Follow Through with Brandi's Journal entry

Dear friends,

I have not been here in a while...some of that is good, in that the time we had that I talked about in January was a sweet, sad, wonderful gathering.  It was what I had hoped for...and I think it helped me turn another corner in this - there is not just one, but many corners to turn, but I realized a few days later that I have been ready to take some new steps of establishing and figuring out life together without Brandi.

I did want to follow up and post what I had promised but didn't.  This is something I found in Brandi's journals that she wrote just weeks before she died:

December 12, 2014

I didn’t even read any of the John and Betty Stam biography today, but I did get to reflect on it some.  I am thankful for how it is helping me think properly about life and death.  I know that my life is not my own, it has been bought with a price and I have willingly given it to my Lord.  I think I struggle because cancer feels different than laying it down as a martyr (though, I am I really as brave as I hope I would be?).  It feels like it is being taken for no good reason.  And yet I know that God is sovereign. Nothing happens, no life is taken by murderers or sickness, that is outside of Your control or Your ability to stop or change it.  You are writing the story (STORY) that you are writing and it is bigger than my little piece.  And yet you love my little piece, too.  You love me.  And Lord, again, I bow before you and say that you are worthy – your ways, your thoughts, higher than mine.  Help me to trust.  I’ve also been thinking about a “normal” life.  And thinking that I’m not sure “normal” is what this life is meant for.  There are wonderful ordinary moments.  But I think “normal” for here is meant to be poured out, sacrificial, laid down.  The normal I crave here and so often strive after is maybe the normal that comes later – when all the wrongs are made right and the tears are wiped away to be no more and we finally rest together.  “He is no fool who give sup what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  I have so many doubts and fears – but what I know and believe:  you are good, you are worthy.  And that you have the words of eternal life.  Where else would I go?

Words that brought tears but smiles of remembrance, of her faith, her transparency, her humility, her clinging to Christ.  I miss her.

Matt