The beauty of the death of a Christian woman

God hardened pharoah's heart so that he could break it against His will through the death of pharoah's son. After the breaking, pharoah was free to do as he would. Pharoah hardened his heart against the will of the God that would destroy his Son, his wealth, his nation, his people. Can we blame pharoah? Absolutely. God's will is absolute, and will not be subverted.

   Christina died, and I hardened my heart against the Lord. I sinned. I turned away from him, from the sweetness of his creation, from the beauty of life, from the dynamic and divine gift of my children; I was David camping with the philistines.

   Now, I prostrate myself before the Father. Jesus, you gave what I love more than anything eternal life. You gave her more than that. You gave her meaning in life. What greater gifts than these? You, Father, forgave all her sins, you brought her heart to you. In her final days, you moved in her; deepened your relationship with her. Thank you so much for that Jesus. You loved and cared for her in ways I could not. Truly, you are a merciful God, beautiful in your care, exquisite in your love. 

    Right before she died, she finished the one year bible for the first time. She read the whole thing. I remember her telling me how much she learned about the Lord, reading it through like that. I remember being SO envious that her relationship was quickening and deepening and becoming personal. Yet, I was too lazy to follow suit.

   I think of all the things I have thought or felt since she died, these are the hardest. It is hard to think that it is really so much better for a Christian to die and be in eternal communion with Jesus than to be here. It is so hard to think that this hurts so much because it is my unbelief and unfaithfulness grating against the reality of it all. It hurts to think that the best comfort I could offer her in this world of hurt and sorrow and pain is completely shattered; a dead illusion and a so very poor reflection to the beauty and completeness of Christ. It hurts. But in a new and different way. It hurts in a way when you find that instead of a man and a giant you are just a fool banging on a pot in the desert, your delusion dissolves, and you know you must seek water or die. And I don't mean physically. 

   I was so mad he took her. Now I am mad that he deserves her, and I don't. On some weird level, I am jealous of Him. He loves her more than me, and I still love her as much as I can love. But, I am SO grateful he does have her, and I can only pray one day he will have me too. All of us. All his children. Her, my children, and maybe me too, if he can forgive me for my insolence and arrogance. 

   I relinquish her to you, Lord. Til we meet again by and by. Take the jewel of a beautiful Christian woman that was tarnished and dusted by being in relation to me, and let her shine with the beauty she is. Let her relfect and refract your light. Let her shine brighter than the morning star. Let her newfound beauty stagger the Earth in awe of it. Let each tear of regret that falls from my eye bring me closer to you and to her. She has become eternal with you, and you both are something I cannot comprehend now. I know so much more through her death, and it is to only know that I know SO little. 

   If there is a man out there who has a wife, and her heart is true to her lover, her  children, her home, and her God most of all, she is above Rubies, and her value cannot be known by you. Be stupid, man. Bend your back to labor, and bend your knee to the Lord. Only lead in leading to Christ, and follow the heart of the treasure the Lord has given you. 

Rockwood

I look at your picture, and my heart overwhelms with grief. I still cannot accept it. I know that it is real, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, I still hold out some kind of dreadful hope that this has not really real. I am on the road today, not seeing clients, but working. I am in Rockwood, TN. So much intersects, here. I am putting brick in the number 2 kiln. The last job I did before I came home the last time, before you died.

   Today, I tried to tell myself this is just a place. Just a job. It's not. It's personal. I feel like I am going to leave here, and make that long, tired drive home some sleepless morning, and come stumbling in exhausted from the road, to your waiting arms. To your beautiful smile. To those fathomless brown eyes. I expect it. I yearn for it, more than life itself.

   I want you more than breath; more than existence. I cannot comprehend that, out of all the people on this planet, YOU, Christina. You, that perfect, childlike, beautiful mother, could be dead. What has meaning now?

   I want our children to grow up happy. I want them to be good mothers and wives. I want to start over. I want one more drive to Cloudland Canyon to listen to Bob Dylan's dreams and talk about midwifery and homeschooling. I want to reach across that van and feel that perfectly fitting hand in mine once more. I want the only person that understood why I could fall into the most peaceful sleep while they rubbed my face.

   I want your stress, I want your joy and pain and anger and laughter and depression. Anything and all. I lived to serve you, provide for you, to make you happy. My God, is there no mercy in life? How can a man fall this desperately in love and have that perfect twin of a soul stolen from him with no warning?

    I try to not be angry. I try to find meaning in it all. All I find is lonely desperation that I do not want to end.

   I am old now. Joy is something I cannot understand anymore. That body that always could give more so much feel tired, and the will that you thought so strong only wants to recede to quietness. Those steady hands tremble constantly. That quick smile is forced from politeness. I sympathize with those I used to pity. I fear for those that can't

   God, whatever you are, I force myself to bend my knee and lower my head. I paint pictures of you in the clouds. I speak for you in my mind. I find meaning for life in my thoughts. None of it comes automatically anymore. I am living to pass time, and life has lost dynamics. I find humor in the absurd, and sour at what makes sense to others. I cry like a baby when alone, and laugh like a fool around strangers. I mumble and talk to myself and carry on and fret...I am more lost as time passes. I will spend my days, weary, and haggard. I do not look to the future. I pass time...

Spent

A spent casing
Ricochets from the floor below.
A tuft of heavy smoke
Lingers, a finger, drifting and curling defiling the air
With its smell of...
Spent power.

A sound unlike sound, that kills ears
Make them ring make them ring and eternally sing
Their swan song...

Smoke curls and lingers
Like some pantomimic
pipe smoke....

A spent casing.

So much in so little.
And now it has exclaimed
And nothing is left
But blackened, cooling brass.
And the sharp sting of a memory.