GLEANINGS from Claudia: A Mommy Memorial

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you …”
Isaiah 66:13

Yesterday was an emotional day. I shared how God clearly answered a prayer I had before him for the month of January and the mix of joy and sorrow that accompanied that response. Something I saw first thing in the morning fueled my emotions before I ever got to see God’s answer to my prayers.

I’m blessed to go early to Jacob’s home each morning and help get the girls up and around and off to school on time. Amity is often awake when I get to the house, but generally I rouse Dara. She is a late and very sound sleeper. She has taken to sleeping in a little ‘club’ that she created in a corner of her room. She has a cozy little nest on the floor and has surrounded it with many of her treasures. A sizeable doll house that has been largely unused for the past couple of years is at her head. It has several rooms and each room holds some of her treasures.

Yesterday I really looked at the nooks and crannies of the doll house and realized that the room closest to where Dara sleeps is her “Mommy” room. She has collected several mementos of her Mom and placed them in that room. There are three loose pictures laying flat on the room’s floor, a pair of her Mom’s earrings, and a 5X7 framed picture of Dara and her Mom together when Dara was around one year old.  All of this is carefully arranged and obviously treasured.

Seeing that memorial reminded me once again of the measure of the loss in Dara and Amity’s lives. Losing a Mom is no small thing in the life of a child. I know even a few months after Becky died both Dara and Amity were struggling to remember … to hear and remember her voice, to keep and cherish the good times. There is a tug of war in them to remember, love, and cherish Becky while trying to figure out how to knit themselves into this new life and new home. It isn’t easy.

I pray for them a lot. Again I think of yesterday’s answer to prayer and rejoice to know that God hears, God sees, and God comes down to rescue.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” Isaiah 49:15-16

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: He Hears

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

“Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty and will lift up your face to God. You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows. What you decide on will be done, and light will shine on your ways.”  Job 22:26-28

At the end of 2010 I committed to beginning 2011 with a month of prayer and fasting. Our Elders and the leadership of several other congregations in our area issued a call to a week of prayer and fasting. This call resonated with me and I decided to devote a month to prayer and fasting as I sought the Lord about His purposes for me in the coming year. Then Becky died and fasting became the instinctive response of my body. About half-way through the month of January I had to give up the fast and force myself to eat because I was suffering the consequences of not doing so.  This year both in response to another call to prayer and fasting and to my own inner urges to seek the Lord I again entered into a January-long season of prayer and fasting. The fast I chose was to abstain from meat, from sugar and sugar substitutes, and for the last 10 days or so, from coffee and caffeine. As it turned out, some of this was very hard for me and some of it very easy. My prayer focus was once again seeking God’s purposes for me in the coming year and some heart-felt prayer for people I love. There was also a critical issue related to Becky’s death over which I had no control that had been ongoing for nearly a year without resolution. In everything I longed to see the Lord glorified and others come to know Him more.

As the month unwound, I wrestled with God about one thing He was speaking clearly to me. At the end of 2011 I accepted an assignment from Him and took great joy in accomplishing it, but now He was saying “OK, that’s done – time to step back.” I found myself saying “OK God, but maybe I could still help out some?” Over and over God patiently confirmed that it is time for me to step away from this task.  I sensed a “Well done thou good and faithful servant” from Him, but the assignment was clearly done.  I have to laugh about this now – I was asking for guidance, but I struggled to receive this guidance because it really wasn’t what I wanted to hear! My inner child was having a field day!

Today God affirmed to me that He has been listening to me over the course of this last month. Today is the day I broke my fast. As I pulled up to a drive-through to get my first mocha of 2012, the phone rang. I answered and heard words that are the resolution to the year-long issue over which I had no control. I heard this clear answer as I received the mocha and saw a brilliant rainbow in the sky. God was jubilantly shouting to me that He hears, He answers, He is in control! This out loud, ‘so clear I couldn’t possibly miss it’ answer gives me HUGE confidence and hope for the other prayer requests I’ve fasted over in January. It also gives me a deep desire to enter into obedience in the places God has so clearly spoken to me.

My response was unrestrained tears completely mixed up with joy and awe and grief and missing Becky all over again. The resolution to the problem ties up something related to her death that has been hanging for a long time. It is another closure on something I never wanted closed. But in this is joy and comfort and peace knowing that God sees, God hears, God comes down, and rescues. And somehow I know it is all OK and my faith is deepened again even in the midst of my hurt.

