Give Your Life a Purpose....

When you get up each day - do you start your day with a prayer?  Do you thank God for giving you another day to bring a smile to some one's life or to help another person?  Have you ever wondered what your purpose is here on this earth?  I have.  There have been many times when I couldn't even see that I had a purpose, but then when I turned to prayer, things became clearer.  

My Mother was a great role model for this.  Her faith was incredibly strong.  She began and ended each day in prayer.  She loved to do the dishes (by hand - she never liked the dishwasher) because she always said that was her quiet time.  And she would pray while all was quiet in the kitchen as she washed the dishes.  In fact I don't remember a time that I didn't look over and see her, during some quiet time of the day, quietly doing some household chore and her lips were moving as if she was talking under her breath.  I once asked her about it and she said, Oh, I'm just praying to God and thanking Him for everything.  

My Mother did not have an easy life, but her faith never faltered.  If one looked at her life, you would immediately know that her purpose was to help others and bring joy to those around her.  

As a child she came through the Depression Era.  Her father had only one arm and that limited the type of work he could do, but she remembers him as always being joyful and always finding work to take care of his family.  My Mother's baby sister died at the age of 6, which was a terrible blow to the family, but their faith carried them through.  Mom's dad died of a sudden heart attack shortly after her marriage and she and my dad had to cut their honeymoon short to come back to Tucson for the funeral.  Her older sister also died at a young age.  My Mom and Dad raised a family of five children in an extremely rural town in southern Arizona, which was a challenge in itself.  The nearest medical facility was 60-65 miles away over a rough dirt road.  The nearest grocery stores, other than a small mercantile in their town, were also 60-65 miles away.  There were no telephones in their town for the first 18 years of their married life.  The closest phone was 23 miles away. 

They say a Mother is the glue that holds the family together and nothing ever said was more true of my Mother.  With extremely limited resources, she made sure her family always had plenty to eat at mealtime, she always made sure we went off to school or church dressed nicely and many times the clothes we wore were those she had made for us.  She taught herself to sew and was a beautiful seamstress.  She ruled the family with a strong hand and a very loving heart.  She gave of herself and her time to anyone who needed her help -  and she didn't wait to be asked to help.  If she saw a need, she just jumped right in to do whatever she could.  Before marrying, she had earned her degree as a Registered Nurse and this served her well over many years.  She would hear of a neighbor who was sick and go to see what she could do to help them.  Often the doctors of these neighbors would ask my Mother to administer shots to his patients to save them the long drive to his office on a weekly basis.  

There were also those, most often strangers, who would come or be brought to our home for my mom to bandage them up to give them the time they needed to reach the nearest hospital. Many were gunshot wounds from hunting accidents,  some were hiking accidents and some were auto accidents.  She never turned anyone away from our door that I can remember.   She was an expert at using butterfly bandages and many times would butterfly bandage a cut that should have had stitches.  Quite often when those patients reached a medical facility, the doctor would say, the butterfly bandages were doing a better job than stitches and he would leave them alone, asking that the patient return to my mom to make sure all was healing well and to let her decide when the butterfly bandages should be removed.

"Fanny Crosby once said that the Lord 

"lovingly guards my footsteps and gives me songs in the night."  

A joyful heart is the mark of one who has a consistent walk with the Lord, 

who follows in the footsteps of the Master.  Take strength then, 

and be blessed in a close walk with the Lord, 

for I will strengthen them in the Lord and in His name they will walk." 

declares the Lord.  (Zechariah 10:12)  

~Written by Margaret Fishback Powers. 
__________________________