If the Lord Reminds You....

Me and my precious Elizabeth.
I still miss her terribly!

When I was twenty-six years old and a new mother with two babies, I developed an amazing friend.  Her name was Elizabeth.  She was sixty-eight when we started pastoring a little church in Seale, Alabama.  The girls and I lived in the parsonage there.  Their dad traveled every week to Atlanta to seminary.  Elizabeth took me under her wing, just like she had done with so many before me.  She left imprints on my heart that will be there forever.  Truly, she made me a better person.  I could write an entire blog about the lessons I learned from her. From her I learned many of the wonderful dishes that I now cook.  She taught what a good price was for different meats. She helped define my parenting skills.  However, the one thing that I never could master was her yeast rolls.  If you wanted just a little taste of what heaven must be like, all you had to do tear one of those rolls apart just when it came out of the oven, slap some butter on it, and watch it cascade down the side of the roll.  Nothing was left to do at that point but enjoy!

Of all the things Elizabeth taught me, there is no doubt that her lessons in living a life of faith had the greatest impact on me.  I can close my eyes, and in my mind I can still hear her voice as she imparted great words of Godly wisdom.  Whenever she would ask me to pray about something or someone, she would always preface it with, "Amy, if the Lord reminds you, would you please pray for..."  I often wondered why she said that.  Maybe this is the reason. If we are all truthful with ourselves, we know that many times we tell people that we will pray for something or someone, only to forget about it thirty minutes after they have asked us.  We get busy with our day.  We didn't write it down, and we simply forget.  It is not intentional.  We wanted to pray for them.  I think Elizabeth knew this.  Here is something interesting.  Rarely did I forget to pray for the things for which she asked me to pray.  Maybe just hearing that one comment jarred something within me.  Maybe, subconsciously, it made me think about what I was thinking about throughout the day, rather than just getting caught up in the busyness of life.

Saying all of that, I would like to ask anyone reading this today, "If the Lord reminds you, please pray for my friend, Karen Boyd."  She will be going to MD Anderson in Texas for a consultation.  Cancer has taken over her body.  There is an experimental treatment in which she could possibly take part.  They will be discussing that with the doctors today.  I would ask you to please pray first and foremost for a healing in her body.  Secondly, pray for wisdom for Karen, her family, and the doctors as they discuss treatments today.  She has precious young grandchildren, and she wants as much time with them as she can possibly get.  However, she wants to have quality time with them.  There are just so many decisions facing them.  My heart is very heavy for the entire family.  So I am asking the Lord to please remind you so that you can lift this family up to Him in your prayers today.

At the same time, let it be a reminder to all of us to cherish every single moment that we have with our loved ones this Christmas.  Never take a second for granted.  There is fairly new song out called Blink.  Take time to listen to this song, and let it remind all of us to slow down and love each other this Christmas season.