With a Heavy Heart

Tonight I write with such a heavy heart.  As I try to find the words to write my heart is truly breaking.

As I was deleting months of emails that had built up on my computer I came across this email from my friend Fransje.  She is the younger sister of my Pi Phi little sister.  She was always so special to me and was actually one of Lucy's nurses at St. Jude.  As I read the email her words pierced my heart like a dagger.  She was speaking of my faith.

"And that something special is a real, raw faith in God. A faith that is not about anything but you and God. It is not something you have to speak out... It's just something that is there, part of you."

Oh how I needed to read her words.  One of the precious little girls that I have asked you to pray for passed away tonight.  Lillie is now at the throne of Jesus while the rest of us are left here grasping and begging for answers.  I have seen Jesus work miracles.  My own child has literally been risen from near death.  I know HE could have saved her.

But why?  Why didn't He?  Why didn't God choose Lillie to stay on this earth?  Why didn't he heal her and leave her here with her parents?  Just imagine the number of people who could have been saved through her miraculous healing.  Hers could have been a story of miraculous proportions.  Just imagine.....

I want to effortlessly segue this rant into a great Biblical lesson but I'm having a hard time doing that tonight.  These events are the ones that rock your faith to the core.  But Fransje reminded me through her perfectly timed email that I do have faith.  Even though tonight it seems so little it's there.  It's a part of me.  It's the faith that has been growing inside of me since I was 8 years old and asked Jesus to live in my heart.

My faith doesn't dictate that I don't question, though.  That's an important aspect to understand about God.  He wants us to question.  He wants us to ask why.  It's in those conversations that He speaks to us and reassures us that through this chaos, fear and doubt He is there.  Always there.  He has promised in his Word to never forsake us.  He is with us to the ends of the Earth.

Tonight I will go to bed with tear stained cheeks and a broken heart.  I will cling to the Father and ask that he give Lillie's parents the peace and grace that only He can provide.  The hell that her parents face tomorrow is more than any parent should ever live.  As life dictates, we will all soon go back to our own lives.  Mothers will be fussing about their children, fathers will be complaining about their jobs.  We will all be wrapped up in our daily lives, all too concerned about fairly inconsequential issues.  Lillie parents, however, will never be the same.  They lost their only child tonight.  I don't even know how they begin to breathe without their child.

But God....

God alone will meet their needs.  He will guide their steps and see them through each day.  I just ask that each and every one of you do two things:

1.  Hug your child, children or grandchildren a little harder tonight.
2.  Remember Lillie's family in your daily prayers as they learn to live again.

This life on Earth is temporal and we all know that too well, but no one is ever prepared to say goodbye to a child.  May we break down the gates of heaven with our prayers for this family tonight.