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A Resurrection

Makiah's Daddy says bedtime prayers with her the same as every night.   Sun beating on our backs.  He names each family member in the order that she likes.  Tears and names intermingle with sobs barely suppressed.  He prayers for her his daily special requests.  Words straining to reach the throne room but seeming instead to drop like weighty rocks into hard, uncaring earth that has just been dug.  Her Daddy sings Jesus Loves Me just like every night.  Voice cracking.  Faltering.  The people have all gone except a few who stand in waiting.  He finishes... "the Bible tells me so."  Kisses her good night.   Tiny, pink roses and  delicate petals all around.  I lean down and press quivering lips into the dainty pink smocking across her chest.  As if to kiss her heart again.  One last time.  Before they close the little, white box forever.  Before we drive away.  Just the two of us.

And it seems that all fairy tales are lies.  That my wistful, childhood dreaming of a life that ends with happily ever after are being sealed up in that little box with red clay piled up on top.  We kissed the princess, but she did not wake up.   At least not yet.

As I sit here now, typing, the seconds and minutes of our final goodbye at the grave-site are etched in my memory as clear as glass.  But I read that I see through the glass but dimly.  When the blackness of despair creeps in and covers over my eyes lately, I push back with a thought.  Words penned to me in a card after she died.  "There is a Resurrection!"  I say it out loud.  "There is a Resurrection!"  I say it again, and courage begins to rise.  "There is a Resurrection!"   Despair shrinks back and hope fills the foggy mirror of my view instead. 

Last year on Easter I wrote that Jesus tomb is empty and so is Makiah's room.  Tomorrow is Easter again, and I can't help but notice it falls exactly 18 months from her heaven day.  It has been a year and a half  since she went home to be with Him.  But this year I can write that Jesus tomb is empty and so will Makiah's be!  The princess will indeed arise... as will all of us who have "... fallen asleep in Christ!"  It is my hope.  It is my lifeline.  It pushes back the dark thoughts now.  But one day it will push back the dark decay of Death once and for all!  There is a Resurrection!


"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."  1 Corinthians 13:12

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