The Most Unnatural Thing...

The Most Unnatural Thing...

"Twonane Milele" is a Swahili phrase meaning "Let us meet in eternity"

It is the most unnatural thing...for a parent to stand before a gravestone and read the name of their child etched in the stone at their feet. The two dates representing the moments in time when your life changed forever. The date of beginnings, the date of endings... the date of joy, and the date of deep sorrow and grief.

Some days I don’t want to get out of bed.
Many times I won’t even look at a calendar. Looking at the calendar only betrays my emotions because each day still feels like it was yesterday when we first received the news that our Kimberly had passed away.

I cry every day... since the news of our daughter’s death. But I have found that the most therapeutic thing I do for myself, is to pray for someone else, and to be concerned with their heartaches. I do have to admit, I sometimes get annoyed with the seemingly petty things people request prayer for, but when I sense myself getting annoyed, I recognize I’m opening the door to allow bitterness to take root, and my Kimberly was too sweet, and too special for me to allow any bitterness to be attached to her memory.

August 24, 2014 our last Sunday Lunch together.

 I am thankful for the grace of God that comforts my broken heart. If it were not for His wonderful grace, I would be consumed by my grief. 

Daily I must choose... to not allow my grief to rob me of my joy.

Daily I must choose... to remember all that was tender, sweet, loving, precious, and unique about my daughter.

Daily I must choose... to not allow my beautiful memories to be marred by this temporal parting called death.

I grieve for my daughter... But I have an eternal certainty beyond this earth that comforts my heart and my soul.
 

"And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you."

~ John 16:22

"Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God."

~ I Peter 1:21

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

~ Psalm 116:15

"We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

~ II Corinthians 5:8

"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

~ II Corinthians 5:1

"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:"

~ John 11:25

"And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life."

~ I John 2:25

 

Aug. 27, 2014. At the AR airport headed back to Kenya.
The last time I held her.

 

Written by Jane Coley ~ August 2015