Celebrating Quinn's Life, Year 5

We sang a song at church by Elevation worship a few weeks ago called "Resurrecting" that has really been on repeat in my head ever since. I keep coming back to the powerful lyric, "The resurrected king, is resurrecting me." I think the reason that I liked it so much is because it really resonates with me this year. There was a time in life not too long ago when I felt as if I were in the wilderness. I was in a dark place,the desert of life if you will. These 40 days of Lenton season has really made me appreciate the 40 years that the Israelites were in the desert and the 40 days that Jesus was in the wilderness. But I feel like God has slowly brought be out of that season and ushered me into a new season. A season of coming alive again. He is resurrecting this life that I thought I had lost and putting a new song in my heart. I love this perspective by Cynthia Occelli when she says, "For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction." Well, my shell broke, you all read my insides coming out as I poured out my heart and soul on these pages, and my life felt like complete destruction, and yet I can finally feel new growth, I can feel my life breaking through that dark soil into the light and it is miraculous. Something that only someone who has been there would know. What a beautiful picture in this Easter season of my resurrected king, resurrecting this life that seemed impossible of restoration.

You see the root of this Easter story is that Christ didn't stay dead. For a very long time I believed that trusting God, meant trusting that nothing bad was going to happen. If I trust Him with my child it means I trust that He will keep him/her safe. When my child has something happen to them, then that trust is dashed. But I am beginning to see that I am trusting the wrong thing. The Easter story is revealing to me that one of the greatest miracles in the Bible is the resurrection of Christ and the same God who rose Christ from the depths of despair is the same God we serve. Our trust should not be in this life being perfect, our trust should be that no matter how dark life gets that we serve a God of resurrection. "Joys are always on their way to us," writes Amy Carmichael. "They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming."

March 12th is this Sunday and if you knew where I was at 4 years ago on this date and could see the healing that has taken place in those 4 years you would say it is miraculous. You would join me in agreeance that the resurrected king is resurrected me. In years past, doing random acts of kindness on Quinn's birthday were as much to get me through the day as they were to celebrate Quinn's life. Tim and I were talking the other day and we both agreed that this year the random acts of kindness will simply be to honor her and her life, we don't need them to get through this day anymore. You will never hear me say that I don't wish we were really celebrating Quinn's birthday with our blonde haired,  blue eyed, 5 year old, you will never hear me say that what happened was ok, but if you listen close enough to the beating of my heart you will hear that it is well with my soul and I have come to peace with my life. And that faint peace flowing through my veins is a miracle that resonates with the Easter story. I tell you this because I don't know where you are at in life or what this life has in store for you, but I can personally tell you that I serve a Christ who didn't stay in the grave and will continue to, "raise you from the ashes of defeat."

I say all of this to catch you up as to where we are in year five. We still would be more than honored for you to join us again this year in celebrating Quinn's life and keeping her memory alive through random acts of kindness. Whether we are in a dark place or a place of celebration, it still continues to humble us as a family to hear that Quinn's life is not forgotten and that because she lived people were blessed. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. You will never know how much your acts big and small mean to us as a family.