Today, our baby Ashley celebrates her 1st birthday but we are not there to celebrate it with her. Her party's in Heaven, orchestrated by God her Heavenly Father and attended by her brothers Nathaniel and Joash together with other little angelic guests.
One year on, has our grief diminished?
When Ashley died, we felt a rip in our souls. Although a year has passed, the pain is still searing. We have to die to our grief each day and make a determined effort to trust that our babies' death are part of God's sovereign plan. In this past year, God is slowly mending our spirits - first with basting threads and then with beautiful stitches. How we wish He would sew us up quickly so the pain will be eradicated totally, immediately.
Help me understand, Lord, that if we hurry you, it will be as if an unskilled apprentice sewed up our wounds with uneven stitches that will not hold. If we allow you time to heal, you will sew a fine seam and weave its pattern into the tapestry of our lives, making them more beautiful than they ever were...
So today Lord, we surrender our heartaches and sorrow once again to you. Help us throw a beautiful celebration for our daughter Ashley. Let her know how much we love her and long for her. Although the only mark she made on this world was in our hearts, she is not forgotten.
Perhaps in another year, we may come to find peace in her leaving but it's definitely not this year. You are still at work Lord...
