers us the chance to connect with him, if we want to, in the time left to each of us. The Old Testament reading also says ‘God has planted eternity in the human heart’ which means, God has planted the seed of an idea that there is life after death, life forever, with him, into our hearts. That’s quite an amazing thought!
So, during the summer, as I reflect on my mum’s life, and do the astonishing amount of paperwork and practical jobs that are there when someone dies, I shall be thinking about the time I have left.
First and foremost, I want to continue to serve God for as long as I have health and strength and as long as he calls me to do so, and wherever he calls me to do that. I want to be the best wife, mother and grandmother I can. I want to keep learning! Use your brain! Currently this involves for me, improving my British Sign Language and increasing my organ repertoire. I want to continue to live in as environmentally good a way as I can, treasuring and enjoying God’s amazing creation.
Just a few ideas – you will have others – and a bit of work for me there! But life is precious, as we realise, when we lose someone we love, and we must live the best version of it that we can in our circumstances, in the time we have left. God has promised never to leave us or forsake us, and he can help us to do this, if we put our hand in his and trust him to show us how.
With love and prayers from Rev Philippa 😊 x