“Praise be to the LORD, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.” Psalms 28:6-7

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: “Waiting Toward That Day”

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

“The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return. He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.”
Job 7:8-10

Tomorrow we complete our thirteenth month since Becky died. I still find myself thinking that she lives, hiding off near Spokane so busy that it is hard to talk to her. I miss her in my bones. Even though I still find myself thinking that she lives, at the same time I know in the deepest unconscious places of my being that she doesn’t. And I know in my soul that today she lives in an altered state that I have yet to attain.

We are all beginning to live again in tentative measured ways. Joni is out with a friend tonight as she was last night. She’s taken on a new role at church doing a tech job for our Worship ministry. She still hurts both in missing Becky and in seeing life go on and carve new channels without Becky. She is altered in this loss – not the Joni I once new, but deeper and clothed in sorrow.

Kristin is aware of arriving at knowing. She knows that Becky is gone and she can no longer avoid or deny that fact. She doesn’t feel the need to cry or the constant sharp pain of grief, but she does feel an ache of loneliness for this little sister that she loved. She too hurts to see life carve new channels without Becky even as she takes joy that it does so.

Steve continues to mourn Becky, but he is now able to take a day off without spending the day on the verge of or immersed in tears. He has gained compassion for the losses of others and will ever find it impossible to say ‘no’ to a plea for help by a fellow griever.

I am a different person than I was on December 28, 2010. I cry easily now. Tears flow at a scripture reading that pierces my heart; at a friend’s deep sorrow over a tragedy in her sister’s life; at a sunset; at a character struggle in someone I love; in the midst of worship; when I dust Becky’s picture. Tears are now a part of who I am. I long for the Lord to return or at least to be with Him. No more tears. No more sorrow. No more pain. No more death. Longing.

Jacob and the girls have found a new normal, but still struggle to find home. Home just isn’t right because the heart of home is gone. Jacob is tasting what it means to move on, but it feels strange to him.

And life goes on. This is bittersweet. When someone so well loved is gone, it feels like everything should stop in acknowledgement of the magnitude of the loss. How awful would that be? I’m appalled at the swift current of time and blessed at the speed with which we move toward the Lord’s return. It is hard to see life happening without Becky and would hurt horribly more if all of our lives stopped. In the course of our healing I can almost see a day when life will feel right again although always tinged with missing Becky. And so, taking one step at a time, we wait toward that day.

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.” Psalms 27:13-14

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: Living Sacrifice

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

“Moses said to the LORD, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’  If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.”

“The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Exodus 33:12-14

I stumbled upon this passage today and it blessed me immensely. I’m not even sure what all that blessing is about, but I love the way Moses lays out before the Lord his demands and a plan for what he needs from the Lord to do what the Lord is asking of him. And I love the Lord’s reply – you have ME!  In the final analysis God gives Moses what he asks for because He is pleased with him and knows him by name – a mark of presence (relationship) — but the provision is not knowledge or favor, rather it is relationship.  I also love it that in the relationship striving for favor ends . . . instead there is rest.

This dovetails with a thought that’s been growing in me about Romans 12:1&2.  We are living sacrifices. Usually a sacrifice is consumed, burned, destroyed – dead.  But we are living sacrifices. To some degree that is about us climbing on the altar and staying there or climbing on over and over again – which tends to be my pattern. There is something required of us. But a living sacrifice is a miracle and the life comes from God. In a place where we should be consumed we are instead filled up, sustained, and continually raising up a pleasing fragrance to God as He continually replenishes our life. What a miracle! What a blessing! God Almighty Himself loves us and wants to be with us. And out of that amazing relationship comes everything we need to know, love, serve and please Him.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: Now I See

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

“Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you”; and their sight was restored.”
Matthew 9:29-30

Today I had the opportunity to pray with friends for a lady whose walk in Jesus I deeply admire. She is in a pressure cooker time of immense difficulties in her life. So many things are coming at her at once that it is hard to imagine how she manages to make it through each day without physical or emotional collapse.

This woman demonstrates great strength, but even the strong come to the end of themselves and need to be lifted up.  We prayed peace into her life and the ability to rest on and in the Lord, the Rock of her life. Her circumstances are not going to change anytime soon, but we all know from our own struggles that the God of her circumstances can carry her and provide the strength to make it through.

