Today I would like to honor a dear friend and share with you her beautiful legacy. She was very instrumental in bringing Christ closer to me. Although honestly, at that time , I had no idea this was happening. It was definitely Christ living in her touching and enriching every life she was coming into contact with. On the very first day entering into our church, she just so happen to be leaving the church when I was taking pictures of the outside building. And the next picture was of our pastor, and we knew neither of them at that moment, but they left the church with the largest smiles on their faces and I captured them joyous in receiving our Lord and the holy mass. For God again was doing something wonderful and this time I caught it! God was placing us in a marvelous church, with great pillars of the church, and all I can say is, it has been a very profound and powerful time of to be in their company. God wanted me to receive their presence into my life and I was very receptive in receiving them both! It was in fact through her beautiful friendship, the enrichment of my own faith walk began to grow exponentially. Like me, she too, was a daily communicant, but a much more sophisticated maturity and intelligence beyond any woman of faith God had ever placed in my path. I believe He had wanted for me to see her style in which he placed in her soul to teach too to love scripture and to love the church more than ever. Before Jesus came for Ethel, she blessed me on so many levels. She taught me the importance of continuing with an even greater desire in growing in my relationship with Christ. At the very end of her beautiful life as a Christian, she could see and understand God more than anyone who had vision. She lived in Christ. She spoke about her great love for the psalms. And she had asked that my husband and I record them so she could fall asleep listening to the psalms being read to her. Before she experienced her blindness, Ethel read numerous books throughout the course of her lifetime, and has blessed my spouse and I with her collection. Ethel attended retreats, and she would drive alone and explore Christ in holy places of reverence. One experience in particular stands out in my memory. She loved her visit to Alabama, she had decided to drive at Christmas and New Years Eve and spend time in silence with our Lord and the Benedictine monks, it was there she ate and she prayed silently in their company as if on a silent retreat with Jesus! She spoke of her experience as if it was something everyone should consider doing. Low and behold my spouse and I went to that exact location and prayed at the Benedictine monks grave site, we even said afternoon prayers with the Benedictine priests, and saw the amazing creations honoring all the holy sites throughout the world. How is it that God inspired just one person to recreate all the most important Christian sites throughout the world, and yet he devoted himself to the art of recreating shrines made of rock, both miniature and life like. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier, each of us is given a special mission in our life time, and it is up to us to go and pray to God our creator and ask him to reveal to our hearts that mission. It is only then we are truly living our life in Christ to its fullest potential! Like Ethel, my hope and my prayer for you today is this. That you desire living a life of great worth. Study the lives of the saints. I believe God greatly honored their work as teachers. God honored Ethel in her 90's and so why wouldn't God honor your work and mine? Let us choose to bring Jesus to everyone for as long as our Lord gives us breath and life we can bring great meaning and truth to all.
