My small group’s current Bible study is to read the very short book of Ruth. For the first week, we are to read the first two chapters and then answer the study guide. The first question is: When you think of loyalty, what comes to mind? My answer is that loyalty means that someone is always with you supporting you all the way. The second question is: When have you had someone support you during a difficult time? What did that mean to you?
My family has always been there for me every step of the way from saying goodbye as I went away to college in another state to sending me off to be a missionary in Mexico to letting me go live on the border town of Juarez when I was engaged to welcoming a foreigner as my husband to moving to Costa Rica. They may not have always agreed with or understood my decisions, but they have always been supportive.
Another set of people that have been so supportive – loyal if you will – are my mom’s friends. As I type this, it brings me to tears when I think of their kindness and generosity toward me. These ladies have done so much for me that I could never repay them. Before my mom’s cancer diagnosis, during her illness, and after her death, they have helped me in countless ways. I don’t have room to mention them all in this blog, but here are just a few:
Sitting with my mom at the hospital and hospice, planting flowers in her yard, providing a place for my grandmother to stay, planning the reception at my mom’s funeral, preparing meals, providing restaurant gift cards for my family, taking me out to eat, going through and distributing her things, keeping in touch with and visiting my grandmother in Florida, throwing me a baby shower, giving David presents, and sending me birthday and Christmas cards, amongst many other good deeds.
I don’t deserve their kindness. They don’t really even have to keep in touch with me anymore now that my mom is no longer here. I know that they do these things out of their friendship with my mom and that I’m just the benefactor of the loyalty that they had for her. Even though it’s been four years, what they’ve done for me has not and will not be forgotten.
I wish that everyone had such good friends. My mom’s friends were her friends and whenever I reference them to others, I always say “my mom’s friends”, but I truly feel that it’s appropriate for me to say that they’re my friends too.
