Isabel’s Memorial Service

so many of you have journeyed with us, carrying us through love and prayers.  Here were my thoughts and observations as Isabel’s mother these nineteen years.  I miss my baby so much... but she lives on as I proclaim what I believe her mission has been!

https://youtu.be/EltX5k6PylQ

Nevertheless We've Rebelled Against You

It was during my study on the Holy Spirit that it was revealed to me that He is not a New Testament being!  He has been there from the beginning and He is everywhere in the Old Testament.  I had no idea!  We are told that every prophet was cloaked by the Holy Spirit.

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place... no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.  For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.  (2 Peter 1:19-21)

The job of the Holy Spirit includes knowing all Truth, witnessing to the Truth, teaching the Truth, empowering others with obedience to the Truth, sanctifying those in the Truth, etc... His actions and words are proclaimed through the true prophets.

But we are of the flesh and we refuse God's truth, we refuse to submit to it

Losing Isabel Faith

My beloved brothers and sisters, near and far, known and unknown...

It is with a great heaviness that I let you know that our daughter, Isabel Faith, passed away on Saturday August 4th... her daddy's birthday.  We began a very rough 2018 on my birthday (end of January) and after seven months and seven days of hospitalizations, intubations/life support, etc... it is finished.  She is free.

Isabel was surrounded by loved ones, and she gazed at her father who gently played guitar as I hummed to her when she breathed her last.  I lay in bed that night and wept like I have never wept before... my back arched as though heaven itself were trying to pull my spirit out through my chest!  A feeling I pray/hope I don't ever have to experience again.

We will be holding her Celebration of Life on Wednesday, August 15th at 2:00 pm.  Know that all of you who have carried us in your thoughts and prayers will be with us.

There are too many amazing details that the LORD orchestrated these last seven months (including the removal of a grapefruit-sized tumour from my right ovary) and my hope and prayer as I learn what life looks like without her physical presence, is that I will document those details to share with all of you.  She was not just our daughter, she was (and continues to be) God's gift to all of us.

Thank you for loving us, carrying us and for mourning and celebrating with us.  God bless you all.

From Ashes to Ashes

The days are strangely passing by as though the world and its hubbub doesn’t realize an angel in its midst has left to return from her mission on earth back to her Maker. Time stops for nothing and for no one. And maybe that’s a good thing or I’d find it very easy to keep everything on “pause.”

Yesterday, Duane, the kids and I went to Selkirk. We wanted to be “near” where Isabel’s precious little body was being cremated. Walking through this grieving process, I am surprised at what seems to matter to me. For one thing, I didn’t know to anticipate how difficult it would be to leave the precious little cocoon that housed her butterfly spirit. I sat there for nearly two hours on Saturday not knowing how to walk away. How? We’ve spent nineteen years protecting that little body, a little holy temple that housed Izzy’s larger-than-life spirit… And even though I know she’s no longer in there, I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to leave it behind. As I lay in bed that night, I wept like I’ve never wept in all my life… my back arched as though heaven itself was trying to pull my spirit out through my chest! I hope and pray I never have to experience that again.

Today, I got to “see” our precious girl in her beautiful new butterfly urn. Little Bear was playing and as I turned the corner and “saw” her, I wept and wept and wept. I touched the urn delicately, afraid at first. But then I pulled it into my arms and into my chest wishing I could pull it into my heart. I thanked God over and over again for having entrusted her to my care, allowing me the honour and privilege of being her mother. The funeral director came to check on me and she sat on the step as I shared Izzy stories. She laughed with me and cried with me until reluctantly, I placed the urn back and had to walk away again.

Grief is a strangely beautiful process. Perhaps it’s our own struggle out of our cocoon into what a “new” life will look like. But its the struggle that makes our wings strong. So I persevere believing there is a time coming when this struggle will become my victory.