Update #96 - by Chad Rush

It's been 3 weeks since Kristie met Jesus face to face.
I think a lot more about Heaven now than I used to.  I guess it is much more real to me now.
It's been 3 weeks of beginning the new normal.  The days have gone by fast; the nights not so much.
Week 1 was very busy; many people helping out; many details to attend to.
Week 2 was Easter break.  Emilie and Daniel had off from school.  We enjoyed just being together as a family.  They are both doing well.
Week 3 is underway.  This is the week that I would be alone.  House in order...kids in school...alone.

You see, I have thought about and shared with some, that this week, week 3, 2 weeks after Kristie's passing, would be the time that I would wrestle this out with God.

Living life with Kristie; loving her was amazing.
Even over the past year when things got much more difficult and complex, this remained true.
We lived together with such an expectancy for God; for who He was; for what He was doing; to hear Him speak.  Yes, we lived with great anticipation, for God was on the move.
On March 21st, we celebrated her spiritual birthday into eternity.
And we did this well!
God remained good, but so many questions were unresolved.
So yes, this was the week that I would have time to be alone with Him.  Alone to pray.  Alone to cry.  Alone with my questions.  ...alone.

But week 3 arrived differently than I had thought.
A little more than a week ago, a strange thing happened.  I began to realize what I had been saying - who was I to wrestle with God?
I mean, don't get me wrong, my world was rocked and I really wanted to better understand what just happened.
Forgive me God for me wanting to wrestle this out with You.  I know it is me and not You who doesn't understand.
My greatest desire remains You, God.  Lead me to a higher relationship with You.
It was then that I came to realize that it was not me wrestling with God, but that it was He who was initiating with me!  It was He who was asking me this question:
"Were you seeking Me for what I would do for you?  Or were you seeking Me for Me?"
My answer was "both".
I am beginning to understand that if I only see God for what He has done, or can do for me, then He is not big enough.  Then He is not the God of the Bible.

In my quiet time with God yesterday, I read Genesis 32:22-30.

"That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.  So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."  But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."  The man asked him, "What is your name?"  "Jacob," he answered.  Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."  Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."  But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?"  Then he blessed him there.  So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Wow!

It was God who wrestled with Jacob.  He was the initiator.  At first glance it may look lie Jacob was trying to force a blessing from God, but read it again.  God fought with Jacob all night, and when daylight came, Jacob looked up and God said, "All right, I have tried.  I am leaving."  "If you don't want my best for you, I'll leave."

I think Jacob must have panicked.  Perhaps for the first time, he saw the value of God and God alone.  He became desperate to stay in His presence and he sought His blessing.
To see the value of God, and of God alone.
This is a tough battle!
How many of us face hard, hard situations.  The death of one we love.  The failure of a relationship.  Hard questions that don't seem to have answers that satisfy us the way we want them, or need them to.

...and the battle line is drawn.  Right down the center of our hearts and our will.

Here is the question:

Am I willing, like Jacob, to be broken by Him?  To live broken for Him?
A broken vessel, being held together by the grip of His hands; filled with His presence; standing in His strength.
We must allow Him to break us so he can make us into conquerors, overcomes, mighty warriors for Him.
That is what I want.
That is what real faith is.
You see, faith is not an intellectual understanding; faith is a deliberate commitment to the Person of Jesus Christ, even when I can't see the way ahead.

I am all in.
Today, tomorrow, for as long as He has for me, until that day when i see Him and Kristie, face to face.

So how am I doing?
He is pulling me forward into a deeper relationship with Him.
Forward to grasp a much larger, grander vision of Him, of Heaven and of His future.
Forward to a deeper faith, a higher hope and a new kind of love.
Forward to a new ground...like Jacob, limping perhaps...but to a higher ground.

How about you?

Update #95 - by Danielle Kader

The day before Kristie went to Heaven I sat around her bed with Chad and their friends Bryan, Kara and Trevor, who also happen to lead worship at their church. They had come that day because in a matter of thirty minutes Bryan and Trevor had written a song for Kristie.  They came as I was about to leave and when she opened her eyes and saw them she said to me, “Don’t you dare leave.” And so, as I had done many times before, I listened to Kristie.

