Inspiration To Love Better

Inspiration to Love Better

I am in the chancel choir at my church, and we sang 3 songs at a memorial service for someone who was in the church's chancel choir for a long time.  For privacy, I will call that person Jill.  I had never met Jill personally, as she had a long illness before I joined the choir.  

Jill's was a beautiful service, with a full sanctuary of family, friends and other church members.  Many thoughts came to mind while I was there.  

My first thought was...if I died tomorrow, would there be a full sanctuary of family and friends and other church members there to remember me?  How would people remember me?  

My second thought was about the remembrances of Jill as told by friends of the departed.  The friends recounted stories of Jill, telling us about her life as a young person, then later telling about her loving nature.  That sparked more thoughts about me and how people perceive me.  Do people think that I am a loving person, concerned about others?  

One of the takeaways for me is that I have a lot of work to do!  I have to drop my mask, and get out of my "safe" ways.  As with any change, it is hard to start, and hard to keep going.  Starting small is a good beginning.  For me, I will start by having a welcoming look about myself, and then work on other, bigger things after that.

One other interesting thing happened to me.  After the remembrances were spoken, I got very emotional, even almost crying when I needed to sing the next song.  Hearing all the remembrances and thinking about my own life and how it compares to Jill's in terms of people who love me and who really care about me was really sobering.  I wish we would have had more time between the remembrances and singing the song "Peace Like a River".  But the fact that it was not a perfect situation made it all the better.

All this to say, that I was inspired to love others better, and be ready to be open to loving and being loved.  Now for the difficult part...really taking that inspiration and acting on it.  I'll post about that progress later.

Take care!