*Edited for typo..I know it’s way past when this was published, but I saw it and just couldn’t leave it that way! For those of you who get this via email, sorry for the duplicate!

It has been a rough few days. My sister-in-law called about 7:00 last night and said she had just left my brother at the emergency room again. Bless her heart! She was so upset. She had to take their four month old home and feed him, so she called me to come sit with my brother at the ER. Besides being concerned for my brother, I felt so bad for my sister-in-law. She so wanted to be with her husband, but she had to take care of their child as well.

He had had a very stressful day at work and had been having pain on the left side of his chest since about 4:30 yesterday afternoon. The pain ran down his left arm, and he was also having tingling in his arm and was experiencing some numbness in his fingertips. Needless to say, they were scared and very concerned. They called the doctor and were told to go to the ER.

By the time I arrived, my brother had been taken back to have an EKG done and sent back out to the waiting area to be seen. The EKG was normal so I guess he got bumped down on the list of when to be seen. Truly, the place was a zoo! I’m praying none of us end up with the flu now! The good news is, my brother is once again okay, but we sure had a scare again.

The events of the past few days have reminded me yet again how short our time here is. I have also been reminded of how important family is.

In the One Month to Live book, I am in the second section titled Love Passionately. It talks a lot about relationships. I took a survey on the One Month to Live website and discovered in answering the questions that one of the things I would change if I only had one month to live is there are some relationships in my life that need some work. There are things that have not been said that need to be said. Feelings that have been hurt that need to be mended. Forgiveness that needs to be given whether I feel like it or not because God commands that we forgive just as He forgives us. One of the points the authors make in the book is that we have difficulty comprehending the full measure with which God has forgiven us. If we could truly understand it, we would better be able to forgive others.

My family is far from perfect as are all families. Actually, we are quite dysfunctional. There are many issue-laden dynamics that take on the “elephant in the living room” syndrome. But, they are my family. They do the best they can, and I love them. I am far from perfect myself and will forever be a work-in-progress as long as I am on this earth. God has pulled me out of a number of pits, and while I am aware of much for which I have been forgiven, I am sure there is much more that has not even penetrated my consciousness. From now on, I hope to make more of an effort to have that awareness and to forgive as I have been forgiven.

Blessings,