A Servant's Heart

Today I was finally getting around to packing the few things we had put out for Christmas. I wondered why I had waited so long. Now I think I know why....
As I was collecting the Christmas cards that were sent to us by friends & family I began to look at the cards that we had saved throughout the years. I was actually just rummaging through them haphazardly. One card drew my attention in a remarkable way.
I picked it up noticing how pretty it was. On the front it just said, "My friend".
Unremarkable.
Yet the remarkable part of the card lied in the words which were handwritten on the inside.
"Sondra, I just want to thank you for being my friend. Thank you for loving me and for caring about me. I know we both have had a rough year. One good thing came with it though, our precious Gabriel. He is a gift from God. I love you, Cheryl"

Cheryl was my friend.
She wrote this card in 2007. We had both been going through cancer. She, for quite a few years. Me, for only a few months.
I began to think of our friendship and of all of the ways she had shown love to me and my family during our relationship. She was the first one to love me at my new church back in 2003. When we met she hugged my husband and I with a bear hug and a grip ( amazing because she was a tiny lady)that felt like she would never let go. She never did.

I am amazed when I think of the way this woman loved:

She loved and served everyone she knew.
She didn't ever complain about it.
She did it from her heart.
She gave each person her all, and made them feel like they were the only ones in the entire world.
Although she was suffering the most, she would reach out to others who didn't have it so bad, and make their burden lighter.

These words don't do justice to the way Cheryl lived her life.
I guess you would have had to know her. Then you would know what I mean.

As I read her card I was filled with love for Cheryl.
I was also filled with a remorse because I know that I did not show, in tangible ways, what she meant to me.
She had loved me with her heart.
Yet...
She thanked me for loving her.

Sounds a lot like her savior.

I can just hear Him say to her, as she saw Him for real that day, "Well done you good and faithful servant! Enter into your rest..."

Cheryl Gold Barcliff did finally meet her Savior for real last year.
January 5th of last year, by the way!
Exactly one year, to this day!
I told you there was a reason that I waited so long to put away the Christmas stuff!


May God make us all into people who love.
Not just with words, and not just in our hearts...
But out of our hearts ...
And into others'