It was a year ago today that I got the worst phone call of my life and heard that Lisa had been killed. My hilarious, irreverent, achingly sincere, beautiful, little sister of a friend was suddenly absent…decades before any of us would have consented to the possibility of parting with her.
I’ve spent most of this year in a white knuckled, beyond tears, blind rage that has been bewildering and consuming and exhausting. My hope in Christ has been brought so low that only His faithfulness remains. Mine is long gone.
And today is Easter. So I’m praying that the Jesus who astounded and comforted His bewildered, exhausted friends by rising from dead and revealing His glory to become the salvation and hope of the whole world will kiss the white knuckles and touch the blind, angry eyes of everyone who is aching for her. My consolation, my only consolation, is that she is with Christ. Our Lisa.
Call me strange, but I like cemeteries. Always have. I’m intrigued by what the dead and their families choose as parting declarations. And this is my favorite, from a grave in Winter Park, Florida:
Holy am I, free and whole, at rest in the heart of God.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
