Since my hip operation last October I haven’t been able to – nor was I inspired to write an article of Encouragement. However, now that I am completely recovered it was on the 16th of February I received inspiration from Jesus – so here is the fruit of that inspiration and may you be blessed and Jesus glorified with what you read. Syb.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm. Psalm 20:7-8
On this sixteenth day of February in 2015, around six in the evening, Jesus took my daughter, her Lord and Saviour, home. Into the Sonshine’s heavenly arms Karen went leaving her pain, toils and troubles of this earthly life behind forever. The hymn . . .
O how wonderful
O how marvelous
Is my Saviors love for me
comes to my mind right now but was far from me as I wailed and mourned the loss of my daughter. Another victim of the cancer plague.
It was pain filled emptiness that threatened to swallow me heart and soul. Regrets of not having done enough for her the last five weeks came flooding into my mind with a force that only can be attributed to Satanic lies as he ground his teeth at the loss of another soul to Jesus.
In our minds, parents are suppose to die first not our children. However, that isn’t the reality of life on earth. Looking back I see how Christ carried me through just as He had done five years earlier when He took my husband home. The bible tells us earth is not our home that heaven is our eternal home when we accept Jesus as our Saviour.
This gives comfort to me as knowing my daughter and my husband invited Jesus into their hearts gave me the peace I was now needing.
Karen was a breath of fresh air to be around and the colour of sunshine with her beautiful long red hair, happy laughter, smiling face, a soft heart with a loving kind soul.
Karen was gifted with an abundance of creativity and artistic talents which she used with determination to bring beauty to a sometimes austere landscape.
She was schooled in Interior Design and began her career designing homes and kitchens and often painting whole bedroom walls with scenes requested by her clients. I have a beautiful painting hanging in my livingroom she did of a sunset over an ocean shoreline. There are no obvious blues but reds, golds, burgundy and whites with the sun setting over the ocean waves.
Karen was in her forties when she discovered stone carving which she loved and developed with a passion selling them in Art shops, Shows in Galleries, Museums and Stone Carving exhibitions.
I found it amazing that she could look at a piece of stone no matter its size or shape, colour or drabness, soapstone or marble and see what God had hidden away inside. She would then work away taking away the dross and in time, out came a beautiful creation. O how wonderful – O how marvelous as she used the many gifts God had bestowed upon her.
I liken this to when we first come to Christ and how He transforms us from our grotesque sinful shape; filthy and colourless inside and out; drabness of spirit and soul; with a heart that is often stone cold.
Because of Jesus great love for us He begins taking away the dross which often takes many years of chiseling, grinding and sanding, but slowly and patiently He carves it away. Often we take two steps forward and three steps back until He takes us home polished and beautiful.
As He carves away on me sometimes I’m soft like soapstone and other times He needs heavier tools to chip away the hard marble.
He never gives up though or lets any of His children go, but just keeps carving and burnishing away as needed until … I am like I envision the way Karen is now – perfectly formed and the colour of Sonshine.
This Soapstone carving of Karen’s is of her son and she named it – “A Son’s Prayer” and is in her book ‘The Images Within’.