Gravestone

I went down to the funeral home yesterday to design Annie's gravestone. I guess you can have pictures put on gravestones nowadays, so we chose three, including the one above--my all-time favorite. I also had the verse engraved on the gravestone: All the days planned for me were written in your book before I was one day old. Psalm 139:16 

The significance of that verse comes from a book I used to read to Annie back before her brain injury, entitled "What Does God Do?" On the last page in the book was a picture of a baby in a cradle, with Psalm 139:16 written on the opposite page. And when we'd turn to that, Annie would always ask, "Was that me when I was a baby?" And I'd always say, "Yes, that looks like you."

Of course, I had no idea that the verse would offer me so much comfort now that she is in heaven. The fact that God planned how many days she would live on this earth even before she was born takes the sting out of the brevity of her life. Because although I don't know why Annie got Addison's Disease, and I don't know why her diagnosis was missed, and I don't know why her brain injury happened in the early hours of the morning when everyone was asleep, and I don't know why she died so quickly of an infection--I do know that God's purposes for her life were not cut short. God is sovereign over time, and her times were in His hand. (Psalm 31:15)

But even though I believe that Annie lived exactly the number of days God planned for her, the reality is  I miss her. In that book we read together is a page with a picture of God's hand stretching the sky out over a green meadow. It says, God stretches out the skies like a piece of cloth and spreads them out like a tent to sit under. Isaiah 40:22

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything." C.S. Lewis, from A Grief Observed