Yesterday was one of those days when my soul simultaneously soared and sank.
How to explain? How to enumerate? How to attach words to feelings experienced so powerfully?
In mulling it over, my husband gave me a word to begin to describe how the death of a friend affects us: cumulative. It's a cumulative loss; that's how he put it more or less.
So when I think of Sarah gone from our ward family. When I cry because I won't see her smile again in this life. When I fret and cry and lament her children's and parents' aching hearts. When I mourn her too-soon departure, my mind and heart tick back to the three most recent funerals I've attended: Zoe's, Grandpa's, and Tawna's. The most fresh, the most recent adding to the absences of the others gone before.
And yet for all the dark clouds pressing in, the sun shines above.
Sinking and soaring. I miss Grandpa saying, "See ya in the funny papers." I ache for Zoe's parents who lost her on Christmas. I wish Tawna could be here, holding my babies, her grandbabies. I miss Sarah's sincere gaze. And yet.
Their goodness inspires.
From the Latin, inspire means to breathe upon or into.
Their goodness inspires. They invite me to live more fully, to use all the breath I have to meet them again at Jesus' feet.
They are spires. I lift my eyes and heart because of their lives, because of their deaths.
1 comment:
Beautiful post for beautiful lives. Thank you.
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