Each of us who prayed today have been through or are currently in the fire. Somehow living through these things while sitting in the lap of the Lord has opened our eyes to eternity and eternal truths. We feel pain and grief and the uncertainty of lives that at times seem to have gone terribly wrong. But at the same time we look beyond the current grief and can see what lies ahead. We lean into the beauty and truth that what is being wrought today in struggle and pain brings with it an eternal weight of glory.

I never would have conceived that the faith-shaking event of losing Becky would so profoundly deepen my faith. It is as if I’ve been given the gift of preternatural sight. I can ‘see’ the end of what we endure today and I know that it is worth whatever pain and struggle we face. This is what I pray over those I love. I pray the truth and I pray the future and I pray the faith to make it home.

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:6-8

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: Healing

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

We learned early Thursday morning this week that a dear friend went home to Jesus. Richard was an intrepid nearly 90 years old with a heart for Jesus and a love of worship. He sang in our Christmas choral worship program and I deeply admired his commitment to the Lord and to this choir that worked hard together to give God all the glory we possibly could give. When it came time to present the worship music at three different assemblies he and I entered from the same side of the stage. Between presentations as he waited to enter he would sit quietly breathing oxygen from tanks he kept ready in the wings. When it was time to enter he was up, ready, walking unsteadily to his spot, unable to see much, but guided by friends and his desire to worship Jesus to his place on the platform. Richard memorized his part of the music by listening over and over to rehearsal tapes. I’m sad to say that I never managed to memorize all of the words to our choral presentation, but Richard did!  He had the music down pat and was able to fully enter into the worship of the Lord through those words and notes embedded in his heart. Richard also used this technique to support his ministering on the Sunday morning worship team at our church. Every week, unless he was out of town or ill, he was a steadfast member of the 8:15 worship team.

In the wake of Richard’s death I’ve learned more about the early years of his life and added to my well of admiration for this man. He was a courtly man who dearly loved his wife RobinJeanne and in her grief she continues to live out her deep love of Jesus and the abundant joy and praise she expresses in each situation. His life wasn’t easy – he lost two wives to death in his earlier years—but his life was filled with joy and abundance and blessing from and to the Lord.

On Friday morning I went with Steve to visit with RobinJeanne and Richard’s daughter Patricia to find out how we could help support them in crafting a celebration of life that would both honor Richard and glorify Jesus. I spent the rest of the day pulling music, creating a projection program, rehearsing with the family worship team and preparing to participate in the memorial service that will happen later today. I thought of Becky’s memorial service off and on throughout the day and how dear friends from Suburban had worked with us long distance to prepare the celebration of her life and her Lord so many short months ago.

After the rehearsal as we prepared to leave the church Steve said to me “We sang a couple of those songs exactly a year ago today.” I was caught short. I knew we had sung a couple of the same songs for Becky’s memorial, but it hadn’t dawned on me that it was the year anniversary of that service. I was caught up in the current situation – missing Richard, rejoicing that he is completely healed and in the presence of Jesus, longing to be there too, desiring to be of service to the family’s grief, seeking to love and serve the Lord. I was and I am thankful to be able to ‘pay it forward’ blessing this family even as we were blessed a year ago. I don’t think I could have done this a week or month after Becky’s celebration. I would have wanted to do it, but my deep and flowing artesian grief would’ve made it nearly impossible. I praise God for the measure of healing that frees me to support others that I love in worshipping God for life in the midst of loss.

“Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise. You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.” Nehemiah 9:5-6

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: A Blessing

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

“The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me  . . . . to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.” Isaiah 61:1-3

Today I saw a portion of the plans and purposes of God in Becky’s life. I spent a sweet hour and a half with a young friend of mine just talking about life. This young woman is someone Becky grew to love a great deal during the last couple of years of her life. As their relationship grew Becky began to share Jesus with her and ultimately my friend gave her life to Jesus. I remember so vividly getting to be there when she was baptized. She had her husband and little girl with her and she was large with child awaiting the birth of their next little girl. Not long after she was baptized Becky died, but the life of Jesus birthed in my friend has gone deep and blossomed beautifully.

She shared with me the impact that knowing Jesus and being in touch with Him has made in her role as a social worker counseling men and women mandated to a domestic violence program. She talked with joy about Jesus and what He has meant to her most cherished relationships. She puzzled over struggles she is facing now, but always coming back to how to glorify Jesus in the midst of each situation.   She shared with me a time when she and Becky were working out together and Becky made a prophetic statement about her yet to be life in Jesus that she can actually see being worked out now.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m continually looking for the good and the redemption that I know will come out of the ashes of losing Becky. Today I saw bountiful redemption in this lovely Christ-follower and friend. As I drove home after our visit I was in tears – the strangest mix of extreme joy blended into a sweet sorrow. I miss Becky, but the ripple effect of the shining life of this one young woman who knew and loved Becky and through her met her Lord is wonderfully amazing. I can’t help but praise Him!

“Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” Psalms 37:5-6

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: Another Year Begins

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Gleanings from Claudia

The decorations are down and sealed in boxes waiting for strong arms and backs to put them in their places in our garage. The New Year has begun and tomorrow we enter into the routine we’ve not been in since the beginning of December. In this transition time I’ve been thinking a lot about last year and the year to come.

The year 2011 began as a living nightmare. I remember in vivid detail the events of the end of 2010 and of the first day, first week, and first month of 2011. Because of the clarity of my memories I can also see clearly the contrast today brings.  There has been significant healing and accommodation since we lost Becky. Had we somehow been stuck in the place we were the first few days after Becky died we would either be with her now or in a facility receiving care and medication. I again have this sense of concentric circles of grief with Jacob at ground zero. Jacob was completely incapacitated and the rest of us circled his grief robotically doing the things that kept life and limb together. Over time each of us have been able to more fully experience our grief and entered our own times of sorrowful prostration. As the year unwound I looked toward the month of December 2011 with a certain amount of dread. December is rich with opportunities to miss those we love and Becky’s December birthday and the day of her death added other days to miss her. But those ‘missing’ times ended up being good. We had family in and remembered Becky and enjoyed each other and it was good. I’m so thankful for this truth.

We miss Becky. We hurt. We cry. We would have her back into our lives in a heartbeat. But we are living again in a full, rich, if broken way. We are a new family, made new by loss. The reality is that all of us and all families are being remade over the course of the years. We experience marriages, births and even death of the aged as anticipated changes that alter the look and feel of our family units. For us the change was an instantaneous loss to which we’ve needed to adjust in retrospect, not in anticipation. So we look back remembering as a way to move forward remaking our family.

I still struggle to understand our sovereign God’s hand in this loss. Did He orchestrate it, causing Becky’s accident for His inscrutable purposes? Or was Becky’s death simply an accident that He has carried us through and is using for His purposes? In a way it doesn’t matter because the outcome is the same. God’s heart, His desire to enter into the lives of men, His desire to save is being accomplished in the midst of this situation. He is carrying us, healing us, remaking us, using us, and glorifying Himself in all that surrounds this hard, hard loss. We’ve been carried to a place called ‘grief’ and He is also bringing us back from that captivity as we seek Him with all of our hearts. And once again, as in the beginning, I can declare that “God is good all the time”!

“This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” Jeremiah 29:10-14

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: A Year

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Gleanings from Claudia

"Becky"

Hi Becky!

I feel astounded this morning to think that a year (a year!!) has passed since you left us — or maybe better said, “Since you went home.” How you are missed. We still laugh and love and enjoy one another, but with every laughing spell the thought surfaces “Becky would’ve loved this!” You are missed and I’ve come to understand that the missing will always be. Our lives were so knit together that even when healing comes the place of mending will be obvious. There will ever be a scar on this family that will call us back to a time of wholeness when you walked with us.

As time progressed bringing us to this day I’ve pondered how this year has tutored me. I’ve learned so much and some of that is so enmeshed in me that I’m not able to articulate it. I’m changed in the fabric of my being by losing you. I now know that grief isn’t simple. Grief grows out of relationship and is as varied and complex and primal as our human relations. Grief doesn’t go away. It goes deep so that I no longer trip on it every day, but it is a new foundation to my life. It will surface and submerge and surface again. Friends on this journey for decades tell me they still have days of fresh grief.

