Elizabeth Hugo

I just spent this past weekend at my church’s women’s retreat. It was wonderful as always with ladies I love and grow closer to each year. I love spending precious time together and cultivating our relationships making memories together in a safe spiritual atmosphere where God’s love is tangible.

Something we do every year on a Friday night is to spend time at different stations set up for times of personal reflection. One of the stations is to reflect on any sorrows or disappointments that we carry in our hearts. There is paper and pen so we could write them down, and then we can rip the paper up and put them in a bottle symbolic of the tears that are collected by heaven where eventually they will be wiped away. In the last four years I have written on those papers and bottled the loss of my mom and then my papa, feeling the sorrow as we are temporarily separated in this earthly realm.

There was a song I loved as a young girl, Time in a Bottle  by Jim Croce.  I remembered it tonight as I began to ponder what I would write. “But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them,” are some of the lyrics of the song. I thought about that and how sometimes it is easy to take the people you love for granted, and that time spent with them is such a treasure. Another familiar song is The Cat’s in the Cradle  by Harry Chapin, the story of a busy dad who didn’t make time for his son growing up and later finds his son grew up just like him; now too busy to spend time with his aging father.

Now that I am older, the people in my life have become much more important than the things I have to do. I am trying to conciously choose to have many meaningful encounters with my loved ones, both family and friends. I am grateful for this weekend away and the opportunity to once again put my tears in the bottle. I am grateful too for time spent with people I love. Is there someone in your life that you need to connect or re-connect with? Let’s make the effort today with the time that we have and make some lasting memories.