a sad week

One of my dear friends suffered a heart attack that fatally damaged her heart last Friday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon, she entered into glory and went to be with Jesus. She has a husband and 7 children, the youngest is 2 weeks old. There really aren’t any words to speak right now. My heart is so heavy ~ I’ve been searching for words, but I find myself stuttering. She was such a dear woman and I had so much to learn from her. I considered her one of the “busy moms” ~ like me. I feel like she had so much more work to do, like raise her children and see them grow physically and in sanctification. To see them get married. To see her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. To grow old with her husband. But God knows better than I do.

Things like this make you stop and think about why you’re living. In the light of death and eternity, it’s been much easier to identify sin in our lives~ selfishness, materialism, unkindness. Life is too short to argue with the people you love. This has made me so thankful every morning for the opportunity to kiss my husband and hug my children. To begin a new day. To teach my kids about the important things, and most importantly to teach them to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ alone for their salvation. If you trust in anyone or anything else, you are trusting in yourself.

Please pray for the Searcy family, especially the children. The support of our church poured into the Searcy family proves to me to what extent my own family would be taken care of if anything should happen to me. Many, many meals have been brought to them, and the nursing moms of the church have been pumping milk for the sweet new baby (again, 2 weeks old) because formula makes her sick. People have opened their homes. Families in the church have stepped up like never before. We pray that his will be a witness of God's goodness through hardship to many many people. Only, I wish this was some sort of "loving the brethren" fire drill. I wish she hadn't really passed. It all happened so quickly. I weep not for my friend, but for her children and her husband, her parents ~those that were there in the hospital to say goodbye to their mother, wife, daughter. And still we know that God will supply their needs and comfort them with that mysterious "peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension" Philippians 4:7.

Isaiah 61:1-3
"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted"..."to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified".