After close to 10 years, I figured I should be able to say something meaningful. I have spent weeks thinking about this. What do I have to share that would be helpful? I highly encourage each of you to take the time to figure out what you would say if it were you speaking this morning. Each one of us has an important story to tell and it is an interesting process to articulate what God might be trying to teach us.

So here I am. What do I have to say almost 10 years after our oldest daughter Lindsay died? Many of you may not have been a part of the church 10 years ago, in September 1996. That year, on September 14th, our 11-year-old daughter died suddenly. No chance to say goodbye. No chance to pray for her. Gone in an instant without warning.

Here is the first thing I’d say about what God is teaching me: Perspective is important, remember the entire story.

When I focus on September 1996, life is more difficult. Truthfully, the residual pain of Lindsay's absence draws me there more often than to the beginning of her life in March 1985. Here is the beginning of her story. At two weeks of age, her check up with her pediatrician ended up with her in intensive care with congestive heart failure. There I was, a brand new mom in a neo-natal nursery with a beautiful, full-term baby surrounded by preemies. A week later, on Good Friday, she had corrective surgery to repair her aorta which was closing in on itself and jeopardizing her life. We sat in the waiting room at Children's Hospital in LA, surrounded by family awaiting the outcome of the hour-long surgery. The hour came and went. We approached the beginning of the third hour, when the surgeon appeared. The patch procedure had gone well, but after closing her up, her blood pressure was not good. So they rushed to open her again and found blood clots. They cleared what they could, and then we waited. Would a blood clot circulating in her body kill her in the next few days? If she lived to Easter, she would be out of danger from the blood clots.

We waited at her bedside in the intensive care unit that long Easter weekend. We prayed and hoped God would grant her life. We had friends all over the country praying. We became companions with the other parents in that pediatric ICU. It was a warm spring break week and the Christian parents of the toddler in the hospital crib next to us were praying for him to recover from a drowning accident in his grandparents’ pool. Lindsay left the hospital a few days after Easter to go home. They buried their son later that week. We did not know how to comfort them. I do believe that God was there with both our families to comfort and sustain, but I still do not understand why He lets some live and lets some die.

Lindsay went on to live 11.5 years of a vibrant life. Our move from LA to Gig Harbor in 1992 freed her of most of her allergies and she no longer needed a "breathing machine" for her asthma. We did all of her check-ups for her malformed heart valves. All her signs looked good.

Now when Lindsay was 18 months old in Sept of 1986, she was joined by our second child, twins, Karen and Greg. Yes, for those who can do the math, we did that on purpose. Lindsay was such an easy child and how hard did child-rearing look when she was 9 months old. So we were blessed with three children under the age of 18 months. The five of us enjoyed a wonderful life together.

Many years later, on the first Saturday of 6th grade, after landing her axel jump at her ice skating lesson and enjoying a day at Wild Waves with friends, Lindsay started having trouble breathing. Within a few hours, her life on earth was over.

Where was God in those moments? Why didn’t we get a chance to pray for her? We often share stories together on Sunday mornings of healing as answers to prayers. I still have my moments of wondering why we did not get a chance to marshal the great prayer warriors of this church on Lindsay's behalf. But then, I know others of you, when facing the possibility of the death of loved ones, have had your prayers for healing answered with death. At times, I forget the beginning of her story because of the enduring, piercing pain of the end of her story.

At times I wonder about prayer, but I still pray. I'll admit, I don’t understand God's ways. I am not much of a prayer warrior. But I am so thankful for those of you who are.

As Scott said two weeks ago, death has a way of simplifying questions down to one. What really matters? All that matters is that Lindsay believed in Jesus and I know she is in heaven enjoying the promise of her eternal life.

Scott also reviewed some of our increasing investment of loved ones in heaven. Strange as it may seem, last fall I prayed Lindsay would welcome Brian into heaven and that they'd help take care of each other and the families they left behind. Some of you may remember Greg Forsyth, our youth pastor who died the year after Lindsay. I hope he is caring for Lindsay and Brian and the other youth in heaven as well.

So what really matters, as the mother of the daughter who died? The depression was profound. I was also the mother of two vibrant twins, Karen and Greg, who celebrated their 10th birthday the week after she died, eager for their lives ahead. I was also the wife of a wonderful but devastated husband. At my lowest moment, there was a "gut check" with God. My life was not over. He was continuing to give me a life to live and I had a responsibility to live it as well as I could. And that is what I have tried to do. I have continued to see God's hand in the lives of Karen and Greg, as they have made their way through the teenage years and into the earliest days of emerging adulthood. He continues to support Larry and me. He did not give up on the rest of us and we did not give up on him.

I could talk for hours about what the grief has been like over these ten years, and would be willing to, but I don't think that is what I should talk about this morning. If you want to know what it has been like for me, I commend to you Gerald Sittser's book, A Grace Disguised. Close friends brought this book to us just hours after Lindsay died. It is the only book that made sense to me and the only one I kept from the many we were given. Some of his wisdom: "Catastrophic loss leaves the landscape of one's life forever changed. If normal, natural reversible losses are like a broken limb, then catastrophic loss is like an amputation." Do not let appearances deceive you. I stand before you this morning as an amputee. He continues: "You don't get over the loss of a loved one, you absorb it into your being. There is little we can do to protect ourselves from these losses. There is much we can do however, to determine how we respond to them. We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given."

This is the second thing that God has been working on with me: Live the role you have in life to serve others. I now have a life experience, which I am grateful that not many others have, at least in this country. But in my circle of family, friends and acquaintances, suffering and loss will happen. What is my role in those times of pain and grief? Am I willing to join the suffering in another’s life?

As the years have passed, it is clear that many others have suffered grief and have needs. In the early years after Lindsay's death, I had nothing to offer anyone else. It took every bit of energy I could muster just to live each day and try to have be as normal as possible for Karen and Greg and Larry. I apologize to those of you who I was not available to help. I thank God for those of you who were available and gave of yourselves to us. But I realized I could not stay in that position. Others I cared about in life had sorrows and needs, and I had an opportunity and responsibility to care for them.

I sit in the back of the church on Sunday mornings and from that vantage point see those seated in the many rows ahead of me. From this vantage point, I see your faces. I know that pain and suffering exist for many of you in your life. I do not think that my traumatic loss is any more devastating than what you may have experienced. Some of you have experienced the death of your mother or father, or a sibling. Some have lost a loved one to a battle with cancer. Some are struggling through a divorce. Some may have been victims of brutal crimes or abuse.

So if so many of us are experiencing grief and loss and suffering, I wonder how well we are doing at helping each other deal with these devastating life experiences. Yes, people of faith can be devastated. So what are we doing to help each other? How well have we educated ourselves about preparing for loss or death? Or how to handle grief when it comes? Or how to help others who are dealing with grief? I wonder if it would be time well spent, for us to share with each other our experiences of loss and study together how to prepare to handle grief and death.

Each of us has certain people in our lives for whom we need to be on their lifelong endurance team after a catastrophic loss. I am so grateful to those who are with us on this lifelong journey of loss. I would encourage each of us to think about the people in our lives that we would commit to join with on their lifelong journey of pain and misery. Whoever those special people are in your life, God is counting on you to be his love and support to them.

I may not be able to do much, but I need to do what I can and do it the best that I can. I encourage each one of us to prepare ourselves the best we can to help others with the grief that follows loss. Losses are a fact of life. Grief is inescapable. There are things we can learn that will help us to be prepared. And believe me there are things people do when trying to help that are not helpful at all. We learn CPR to save a life. Shouldn't we also learn techniques that will help us when grief strikes? Trying to learn it once you are in the midst of it just doesn’t work very well.

This is one of the benefits of being in community and sharing both the good and the bad. When my parents die, I know I will have many of you who can share that experience with me. I know there is wisdom you could share with me right now that would help prepare me for that time. I also know that in the years ahead, my family and friends will all experience loss and death and grief. And I want to be the best help I can be, and would encourage you to consider the same for yourself.

I would not lift my life as a model but God has helped me to find a way to cope and live. I can see God is still at work in my life and in the lives of my children and husband. I still do not understand God's ways and sometimes it seems I have more questions than answers, but I believe and trust in him. He continues to remind me to remember all of the story of His work in people’s lives and to live my life to care for His people.

May God bless each one of you with his presence and give you the strength to live your lives.