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Letters to Heaven

Dearest Makiah,

Today is your fourteenth birthday.  It has been exactly 10 years since we celebrated a birthday with you.  You wore your Little Mermaid dress, had a jumpy house, and blew out all the candles on your pink castle cake.  You laughed and tore into your presents surrounded by your little friends.  Two beautiful princesses (your aunt Laura and Jenn) arrived at the party to your delight!  I am so glad we went all out that year.  A grace disguised.

Last night I watched my favorite movie, Little Women, (not the newest version) with your sisters.  I marveled how I have loved this story since I read the book as a child, and now God has given me my own brood of little women.  In the story, one of the sisters goes on to heaven before the others.  She isn’t afraid, but says she gets to have the adventure first.  I couldn’t help but think of you.  The morning after she died they sprinkle red rose petals over her dolls, and her sisters are cloaked in grief.  Although I am sad that your sisters will not meet you until heaven, I am thankful that their little hearts are spared this grief for now.  A grace disguised.  

We have been in a “trap down” here as your baby sister Eliana calls it so there has been a lot more movie watching lately.  I finally watched Miracles from Heaven last week because your sisters begged me to.  It’s a true story about a girl dying from a painful intestinal disease who gets a miracle and an experience in heaven in the midst of what should have been a deadly accident.  I cried literally the entire movie.  When the little girl followed the butterfuly into the beautiful, peaceful place where she wasn’t afraid,  my heart was touched imagining what this must have been like for you.  Although I wish God had sent you back to earth as well, watching all the months of pain that sick, little girl endured made me thankful that for you heaven was only a fragile breath away.  There was no suffering but only a quick step into eternity and God’s arms.  A grace disguised.

This year a new fear has broken out on the earth.  A sneaky sickness that can be merely a cold or a fatal illness that causes people to die alone.  It seems sad and scary that people must face death alone, but the truth is all of us take our last breath and stand before God alone.  Not one of us can even go with our precious children or parents or spouses and hold their hands as they step into eternity.  Nor will they come with us.  There is only One who has looked death in the eye and defeated it.  Only One who promises that nothing can seperate us from His love.  Only One that I have discovered can breath life back into our dead hearts and resurrect us from the deepest grief.  Although He holds all children in His hands, I am grateful that you knew Him here on earth before that day.  One time in a worship service where Bill Johnson was speaking, I thought you were sleeping on the pew behind me when suddenly I felt a little tap on my arm.  The presence of God was so thick in that place, and you leaned up to my ear and whispered, “Mama, I can’t wait to see Jesus with my real eyes!”  I honestly can’t even count how many times you said this to me in your four short years.  Your little heart had already tasted heaven.  A grace disguised.

So today on your 14th birthday, I wish I was buying you lip gloss and painting your nails.  I wish I could see your 14 year old face and wonder if you would be tall enough to stand eye to eye with me now.  But instead I wil count the graces and hold fast to the hope that the day will come.  It is deferred but not destroyed.  Delayed but not denied.  The miraculous peace I hold in my heart is the proof that one day I will again hold you, sweet Makiah.  A grace disguised.

Happy 14th birthday sweetheart!

Love all ways always,
Mommy



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