Mikell's Heaven Day 2013 - A great filter!

It's been 5 years since Mikell left us to transition to his new life in heaven.  It's been a great experience for our family - and shall I just say - a horrible one as well.  Nothing prepares you for this part of a life.  I can say with all honesty that both Mike and I have great parents and siblings who helped make us who we are today.  That is to say we are very competitive, aggressive (well one of us - you guess which one), goal seeking, dreamers and most of all we were given a pathway of faith from our families that always lead us to the cross of Jesus.  Nothing is better than that.  What better thing can a family give it's members than to show and teach the love of Jesus and to show us how to love others.  We have both watched our families suffer loss and heart ache only to point us to the love of God and His great mercies.  Mike always says that God deals with all of us in the most merciful way He can deal with us.    That's just what HE does.  We have seen that in our families throughout our lives.  That training certainly has helped us move through this journey of burying a child; a man child at that; a large man child even more!  Who would've thought that in June of 1984 that baby boy that was born two weeks early would leave this world in January of 2008, many YEARS early too!

Don't understand; don't need to understand!  In a world where everyone gets to say anything they want to say without any accountability (Mike calls it cyber-courage!), and a world where we butt into everyone's business and we share everything about our lives thinking that everyone wants to know......... the truth is - we have so little control about anything that goes on in our lives.  We like to think we elect Presidents and Congressmen/ladies - we don't - God works all that out.  We like to think we have jobs because of our training and what we know - not hardly - God works all that out.  What I have learned over the past 8 years specifically (beginning with Skip's event as we call it) - God is in control whether we like it or not.  Now what that really means is FREEDOM.  I don't have to worry about anything because when the bad things happen - He's got that too!

I've learned to say that Mikell changing geography is both the best and the worst thing in my life.  Matthew's accident and stoke and Skip's dissection and stroke come in second and third.  You know those kinds of things you drive a stake in the ground and say....... This is something that God is going to show HIMSELF wonderful over and I have to help make that happen.  When you have a filter of burying a child and coming close to burying two children - you understand instantaneously that there is a God and it is not me.  You see - Heaven is now my goal more than ever before.  I am aggressively pursuing that pathway.  I understand that Mikell is still my son and forever will be.  He just lives further away than Texas and California.  In fact, I HATE that my boys and daughter live so far away and we cannot enjoy seeing them live their lives and be a part of that.  I do clearly understand that Austin and Los Angeles..... I can get there if I need or want to get there fairly easy.

I care deeply about people, about justice and about right living but who wins a ballgame or an election......I just don't care.  Now that's a great filter.  A filter I wish I could've had many years ago when my boys were little (without having to have one of them taken away from me).  A filter I wish my family and friends could learn without the hurt and pain.  A filter that doesn't worry about the economy or taxes or laws because I know who is really in control.  A filter that gives you such freedom it's almost hard to describe.  A filter that says - 'Don't fret or worry.  Instead of worrying, pray.  Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns.  Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down.  It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life'.  Philippians 4:6,7 (Message).

So the journey continues, and oh what a journey it is................. To God Be The Glory  -

Mikell, Mason, Matthew and Kasha -- Love God; Love Others and always know - Mom loves you and my filter will always include YOU!