The Gift of Tears

I appreciate those ha-ha moments when something finally makes sense. Life is like a great big puzzle and we are living one piece at a time. Some pieces just seem to hang out there forever while we study our lives, trying to figure out where they belong in the story. Well this Christmas a key piece to my puzzle fell into place. I have wondered for years how pain and tears became such a major part or my story. There was a Christmas movie I watched when I was young that had such a massive affect on my life that I haven’t been able to watch it again until this year. I actually found it a couple years ago in reprint. It has been in the drawer with the plastic on every since. When I see it I immediately get this feeling of dread and anguish, but all I can remember is that it was a sad movie. Well, I finally watched it this year.

The name of the movie is “The Littlest Angel.” It stars Johnny Whitaker, Jody from the television show “Family Affair” and Fred Gwynne as guardian angel Patience, more commonly known as Herman Munster. Michael, the Littlest Angel, dies unexpectedly and is shown the joy of Heaven by Patience. What I remember from my childhood was that it was the first time I was introduced to a child dying and leaving his parents. It took years to digest what that would feel like. I guess I should mention that on the Gallop scale of strengths empathy is my number one. For years I worked through how the boy would feel to suddenly be all alone without his parents. Then I thought about how parents feel when they loose a child. If I remember right I was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old at the time.

The first time I heard God’s voice I was twelve. I had been experiencing a number of deaths among my friends and I was mad at God for taking them. I understood how their parents felt to loose their children and how scared my friends were to be dead. God spoke to me and told me that He wanted me to help my friends let go and come to Him. As I connected to my friends in prayer I felt them let go, and glide into the arms of our savior. You see during those years of exploring the emotions of death I discovered how much God loves us. You see He knew the plan. He knew how much it would hurt to watch His child suffer and be tortured, then die. He knew what Jesus would experience, yet He loves us so much that He set the plan in motion anyway. As we celebrate Christmas I am reminded that along with the gift of salvation we also received the gift of tears. God knows our pain because He choose to suffer for us. I know God’s tears because I have shed them, but I also know His love.

So, to all the parents whose children have left this earth too soon: Alisha, Amy, Jeff, Nina, and Rachel, the children of Red Lake, Columbine, and Newtown God knows your pain, you are not alone. God weeps with all the parents as He holds your children tightly in His arms.

Rachal in the Wind

Rachal, your death perplexes me. I am no stranger to death. I said good-bye to more friends before my 20^th birthday then most say in a life-time. I have buried hundreds of friends and family over the years, but none have rocked me as much as your death. I want to know why. So, as you know I’m praying about it. What I know for certain is that you are up in Heaven right now enjoying a good glass of wine with Jesus and God and looking down at us all like dominoes and saying “you were using me to do all of that?” As I ask what is it about you that moves me I keep hearing “that you were the wind” and right now that is making sense. I know you would love this delving part, so I ask, “what is the wind like.”

There are some winds that gently blow up against things and people. You were like that. Even those who only worked with you for a month or so have been moved by your death and they don’t why. You touched them like the wind, gently, you moved them and they weren’t even aware.

There are some winds that physically move an object to a different place. You were like that. There are so many who not only found new meaning to their lives because of your perspective and wisdom, but those who made conscience choices to think and act in a different way because of your gently persuasion.

There are some winds however that move through people and objects; and to me that is who you are. Your spirit moved through me, not that I was always aware, but I now feel intertwined. I feel like God is reaching out to me with this lesson about how life is to change forever because of you. I am feeling led to see each and every relationship I make as one that touches all the way to the heart. I feel haunted by the depth of how much you touched me. It’s a bit uncomfortable, but I am learning to open up to it.

Lord I pray that a strain of what makes each person unique will twist with my heart strings and build a band of love that can overpower all evil and hatred. Lord, please use the spiritual winds of Rachal to bring a permanent change to this world. May love grow deeper, stronger, and more aggressively then ever before. May your will be done, and may we hear again Rachal’s sweet giggle in the wind, totally surprised and humbled by the change of events.