I can’t believe this is your second Christmas in heaven. In some ways it feels like forever since I saw your sweet smiling face and heard your girlish giggle and then I look at the calendar and I see it’s only been about 21 months and I wonder, “Who messed with my sense of time? How could life change so much in the blink of an eye?” And I long to go back to the before- – Back to the time when I was thinking about what to put in your school portfolio, instead of thinking about what to put on your gravestone. Back to when I could do most anything I wanted, instead of trying to decide which thing to do, cause if I do that, I won’t have the strength and energy to do this. Back to when I heard Jana dribbling a basketball and throwing baskets instead of hearing a squeaky quad cane and a shuffling gait. Back to when our table didn’t have an empty chair.

But that was then, this is now. How do I bring the two worlds together? Is it even possible? I can’t live in the before- it’s not what is reality. It was reality- – now it is only a memory that I wish was reality. How do I live in the now, when it’s the past, the memory I’m wishing was reality? I’m not sure but I don’t think it’s about forgetting the past or not thinking about it at all. Somehow I’ve got to hang on to the truth that God was in “the before” and He knew “the after” was going to happen and He is here as well. He can take this broken now and make it something beautiful. I’ve got to hang on to the truth that God is for me even though it seems at times He is against me. And the truth is what I’m really longing for is heaven- where life is perfect. There is no pain and sadness or struggle and difficulty. Just beauty and peace- someday, someday God will restore and all that is broken; will be made whole, complete, and beautiful. And we will see you again.