When stuff breaks

I have this platter that is one of my absolute favorite things ever. It was a wedding present from a friend of my in laws—a generous and kind spirit who I don’t know very well but admire from afar. The kind of woman you want to be like when you grow up. The platter looks like a piece of lace in the best-ever grandma chic kind of way. I was hope-hope-hoping to get it off my registry. It lends class to anything that is blessed to grace its top. I love to put something banal on it—like a lil’ smokie. {Though it also looks good with thick slices of Ina’s beef tenderloin but who wants to tie one of those up again…I may be a baker but I am neither butcher nor candlestick maker…}

One day this platter will break and I will cry. Probably the ugly kind. {We’re approaching 10 years of marriage…that platter has held a lot of lil’ smokies.} I will cry because I love it and it’s perfect for all occasion of parties and also because it will probably have half a batch of lil’ smokies on it when it comes crashing down…but I will really cry for another reason. I will cry because it will remind me that stuff breaks, life is short, and short lifes break.

We try to talk about heaven around here, but I’ve documented that my efforts haven’t been exactly…err…successful. Bitty E still tells me that she doesn’t believe it exists. {In case you’re wondering, that one is passive and laid-back, un-opinionated, and accepting of what we tell her, except none of those things at all.}

I wonder at how I can keep her from scraped knees.

I wonder at how I can keep her from heartbreak until she’s at least 30.

I wonder at my folly that I want her to know the Man of Sorrows all the while praying that she won’t have to feel loss or hurt or pain.

I want her to know the promises for the day when she really needs them: the day when she has to say goodbye to someone she loves deep.

{Whoa, it just got way serious up in here.}

Please don’t get the idea that I do this with any level of grace. I stammer and stumble and second guess my way across any conversation with her that involves any shadow of death…which is why I’m so glad Anne Riley and Amy Grimes wrote this book, Voyage to the Star Kingdom.

These are some words.

When our copy arrived in the mail on Friday bitty E immediately asked me to read it to her, and then when I finished she asked me to read it all over again. Oh how I hope we won’t, but if we need these words while they’re still bitty, this is the vocabulary of death I want us to have. This is the imagery of heaven I want them to connect with now.

So, if you have a bitty {or if you’re a bitty at heart, for that matter} and death has drawn near, can I recommend this? Because I do. Most heartily.

You can buy it here. All profits from the book’s sales will go to a trust fund that has been set up for the family who inspired the story.

Well done, Anne Riley. Well done, Amy Grimes. And prayers and love and heartache over the sweet family you wrote this for. One whisper, one hope: Jesus, the Star King.

 

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:3-5

 

And if you’d like to see more from these talented ladies, Anne blogs about writing here, and you can see more of Amy’s art here.