Birthdays and Celebrations in Heaven

Today Jess, "The Jester", would be eight years old. As with each birthday and anniversary, I asked God to help me honor this special day. When I awoke this morning there was a gift from Rome, an emailed prayer, awaiting me. Longing to be here to be with me on this day, as a special gift, Mike wrote this prayer, an outpouring of his heart. He did not write it for the blog, he wrote it for me, for Jess, for Mycol and Austin, but with his permission, I am sharing this very personal, very precious gift:

Dear Lord,

Would you please tell Jessie Happy Birthday for her Mother and I. We want her to know we miss her and love her. We long for and cannot wait until that glorious day in which her Mommy gets to hold her once again. I long for that day in which I get to meet her for the first time, the little adventurer. We are planning a Birthday celebration for her in our hearts and wanted her to know how much she means to us.

Separation is so difficult and we do not understand why except that in the end, you Father, will be glorified by it all. It does not mean we won't hurt, it does not mean we won't suffer, it only mean that we are allowed to have a deeper relationship with you and your Son, Christ Jesus. We know Jessie was so excited to meet him and we also know he was excited to meet her just the same. We know she is safe, in his care, but still miss her. Tell her we will be there when our time of service here on Earth is through, however long that is.

I can see her a far off, as she sees her Mother, and she will come running with wide open arms screaming gleefully at the top of her lungs "Mommy" and Linda will have tears of joy on her face as she runs so fast she is out of breath and they embrace, to the point where you cannot tell one from the other. And then Jessie will take Linda by the hand and pull her along to meet her very special friend that she dearly loves, Jesus. There she will find not only Christ, but Mycol and Austin both beaming with joy to see her. There she will once again be reunited with her family at long last. And they will all be joined by other family members. Members of the family of God. What a glorious day that will be Lord.

So please pass our Birthday wishes on to Jessie and tell Mycol and Austin we love them and miss them too. We ask these things in your Son Jesus' Holy Name.

Amen

*********************************************************************************** It was sometime last week I received an email inviting family members to attend the baptism of Chase, the eleven-year-old son of one of Mycol's cousins. My initial thought was I'm not going to let anything interfere with my Jessie Day. But as the week went on, the Holy Spirit reminded me that with each soul who accepts God's offer of eternal life there is rejoicing in Heaven; Jessie is celebrating in Heaven with Jesus, her cousin has committed his life to Christ. While we cannot celebrate her birthday in the way we would like to, on the celebration of her earthly birthday she is celebrating in Heaven. And what better way to celebrate with her? I can picture her leading the angels in rejoicing, holding hands with Jesus, excited because she knows what it all means, what Chase's decision means.

The above photo was taken during Chase's baptism. Although I don't have the best camera for distance, I'm sure you get the point.