Greetings from Austin Street

Happy Monday! This day on the calendar will always be difficult. As I remember the moments of this day five years ago I remember thinking about the day Casey was born. I remember the instant labor began I looked at the clock and thought today my baby will be born. On this day five years ago I remember similar thoughts but in the opposite direction. Casey’s life began to slip away and I remember thinking that sometime today my child will die. Those are thoughts no mother should ever have to think. Pastor Joel told me, “Gaylene, you now belong to a club that should not gain any more members.” He was right. I remember thinking how blessed I was to have been there when that precious child took his first breaths and to be just as blessed to be present and holding his hand when he took his last. But Casey was just where he wanted to be; in the middle of his family. Once when he was little and lost a tooth he came running into our room in the middle of the night yelling, “Mama, Mama I lost my tooth. (and without taking a breath said) Can I get in the middle?” The place Casey loved the most was in the midst of his family. God gave us the gift of being able to spend every day of the last year of Casey’s life with him.  Casey was not restored to wellness, but he was most certainly healed.  God is good and love, God’s perfect love wins.

Lord, it is not always easy to praise you when the tears of loss flow, but You are able to take our pain and turn it into a place to praise you. You understand the depth of grief and pain over the losses your earthly children experience because You lost Your Son too.  I can never be thankful for the loss of my son. But I am thankful for his life, the daily love and joy he brought to me and the life of Christ that was and is now within him forever. In Jesus name, Amen.

“And He said, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Exodus 33: 14