thank you....

thank you, sweet sydney for your life that has taught me more than anything else about the character of our God.

thank you for teaching me that life is for the living and that God is sovereign.

before you came into my life, into my heart....i knew a much different God. my perspective on life and things of God were very selfish and skewed. i truly believed that my acceptance of the Cross had special powers it seems, to protect me from hardships and suffering....i don't think i really believed that, theologically...but my heart thought otherwise....it was guarded with legalism and good deeds and faith...all those things seem to artificially cover my heart and tell me that i was safe. i knew grace. i understood what the Cross meant. it saved me. from my past, from my sin. but until true-blue-suffering came to my doorstep dressed up and cloaked in the sadness of your passing, i don't think i realized that the resurrection power of the Cross also served to sustain me. from heartache now and in the future. to be my Lighthouse that would constantly point me back to Home....where you are now, where i will be someday. before you came to be, i prayed selfishly for my will in my mind to be done as my lips prayed for God's will to be done as well. my mind knew the words to say, but my heart never got past the bad translation.

after you died, my eyes were opened. your life and death opened up a whole other layer to God's character for me. at first, i will be the first to admit i was too angry and bitter to SEE....but because of God's grace, he soon allowed the scabs of the wounds your absence left, to heal a small bit, enough to let me SEE He was there all along....the more i looked at the Cross and what His resurrection meant, the more i realized how little this life here on earth is compared to that. even in my blinding grief, that had no boundaries or geography...i found myself wanting and needing MORE of my God to sustain me and less and less of me needing to have answers. i slowly fell in love with a sovereign God. the one who holds you in His very arms this minute.

thank you for teaching your momma so much..with your life, with your death and aching absence. and with the legacy i know you left so beautifully for all to see.

thank you, God...for allowing my eyes to see, my heart to open and for picking me to be this beautiful girl's mommy.