One year ago today we celebrated the life that we were blessed to call our daughter. A time of thankfulness, tears, pain and joy all rolled into a beautiful time of worship of a life ended too short for my liking, but in God's perfect timing.
Have you ever wondered about time....why certain parts of your life seem to drag endlessly on and you feel as if your circumstances will never change? Yet then you have seasons in your life that go by so quickly, you feel as if you blinked and before you realized it - that season is over.
This past year has been a combination of both.
When we were first given Amanda's prognosis, it seemed like that time would pass in a nightmarishly blur of pain and illness. Thank God that didn't happen. Instead, He blessed us with an amazing 17 months with our daughter who rarely looked like she had brain cancer that was slowly robbing her life of days. That would be the thing that I praise Him for, and yet also causes me extreme pain at the exact same time. Because she rarely looked ill, it was easy to not focus on that and simply focus on our family and each day we were given.
It wasn't until the very end, literally those last two weeks, that we saw the awful reality that cancer was finally robbing her of her independence and soon her life.
There are no words. There really is no way to make you fully understand because there are no emotions to describe the pain-filled thankfulness I have that she didn't suffer. We didn't watch her life slowly ebb away over weeks, watch her experience physical reactions often caused by brain tumors, or go through traumatic moments of helplessness for all involved.
I had MY Amanda - that spunky, cuddly, independent beauty up until the very last day of her life on earth. She was our Amanda until the very end.
Her very last breath was peaceful.
Her last words were words of comfort and encouragement to us.
The hope, peace and comfort that I cling to in the depths of my sorrow shouts of God's mercy and love that He so freely bestows upon His children.
I know where Amanda is. While I look back at "this past year," time in Heaven is not what we know of time here on earth.
2 Peter 3:8 says, "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."
It's hard to wrap my brain around that truth, but if God's Word says it, I believe it with faith.
Psalm 84:10, "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere."
That means that this last year for Amanda has been the best of her life - far better than here on earth. There is no sting in that for me, I rejoice in that. Although my flesh still wants her here with me.
We were on the lake the other day and Tom said that he could see her in my smile and in my love of the water....she is forever imprinted on our hearts. Everything we do we see her in it. We talk about how much she would have loved this or that, but I know that her experiences in Heaven put our best days to shame.
So as we mark another anniversary today of one year from her memorial service, I will admit the tears are flowing. But I look back at that day and the rememberence of the outpouring of love and support brings a smile. For me it's a constant reminder of how one life can make a difference.
Amanda's life was a brightly shining beacon of her love and faith for Christ as she faced adversity and fears. That fact lightens the burden of days like today a little bit.
One day I hope to not have tears on days like today, but instead to sing and rejoice like they were in Heaven, just like she told me to.....
Romans 15:13
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
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