So. Remember my post, The Necessity of Your Own Life? The one where I said it's vital that we, as women, form a special life of our own, one separate from our husband?
Well, lately I've seen that my friend, Donna, is reaping beautifully from having done just that.
After John's death, Tom and I visited Donna in the hospital and always, she was looking ahead to recreating her home so to make it more livable for her at this stage in her life. To decorating her new place. To painting beautiful scenes on canvas and working amongst her flowers in her gorgeous backyard.
To returning to her still-full life.
And now? Now she's finally home again (yay!) and her family and friends have made her side apartment accessible to the main house and cleaned the apartment, too. Her pastor's husband is refinishing the floors and soon folks will paint the apartment walls. And more? Donna has a friend who will move-in and live in the upper floor of the main house and they'll share the main living area.
Over the phone yesterday I told Donna that I believe much of the help she's receiving from so many is due to reaping from the help she's always sown to others. Donna--the wonderful helper!
She's one of those Thoughtful People.
Plus, Donna belongs to a group of artists who, each week, travel to beautiful outdoor vistas where they set-up their canvases and paint for hours. And she's traveled all the way over to California a couple times with our mutual friend, Marian, the two of them creating wonderful adventures along the way.
Wow. I am so darn proud of Donna. I know she misses John--he was one of-a-kind (the only person I've met who resembled a book character) and they were married over 30 years--but she's not allowed the missing of him to rob her of hope and anticipation nor fool her into thinking her best days are gone.
No, Donna nurtured a great love for God within her all these years and she's faithfully created a life of giving to others. And now though John is gone, Donna's reaping from all the many and varied seeds she flung around so faithfully wherever she traveled along the pathway God created for her to follow.
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The painting, above? Next to the one she painted of our farm, this is my favorite of Donna's paintings. Is it gorgeous, or what?
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Galatians 6:7
"Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked [a]by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and [b]that only is what he will reap." .... from the Amplified Bible.
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2 comments:
So happy for Donna, that her heart is steadfast in Jesus and knowing that his plans for her continue to be good and lovely.
How inspiring, and what a beautiful painting!
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