{"id":150,"date":"2020-05-21T21:22:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-21T21:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/?p=150"},"modified":"2026-05-29T21:22:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:22:30","slug":"living-the-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/2020\/05\/21\/living-the-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My\nfather’s cousin died yesterday. She had reached the celebrated age of 100 years\na few months ago. Her only brother, out of six siblings, was not only my dad’s\ncousin, but also his best friend. My first recollection of meeting Elise\nBerkley was at a family reunion just a few years ago. I had heard about her\nfrom numerous family sources but cannot recall ever meeting her until that\nreunion. She followed my postings on www.the-thrivalist.net<\/a>\n(that are routinely posted on Facebook on my page and under PD Rants and\nRamblings) and frequently sent me words of encouragement or ones of\naffirmation noting how meaningful she was finding them. She was living with one\nof her daughters near Greensboro, but lived most of her life in Danville, VA, the\ncity whose border meets that of Virginia and North Carolina less than a mile\nfrom our farm. Another person who has been an inspiration over the last thirty-five\nyears died yesterday as well. He is the same age as I and I learned about him\nand his ministry while living in Manhattan, when his ministry was just getting\nstarted and I desired to learn about worshiping God with all that He made me to\nbe and how that might unfold over time. Ravi Zacharias is a Christian Apologist\nwho dedicated his life to the spreading of the good news that Jesus Christ is\nthe one through whom God so loves this world, that people of all languages, all\nraces, all nationalities, all genders, orientation, or persuasion (whosoever) may\nby the very act of believing in Him, participate in life eternally in the\npresence of the God who so loved (eternally)! In addition to the inspiring way\nin which Ravi conveyed that message of good news, he was also instrumental in\nfacilitating others who delivered that same message to even more who needed (s)\nto hear. Through Ravi’s encouragement and support, Nabeel Qureshi, a Medical\nDoctor, grounded in Islam, who after seeking to study the scriptures to\ndisprove Christianity, dedicated his life to the spread of Christianity until\nhis untimely death from cancer just three years ago. In the midst of the morbid\nthreat of contracting this rampant coronavirus it is comforting to remember that\nthere are those who have contributed the living of their lives, while they had\nthe gift of inhaling the next breath, to sharing the love of our God as He has\nloved us. In so doing, Elise loved as the encourager, affirmer, and inspirer.\nRavi lived as the challenger, the bearer of truth, and one who facilitated the\nunraveling of the simple truth in for God so love the world. Nabeel lived as\nan overflowing vessel that was filled with the truth of God’s love, in scripture,\nteaching, and the desire to keep God in the center of his over-abundant life. The\ngift that is life becomes richer and fuller when we recognize that the value\nwe experience comes not from just what we receive, but fully expressed and\nunderstood in what and how we give it to others! The gift is fully utilized\nwhen it is given away. Thanks, Elise, Ravi, and Nabeel for being multipliers of\nthe gift that is free, but not at all cheap! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My father’s cousin died yesterday. She had reached the celebrated age of 100 years a few months ago. Her only brother, out of six siblings, was not only my dad’s cousin, but also his best friend. My first recollection of meeting Elise Berkley was at a family reunion just a few years ago. I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parkinsons-disease-rants-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":151,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-thrivalist.net\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}