It’s carved in stone. Yes, I have known Jennie died but seeing your child’s name, birth date and death date carved in granite does something to your heart. I’m not sure I have the words to put to the emotions, the feelings in my heart. It’s hard evidence of shattered dreams, of living out a painful reality– our child has gone before us. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. We shouldn’t have had to spend months looking at designs, fonts and options and more options. Trying to imagine our child’s name in this or that font with this design or that design. And there were times I just wanted to grab all those papers and throw everything in the trash and scream, ‘No this is so wrong!” But the reality is- we did it. we finally decided on a design that would honor Jennie. And yet through the pain, through the hard decisions I felt, I sensed, God my Father there saying, “I’m hurting with you. It’s not what I wanted either.” And then I had to wonder. What did God want? He made us creatures of choice. And He wanted us to choose Him but instead we chose to question Him, to believe He was keeping something from us. And in one sense He was; He was keeping death, pain and suffering away. It was never His plan, His will for us to experience death, pain and suffering. But we chose to eat of the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life. Yeah, I know it was Adam and Eve who actually did it, but I’m not much different from them. And God couldn’t stop the consequences of the choices that were made; so we live in a world of death, pain and suffering. But God had a plan for redemption and through Jesus’ work on the cross we can be redeemed. And that is what I hang on to- -day after day- – knowing that God is making beauty out of ashes and will turn my mourning into joyful dancing. And some day we will live in the beautiful world we were created for.