A reason, a season or a lifetime.

 

It is said that people come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime.  For some inexplicable reason that saying resonates with me today.   So I am going to take a moment to examine this statement.  But I am going to look at this backwards, if you will.

To me, being in someone’s life for a lifetime can only mean one thing: Family.  Your parents, your siblings, your grandparents. It could also mean your spouse and children.  After all these are the people who color our lives.  Even though they may not always be the focus at the moment, these are the ones you can count on when the going gets tough.  For me, it does include my parents, my sister, my son; but it also includes two really important women.  By best friends, Adrienne and Robyn.  These two women are like sisters to me. They know me probably even better than I know myself.  Adrienne, on the left, I have known since we were ten.  Even though she moved away almost thirty years ago, our hearts are closer than ever.  Her birthday is just a few days from mine, so there are so many similarities in who we are. I will never forget the day I met Robyn, on the right.  It was the first day of high school and we have been best friends ever since.  She often knows what I am thinking before I do. We share this bizarre ESP, I will call her and she will say, “I was just going to call you.”  It’s just this sense of knowing when the other one needs us.  Both of these ladies know my heart, my soul and my mind. They have been with me through thick and thin.  

Some of the people, who have been with me for a season include the neighborhood kids I grew up with.  They taught me a lot when I was younger and they fueled my imagination.  They were key players back then but I haven’t talked to any of them in over twenty years.  I would also say that my grandparents fall into this category.  I was never particularly close to any of them.  I did have wonderful relationships with both of my grandfathers and the way they responded to me was important to me.  My paternal grandfather treated me as if I were something truly special and my maternal grandfather allowed me the opportunity to see myself through his eyes.  Both of these men have led me on a spiritual journey; even though they probably never even knew it.

Some people have been in my life for a reason but are now no longer active participants in my life.  At the time, their departure from my life may have seemed catastrophic but now I see that their purpose was fulfilled.  The first one that I can remember was Mr. Payne, my childhood next door neighbor who was a minister.  His wife was the first person I knew personally that passed away, I was about 8.  Shortly after she passed, I had a conversation with him.  I asked him tons of questions about life, death, Heaven, and dying.  He was very calm and forthright during our conversation.  He explained dying like it was a beautiful, magical event that all of us someday get the pleasure of experiencing.  It was his words that I revisited prior to having neurosurgery.

There are plenty of others who have been in my life for a reason or a season.  I would like to think that I am now old enough to understand that everyone in our life serves a purpose.  But when those difficult people come along, I tend to forget that they are here to teach me a lesson or maybe they are here to learn a lesson from me.  I tend to forget that part so easily.  I let their anger or frustration get inside me and it becomes part of my day.  They become a convenient excuse to allow myself the opportunity to become miserable for a moment.  So I am now really trying to focus on allowing myself to be open to their positive message or to open myself to be a positive message to them.  

So I ask you my dear reader, how open are you to receiving a positive message from a difficult source or being a vessel of positivity to a negative source?  Can you now see a reason for a particular persons being in your life where you couldn’t before?