BEAUTY WILL RISE

Today was my first day back at work.  This morning while getting ready, I was thinking about how we would have to wake up Emma-Grace for school each day.  She was my snuggle bug and always wanted to stay up as long as you would let her each night.  She loved to be rocked and read to. In turn she was also the one who didn't want to get up each morning (unless of course it was Saturday, then she would bound out of bed).  We would take turns saying, " time to get up Emma-Grace- wakey wakey, eggs and bakey".
  
Later on the way to work I was thinking about Emma-Grace being a "night owl" and a morning "sleepy head".  Then I was imagining what it would feel like to wake up in heaven.  The day after she got sick, Emma was put into a medically induced coma to stop her seizures.  During her illness she had a few days when they tried to let her wake up, but her seizures would restart soon after they started turning the medication down.   Fairly quickly they would start increasing the medication again and she would be back into the coma.  So overall she was in a deep sleep for the 3 months prior to her death. It is a blessing to know that the second her little body quit working she awoke in heaven.  Isn't that a beautiful picture?


 I heard a song by Steven Curtis Chapman today that says:
 "Out of these ashes... beauty will rise
and we will dance among the ruins
We will see Him with our own eyes
Out of this darkness... new life will shine
and we'll know the joy is coming in the morning...
in the morning...beauty will rise!"

It was a reminder to me that even though these past few months have been difficult, God has good planned from this.  It is hard for me to understand how God can bring good from the death of a child.  But I have been amazed how this little girl has touched so many lives.  Many of which had not even met her.

In Mary Beth Chapman's book "Choosing to SEE" she tells about the death of her little girl Maria Sue, who was adopted from China.  In the book Mary Beth’s son Caleb talks about how sometimes things are hard to understand.  He compared their experience to how we look at a painting, a huge mural, and if we're standing too close, it makes no sense. As we move it back further and further, the picture becomes clearer and clearer.
 
While here on earth we may never completely understand why Emma-Grace is no longer here with us.   I believe as time goes on we will see God work from this situation.  Our family's prayer is that God will use this terrible event in our life for His good.  As Steven Curtis Chapman sings, "Out of these ashes...beauty will rise.  We believe that to be true.

you tube: "Beauty Will Rise" by Steven Curtis Chapman

" Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."Hebrews 11:1