I’ve learned the one thing that helps with my grief is relationship. This is a multi-colored and diverse help. Keeping my face turned toward the Lord and positioning myself to receive comfort, encouragement, and continued learning has kept me from despair. I know Him now in ways I’d never known Him before. Your Dad has been a rock through this time. That doesn’t mean he isn’t grieving or that he doesn’t cry, it simply means he is there. We talk about our grief, we cry together, we let each other cry and grieve when it comes. We’ve not tried to force healing or push each other to places we are not yet ready to go. We’ve each grieved in the way our individual grief has come and it has been good. I thank God everyday for this man from whom you came – how I love him! Kristin and Joni have been a blessing in this season too. They’ve grieved differently from me and differently from each other. We’ve danced back and forth with each other, listening, praying, watching and waiting for the Lord in the midst of this tough time. Jacob and the girls have been a huge part of my grieving process. Getting to be with them nearly every day, watching, helping, praying – what a blessing it has been and what peace it has brought me even when I’ve seen struggles because of losing you.  Our families have been wonderful – loving and watching and sending love and gentle comments at just the right time. And of course, friends — intimate friends, distant friends, acquaintances all have been sensitive to our hurt and need. The Lord has manifested Himself in His people and loved on us through the words and hugs of our friends at church.

I’ve been surprised to find that I’ve not had to go underground with my grief. I don’t need to stuff it and no one has rebuked me for expressing it. People understand. What a blessing! Because of this I’ve learned to be more open with what I feel than I’ve been in the past. I’ve also learned to let others experience what they are experiencing. God can deal with our sorrow and hurt and anger and pain – we don’t have to somehow always put on a happy face and smile to glorify Him. He is glorified in the honest expressions of our hearts turned toward Him. I love Psalms and I love Job and all of the honest weepers of the Bible. There is no emotion common to man that has been left out of the Bible. What a comfort!

The last thing I’ve learned is the amazing impact of one well-lived life. I’m not blind to who you are or to the shortcomings of your life. We all have them and you did to. But that said the positive impact you had on others just by being you continually astounds me. Losing you reverberated into so many lives and hearing people speak of the impact of the loss is like a time machine that allows me to see the impact of you alive. You lived in a way that touched others. This encourages me to do the same.

I love you. I would take you back in a minute, but I suspect you are in a place now where coming back doesn’t even appeal. Instead I imagine you waiting for us and looking forward to the day of reunion. You will be present with us today as we are together remembering you – calling you back to us through stories and pictures and memories.

See You Soon! Mom

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6

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GLEANINGS from Claudia: Together Experiences

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Gleanings from Claudia

“Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. When I felt secure, I said, “I will never be shaken.” O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.”
Psalms 30:4-7

Christmas isn’t quite over for us. Our eldest daughter Kristin and her family will arrive tomorrow night and we’ll all gather to complete our Christmas festivities. I can picture the convivial chaos that Wednesday night will bring and I confess that I can’t wait!

On Thursday this week we will together experience the first anniversary of Becky’s death. I have a plan of sorts for how to navigate this day and evening, but I’m holding it lightly. I’ve never done this before . . . we’ve never done this before . . . and I’m not sure what to expect. I’m going to bring out all of our family photos and we will sort through them together in particular looking for Becky photos. I’m hopeful that with the photos will come a lifetime of memories and stories. The grandkids LOVE stories of ‘the old days’ and especially those stories that include their missing Mom and Aunt. I suspect there will be laughter and tears and memories triggering memories. Steve and I will deny some of them and the girls will deny others and we’ll laugh and cry and it will be good. I’m also going to bring down the storage container with the hundreds of cards we got after Becky’s death and the hundreds of prayer cards that our church family filled out and left in our home for us to find upon our return from Rosalia.  I hope to record some of our story telling. I hope to pull from the photos and stories and in the end have enough to create a memory book devoted not just to Becky, but to Becky and ‘us’ — the ‘us’ that Becky’s life birthed and nurtured and still inspires today.

Our church observed Advent this year. On Christmas Sunday after we lit the Christ candle I was moved by the symbolism of the other candles, representing hope, peace, joy and love, burned down sufficiently to not distract from, but rather lend their light to, the primary light of the Christ candle. Because of air flow in our building it is necessary to replace candles frequently. It happened that the single pink candle representing joy had to be replaced on Christmas day. What I saw in that Advent ring is Christ as prominent with joy a close companion overshadowing everything else that hangs in time at Advent. Christ has come and He is coming again. We live in the middle, waiting and experiencing all that living implies, sheltering in the strength and beauty of Christ and basking in the light and warmth of joy.  Lord – make our joy complete as You live in us and dwell in our midst. Enrich our celebration of Your coming tomorrow night and manifest Yourself and the reality of eternal life in You as we remember Becky in the next few days. I ask You today to make our experience of the first anniversary of her death more profoundly a celebration of her life and eternal life. Come quickly Jesus!

“To you, O LORD, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy: “What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness?  Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.” You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.” Psalms 30:8-12

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