fearfully and wonderfully.featured
Our sweet Rachael passed on Sunday, July 2 after a sudden decline in the last week. In a time when it’s hard to find words to make sense of this tragedy, we know Rachael would have wanted you all to hear from her, one last time. These words are her own, drafted as what seemed to be her final post she hoped to share with you all. It’s unfinished, which is representative in itself of her time that was cut far too short. We love our sister, daughter, wife, mother, niece, aunt, godmother, friend, forever loved one, and we hope these written words can help us all find peace in the face of such a major loss. We know they were the words that gave her peace at the end of the day. Forever loved, forever by our side. We love you, Rae.❤️
“I have prayed for healing. I have asked many others to pray for my healing. I have grieved and cursed and begged for the removal of this cross more times than I can count.
Every atom of my body screams out to live. Every grief stricken night imagining leaving my husband and children begs for the mercy of complete healing.
And yet, from the moment of my diagnosis I have felt deep in my soul that this cross will the one that carries me all the way to His.
Because it is a cross I can bear.
In every excruciating moment. In waves of overwhelming grief. In debilitating pain. I can sing His praise and attest to His mercy.
I can witness His faithfulness in the jarring reality of my own death. In the accursed tearing apart of our young family.
I see the God who does not will my death. Who mourns our brokenness. Who weeps alongside us in our pain. Who holds and hides us in His sacred heart. Who wills our healing and return to the fullness of love we were created to live.
My healing from cancer would be a tremendous witness to His power and mercy. Like little James, it would make a great story.
Witnessing to His love and praising Him when the healing doesn’t come is perhaps the story my life is called to write. And if it is, I pray for the grace to write it in a way that lasts for generations. To be a part of making all things new by revealing His face.
Because the story I can write is not one of an unknowable God whose will is temperamental. He is not a God who designs my death and might, with the intercession of his most faithful saints, pull a last minute trick to save me.
The story I can write is about the God of wonder. Whose creation, even in its broken, damaged reality, still teems with delight and beauty.
The story I can write is the God who watches the fascination of a little girl at the tiniest, most intricate movements and details of the world around her and calls her mind back to their creator.
The story I can write is the God of tall magnolia trees, swinging hammocks, snapping green beans, and sweltering summer heat.
The God of vibrant leaves, harvested fields, and the cool of the first autumn breeze as the world is gently rocked to sleep.
The God of sparkling snow and blistering cold, cozy blankets and coveted heat vents curling up with a new book.
The God of melting snow and emerging green, first tulips, and the world bursting once again to vibrancy and growth.”