They sang over her (to listen to Kristie's Song click here). We sang over her. Kara prayed over her.  We prayed over her. And we all cried. When the singing was done, Kristie, frail and thin, not able to speak well, strength almost gone, looked at Kara and told her to trade places with Chad, so that Chad would be right next to her. I thought to myself and giggled inside how even though she was weak she was still bossy. Then she told Bryan to switch places with me. We obeyed. And once next to her, she turned her head toward me; eyes still closed, and asked me to tell the story of her daughter, Emilie’s adoption. I looked at Chad a little befuddled, because I wasn’t there. But Kristie insisted saying I had heard the story so many times.

Chad told the story and every now and then Kristie would inject a detail. One of those details was when they picked a name they decided to spell it with an “ie” versus the traditional “y”.  We laughed at some of the problems that causes, like never being able to find a license plate for your bicycle with your name spelled on it.

There was something about this story we were missing and I could sense a slight restlessness about Kristie because of it. Then she said, I’m going to write a book titled, It’s All About the E. I said, “Emilie will always have a piece of you because she has your ie.”  Kristie sat up (as much as she could) and turned her head to look at me, with eyes open wide. Then she lay back down.

See, Emilie and Daniel are adopted. They don’t look like Kristie and Chad. When they were naming Emilie Kristie knew that she would have Chad’s last name and she wanted Em to have a piece of her, hence the spelling of her name, Kristie with an “ie” and Emilie with an “ie”.

Emilie will always have a piece of Kristie. Because of the spelling of her name, but also because for 13 years of her life she has had a mom fully invested in her who loved her well, taught her, and poured into her.

But as I thought about Kristie’s book title I thought about how all who have known her, and even some who don’t, have a piece of her.  Her influence, because she loved Jesus and loved others well, has impacted people. So, it’s all about the “E”. The “E” is what she imprinted on our souls with the way she lived and the way she loved and the way she gave generously.  And even after she left this earth and has gone to Heaven, people are still being impacted.

My story speaks to Kristie’s story and points to God’s story. He is the Author.  My story is a piece of a greater whole. Weave all of these stories together and it starts to get exciting. But still, all point to a greater, wilder, adventure story that the Author is writing. And the stories point to the Author.

The Author is still writing. He is writing His story in your life and in the lives of those around you. God is alive! God is speaking! God is on the move!

Share your story. Email it to chadrush27@gmail.com And please know, this blog will continue. In Kristie’s memory but for Christ’s name, because her story speaks to the greater story that is still being written!

To close I want to share the lyrics that a friend of mine wrote who is in Kristie’s Wednesday night women’s Bible study. May they touch your heart as they do mine.  Remember, there is a better story.  There is an Author. And HE LOVES YOU!

Better Story by Beth Hogenmiller

You write a better story

Better than I could pen

You write a better story

Better than anyone

You are the author

You’ve written all my days

You know each battle that I will face

You come to fight for me, to save me, and win

For You win in life, You win in death

You win right now

You win in the end

You win in death, You win in life

You win right now and in the end

You write lines that make the poets leap

You write songs that swell the seas

You write prose that keeps us on our toes

You wrote down how You treasure me

And You wrote my name

In Your Book of Life

You engraved my name on Your hand

You wrote my days before the world began

Made me a part of Your Greatest Plan

You win in life, You win in death

You win right now

You win in the end

You win in death, You win in life

You win right now and in the end

Take my dim and dreary dreams

Trade them for Your own

Erase my fierce and selfish pride

That I may kneel before Your throne

Burn my pages gingerly

Pry them from my grasp

Replace them with Your artistry

And make my hope be You, at last

Update #....66

You know you're way overdue sending out an update when you go to type "Update #…" and you cannot for the life of you remember what number you're on.   

And then…when you look back and realize you're on Update #66 (66!), you immediately start to feel super sorry for all the people who will be, once again, opening this email or clicking on this post and reading it! 

