+ After several months on a writing hiatus while I nurtured a baby in the womb and not the words in my heart, I am here again… and, as always, on her anniversary +

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With the exception of welcoming a precious baby girl into our family in April, these last several months have felt very desolate. For many reasons, I have been wading through some emotional, physical, and spiritual emptiness that feels like lack. I know with my mind that the Lord alone is enough, that I / we will be ok, and that, contrary to how it may feel, I have plenty. But, there has been a real heaviness about this season. Thankfully, at the end of June each year, I take time to reflect on my life through the lens of my miraculous survival which usually brings me deeper into Him.

On this day, seven years ago, I experienced Tanya’s last words, last thoughts, and last moments before our tragic car accident ended her life. I am aware of the sacred privilege of those last moments. The goodness of that last day we spent together is a gift to me that I know others wish to have had. That day felt very full - of conversation and food and music and laughter and friendship. It was also evident to me how fully she lived - with her family, her friendships, her travels, her church, and more!

I’ve had this plant (above) since her funeral. At first, it was beautiful, green, and, like that last day, full. However, it didn’t last long because I’m horrible with plants. Over the past couple of years, it began growing sideways as the root system grew horizontally in the pot. Since then, it has produced a pitiful amount of leaves and, every now and then, a single white flower. I have considered re-potting it often, but never had the energy to figure out how to transfer it. I just keep watering it, celebrating a couple of green leaves, and cutting off the rest. Because of its lack, I have had every reason to declare it dead, “toss” it, and move on, but I couldn’t… because it’s “her plant” and I was holding on to her.

This week, when I went to water my desolate plant and cut off its dying parts, I was shocked to find a new plant emerging in the middle of the pot. It’s perfect and green, full of life, right in the middle of what’s gone sideways. A new beginning. A reason to have held on.

I reflected that long before this new plant emerged above the soil, it had already done the hard work of rooting down and sprouting up. In these desolate seasons with difficult circumstances beyond my control, I must trust God is already at work. Not ironically, the readings this weekend on her anniversary are about this very quality of God. How He restores and heals and how he grants fullness where there is none. Before His restoration is made visible to me, I believe He is already working to create new life in any scenario, under any circumstance. I have known desolation before, but I have known His consolation, too. It is clear to me that I must hang on. New life is coming. Fullness is on its way.

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“For this reason I bend my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.” – Ephesians 3:14-19