Two Years and All of Eternity

This week we've been watching the light fade, candles blown out nightly as we linger together over scripture passages that point us toward the cross..... (We're really grateful for and enjoying Ann Voskamp's "Trail to the Tree" Easter Devotional and Noel Piper's suggestion for abbreviating lent and illustrating lent with candles for littler kids to grasp better.)   And as we wind down to the day we mark as the day of Jesus' death for our sins we come to the same day this year that marks the birth of our Maelee, our precious cousin-niece who's alive with Christ.  Two long years we've missed her, her living eternal joy having just barely begun.

There is So Much to process as we think of these days, this family, this precious little life we miss so much and it feels like more than what's humanly possible to both grieve for Maelee and celebrate our Savior to the full extent that these lives and deaths deserve and to do all this in the same 24 hours....

But we know that God IS.  God is sovereign and good.  His mercy is such that he would give his own Son to enter into our mire and die for us.   If it were not for the God who first gave us breath, that he came to give us forever life beyond this air, we would have no hope.

But we grieve anchored, secure in hope.  Two years since the storm, I know that anchor new and strong.  Christ is our hope.  Christ is our joy as we think of Maelee living now with him, and as we look ahead to the day we will breathe Heaven's air and finally full live, we will dance and worship Him with her.  Christ is our all-satisfying future and peace.  We live because He lives and it's not a cliche, but truth to hide our whole lives in,  (our world, our souls are still jolted with storms!)  Christ is the truth that Everything hinges on.

As I think this year of honoring Maelee and worshipping with her, I've pushed to complete a simple project in her honor.  I've made a "Kitchen Hymnal" before.... just pages to print and laminate to help me sing aloud in the kitchen.  This is like a Volume II.  Songs to sing with Maelee.  Songs to cry out for God's truth to be the rock I hide myself in for all the storms that come...

May our Hope be sung out loud!  May our hearts be hidden in His truth!

See the next post if you're interested in signing with us, friends...