In fact, I'm thinking I should send probably send these out with that "unsubscribe" option that other mass email senders give you. Because, when I put myself in your shoes and realize that some of you NEVER signed up to be on a 3+ year email distribution list, I actually laugh at the absurdity of it.  Because you and I both know that there's no great way of asking to be taken off this distribution list.  Although I'm being honest when I tell you that I'm totally cool with you requesting to be removed, I can't imagine (when I put myself in your shoes) what it would be like to send me that request.  

Yes, I'm laughing.  How awkward for you!  I guess you're stuck…unless you're very, very brave! 

Suckers.

____________

So, I'm actually typing this at 36,000 feet as I'm headed to a MOPS board meeting in Denver.  

I love to fly. 

I absolutely love it.

There was a time about 14 years ago when I started to get fearful of flying.  

And then I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer (1st time).

And I realized that the worst thing that could happen to me on a plane would be a far less painful and a far more newsworthy event than dying of cancer.

When I compared the worst that could happen on a plane with the worst that could happen in a cancer hospital, my fear of flying dissipated. 

Perspective changes everything, doesn't it?

Yesterday I started a new Bible study with my Tuesday morning Bible study girls.  

We're taking on the joy of studying what the Bible says about Heaven. 

And we're taking on the challenge of studying what the Bible says about Hell.

As you can imagine, this will be a fun semester (when we're studying Heaven) and a terribly difficult semester (when we're studying Hell). 

Although I can't predict all that we'll learn, one thing of which I am sure:  it, too, will be a perspective shifter.

Because in the past year, as I've been pursuing a deeper understanding of what God says about Heaven, my expectations for this side of life are changing. 

And that's a hard thing to come to grips with.

But it's a good thing.

A really, really good thing.

There's a popular saying (and you all know by now that I'm not a fan of simplifying statements that would fit on refrigerator magnets) that says that life isn't really about the date you were born or the date you die, but life is all about what you do with the dash; you know, that little character "-" that represents the number of years you live on earth.  

I don't disagree that what you do with that dash is far more important than how long that dash represents. 

But what I'm coming to greatly appreciate is that that dash is not synonymous with life.

While it's synonymous with life on earth, it's not even close to being synonymous with eternal life in Heaven.

Life on Earth, according to the Psalms, is just a breath when you compare it to life in Heaven.

One breath.

That's short.

Don't believe me?  

In reading this email, you've probably taken about 28 breaths.

28. 

Hmm….

Yikes; this is a heavy email, isn't it? 

Again, do you wish you could "unsubscribe"?

I get it.

For some of you, Heaven may sound like a fanciful, fairytale, pipe-dream kind of thing.  The stuff that Disney created and something flimsy and unreliable at best.  Heaven for you may be a "no way am I putting any of my eggs in that basket" kind of thing.

For others of you, my growing understanding of, and anticipation for, Heaven falls squarely into the basic of all basic truth.  Of course there's a Heaven. Of course knowing about it and living for it changes everything. This email for you is, to use my 1980's intellectual term, is a "no duh" kind of a thing.

But for others (and this is where I've been) Heaven may be something that you've loosely been thankful for, but hasn't really had much bearing on your day-to-day choices. Certainly not something that has made a day-to-day difference in bringing comfort, joy, hope or peace.  

If you're in this last category, then I hope you, like me, are encouraged  to pursue a deeper understanding of Heaven by something Randy Alcorn says in his book, Heaven. He says, "How can we set our hearts on Heaven when we have an impoverished theology of Heaven?"  

An impoverished view of Heaven.

I don't want that anymore.

Because an impoverished view of Heaven offers no hope against cancer.  

An impoverished view of Heaven offers no hope against the difficulties of living out uncertainties.  

An impoverished view of Heaven offers no hope against the wonderings and worries that come with thinking that life is all about the "dash". 

So, my friends, as I'm flying over the twinkling lights of some city thousands of miles below me, my hope for all of us is that we have ears to hear, eyes to see, a mind to imagine and a Spirit to trust in the One who makes Heaven a reality. 

With love,

Kristie

P.S.  If you get this email, you'll know I landed safely in Denver.  :)

P.P.S. And, a safe landing means that I (pending another safe landing on my way home!) I go to Roswell on Wednesday (1/22) to talk to my doctor about other treatment options.  This old body is feeling more and more bone discomfort.   Yeehaw.