The End of an Era

Yesterday, I went to a memorial service for a dear friend's father. When I was growing up this friend, who is two years older than I, was my hero. She was smart, pretty, she could ride her horse better than a lot of the boys I knew and she was always so kind to a younger girl with a case of hero worship. She had a brother who was a year younger than I and he died in a car wreck in 1980, the fall after I graduated from high school. I never knew my friend's dad very well. He always seemed larger than life to me but I watched his daughter and sort of formed an opinion of him because of her actions. She was our county fair queen one year!

My husband and I married in November of 1982 and my friend married her husband in the summer of 1983. She moved to the mountains to ranch with her husband and raise her family and I didn't see her much after that. She brought her children out to our county fair so that they could see what it was like. After that I heard that she was having some pretty harsh struggles of her own. I prayed for her whenever she would come to mind and seeing her yesterday was a true blessing. She told me that she had divorced her husband and she is ranching on her own and taking care of her children on her own. I know that she would absolutely not have divorced her husband without thinking of the cost to her family. Like my sister, she tried long beyond the time when others would have stopped trying. Now she is rebuilding her life. She is still beautiful, still bright and sunny and still doing for others. She told about singing to her father as he was dying to ease his passing. I don't know the state of her spiritual life but I do know how I love her and am glad to see her doing well.

I'm looking at the title of this blog and wondering whether I got off the track of what I really wanted to talk about. I was thinking that the end of an era was the dying of my friend's father. I see this generation of men dying and it is the end of an era. This way of life on the plains of Eastern Colorado is a way of life that we love, ranching, farming, neighbors helping neighbors, all of those thing seem to be passing away. But as one era dies, God brings about new and better things. While as humans we mourn it, we also need to remember that God is in control of all things and does nothing by chance. In the fullness of His time, He brought the Gentiles to Him, He sent His only son to die for us so that we could be saved, He provides all things for His people. Now that I look back at this blog, I don't think I got off track. Things change. But God always has a plan and a purpose and His plan is perfect. His will is perfect. He is perfecting me in all ways at all times.

Till next time.....