Good morning…
A few days back, a sobering announcement came into my blog email. It took away my breath and brought me to tears.
Your list has lost a subscriber: Julie Harlan.
I thought to myself, “What an understatement. We have lost much more than a subscriber.” Julie was a devoted wife and mother, a beloved daughter and friend, a trustworthy co-worker and spiritual mentor. At her core, she was a flamboyant follower of Christ who is deeply, deeply missed.
Then yesterday, a sobering announcement came in from the church.
Sympathy
Northside Church extends its deepest
sympathy to the family and friends of
Julia (Julie) Muir Harlan,
who passed away on Sunday, April 2, 2017.
Memorial Service
The Memorial Service will be at
Northside Church in the Sanctuary
on Saturday, April 8, 2017
at 11:00AM.
Sad. Sudden. Sobering.
A quote we read in class this semester comes to my mind and ministers to me. Recalling a difficult ending, our author writes: “When it came time to leave, I didn’t want to go I remember telling God how much I wanted this graced time to continue. And then it felt as though these thoughts came across to me in prayer: ‘Walk on with empty hands, because I have so much more I want to give you in the future, and you can’t receive it if your hands are full. Don’t be afraid that in letting go you are losing anything at all, because everything that matters, from this graced time of encounter, or from any other experience in your life, has been internalized and is firmly lodged in your heart. It is yours. It is a part of you. It travels with you and can never be lost.'”
“That was a real moment of truth for me. When you realize that all those experiences and encounters that lie in the past are not lost but have been absorbed into the heart of who you are, you find a new freedom to move forward. We internalize what matters. We let go of what doesn’t matter, just as our own bodies absorb all that is good and life-giving from what we feed them and let go of the waste…The truth is…that the past is already ours. Nothing can take from us the gift of all that our past has given us. We can’t lose it, and it will play a crucial part in shaping our future.” (Margaret Silf’s The Other Side of Chaos, p. 121-122)
A new awareness dawns. Julie is a blog subscriber and friend, a daughter and mentor, a wife and a mother who will never be lost, who will play a crucial part in the shaping of our future.
God’s love is meteoric, his loyalty astronomic, His purpose titanic, his verdicts oceanic. Yet in his largeness nothing gets lost; Not a man, not a mouse, slips through the cracks (Psalm 36:5-6, MSG).
…Sue…
