I keep thinking about Easter and how I should try and tell you how beautiful our table looked thanks to some cheap flowers and vessels from around the house, or how I made the best ham ever, or how nice it was to be together, but I can't focus in on any of it. Not yet. Easter, while it contained all of those things, gained new meaning to me this year.
A young mother, barely older than myself, passed away on Sunday morning. She is sister to an old friend of mine and a dear friend to many. At such a young age, she lost a crippling battle with cancer. Throughout her treatment, I kept a close eye on the reports her family was sending out. What started as a little lump and breast cancer metastasized and spread to her brain. I thought often of her husband and children, having been the daughter of a cancer patient, and wished I could do something more for them but knowing they just really needed each other. As I read their blog, I saw that her words were words of strength and hope, her husband's of faith and tenderness. I have so much love and respect for this little family.
A consistent note to news of her death was the significance of her passing on Easter, a day that celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The timeliness of this taught me deeply about God's plan and how death is but a small part in it. I heard from one of this mother's dear friends on Sunday. She told me that she was sad that she would have to wait to see her friend for awhile. This sentiment was not filled with a haunting of the eventual death that finds all of us, but a hope for the life yet to come thanks to the gift of our Savior. I marvel in that faith and hope.
As I write this, Mr. F and I are preparing for a day in Orlando to visit the temple, a place in our faith where we believe that families are sealed together for time and all eternity. Love is not just for this life. Nor family. They are the things of forever. I am so grateful for a young mother I barely knew for reminding me of this, for the lesson her life and death have taught her young children, and for the steady faith of her in husband in Jesus Christ.
In my head ring the words of the Easter hymn,
He is risen! He is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice.
He has burst his three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered; man is free.
Christ has won the victory.
A consistent note to news of her death was the significance of her passing on Easter, a day that celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The timeliness of this taught me deeply about God's plan and how death is but a small part in it. I heard from one of this mother's dear friends on Sunday. She told me that she was sad that she would have to wait to see her friend for awhile. This sentiment was not filled with a haunting of the eventual death that finds all of us, but a hope for the life yet to come thanks to the gift of our Savior. I marvel in that faith and hope.
As I write this, Mr. F and I are preparing for a day in Orlando to visit the temple, a place in our faith where we believe that families are sealed together for time and all eternity. Love is not just for this life. Nor family. They are the things of forever. I am so grateful for a young mother I barely knew for reminding me of this, for the lesson her life and death have taught her young children, and for the steady faith of her in husband in Jesus Christ.
In my head ring the words of the Easter hymn,
He is risen! He is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice.
He has burst his three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered; man is free.
Christ has won the victory.
Beautiful post Mrs. What a sad thing. So very grateful for The Gospel and that through Christ death truly is conquered.
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