The subject for today’s 5-Minute Friday post is so fitting for me right now. I started writing about Elliot this morning and was interrupted. When I came back and read the topic I knew there was a reason why I had started writing about my friend. Though some of this was written earlier today, I compiled the post within the 5 minute time limit. This one is for my Elliot.
GO
Thoughts of Elliot consume me. Why now? Why here? No one can plan grief. When it hits…when it leaves…only to return again. It is the uninvited stranger who breaks down the door.
This week Elliot and Chris’ daughter turned 4…without her mother. This picture was taken around this same time last year. I do not have words to describe the kind of sadness I feel when I see her precious face in pictures posted on Elliot’s facebook page.
Heaviness sits on my heart when I think of the family members gathered around singing “Happy Birthday to Bradford…” yet one voice is clearly missing from the group.
It has been just over 8 weeks since Elliot’s passing. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. Time goes on. And it will continue to.
There is life beyond the raw reality of death. The ache of never seeing her smile or hearing her voice. The solitude of pain is intense. I am ready to be beyond it.
The children visit her grave to leave flowers and kisses. Not yet old enough to understand fully that what the ground holds is a cancer ridden shell that their mother is now free from and has shed for heaven.
Beyond the grave. Beyond the sting of death. Beyond the noise of doubt. Beyond the temporary trappings of this world. My friend sits, waiting for the rest of us. I find solace knowing that she is complete…perfectly healed…and more alive than she has ever been.
“The one thing we owe absolutely to God is never to be afraid of anything…even death, which, after all, is but that final breakthrough into the open, waiting, outstretched arms of Abba.” ~Charles de Foucauld
STOP
Even A Girl Like Me 
Pingback: Oh my soul | Even A Girl Like Me
Oh, I have no words. Thankful that you are able to see beyond to heaven!!
Thank you for reading, Julie Anne.
Praying for you sweety.
Thank you.
When my father died two and a half years ago my sister Mimi captured how we felt I think. She said “We sorrow with hope”.
That’s beautiful Mark. Thank you!
I went through a lot of death last year and it was grueling and it still hurts. But these verses, which I read the day before Easter last year encouraged me and brought so much light into that valley –
“No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.
She’s one of those righteous ones who has been made perfect – she’ll be there waiting for you and the time you’ll have together there, with Him, is all eternity.
Thank you for your comments.
I appreciate your stopping by.
I am sorry for the lose of your friend. Your words are comforting knowing she is with Jesus, waiting for the rest of her family and friends. I pray God comforts you and the rest of her family and friends during this time. God bless.
Thank you Dawn.