My mind has been in a million places in the last week. I go from thinking about Andy to thinking about eternity and about life and what it is we are living for. I live for Jesus and am filled with a thankful heart for His love, grace, and strength. My heart breaks for those who experience tragedy or suffering and can’t see past the pain and the brokenness. I am thankful to love and live for a God who gives me hope and fills my heart with comfort, peace, and joy and increases my intimacy with Him through pain and suffering. Each day is a gift. I desire to live each day to the fullest. To wake up each morning and breath in a new day. To offer myself again to the Lord to reflect His love, His grace, His hope, and His glory. Through the brokenness my desire only increases for those who are overcome by this brokenness and do not have the hope of Jesus to hold onto, to have faith that one day the heaviness will be no more.
“Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:17-20
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Hi Kim. My name is Cindy Nore, and I wanted to write and tell you how sorry I was to read about your friend Andy. My daughter Jessica Pety was hoping to join the team there in Uganda with World Harvest Missions earlier this year after graduating from college in December 2007. She found out that since she had lupus, she could not risk getting a yellow fever vaccine, so this meant her lifelong dream of working in Africa would not be possible. Jess found a way to work with people from N. Africa by was planning to serve as a missionary for 18 months with World Harvest in Granada, Spain starting in February 2008.
She left our home in Atlanta January 21st to attend three weeks of training at the Missions Training Institute in Colorado and was scheduled to fly to Granada February 25th. On the morning of February 3rd, Jess and five other missionaries were on the way to church to hear Philip Yancey speak. They were involved in a car accident caused by another driver and car, and Jess and one other lady went Home to Heaven during the accident, and the son of the driver and his wife (Isaac, 17 months old) joined Jess and Karin in Heaven the next day.
I still read the Myhres blog every day, since Jess had been reading it for many months last year when she was hoping/planning to go to Uganda. For some reason when I saw "an anchor for the soul" as your post title today, I felt led to read your post. I don't know if you have heard Chris Tomlin's latest CD, but there is a song on it entitled "I Will Rise," and it is about when we go to Heaven. The first line says "There's a peace I've come to know, though my heart and flesh may fail; there's an anchor for my soul, I can say it is well." So that phrase caught my eye, and I am so very, very sorry to read about your friend Andy.
I know exactly what that horrible shock feeling is - it was weeks if not months before the reality of Jess' earthly death really sunk in, and the sorrow has been quite overwhelming. Knowing that we will all be together in Heaven brings solace and comfort on the one hand, but it does not take away the sorrow and despair over missing the earthly presence of those we love. The rest of the Chris Tomlin song says "Jesus has overcome, and the grave is overwhelmed; the victory is won, He has risen from the dead. And I will rise when He calls my name, no more sorrow, no more pain; rise, on eagles' wings, before my God fall on my knees and rise; I will rise. There's a day that's drawing near, when the darkness breaks to light; and the shadows disappear, and my faith shall be my eyes." And then the chorus says "And I hear the voice of many angels sing, 'Worthy is the Lamb!' And I hear the cry of every longing heart, 'Worthy is the Lamb."
I have found such comfort in those words, to think of Jess standing with the multitudes from every tongue and nation and tribe in Heaven, along with the angels, singing "Worthy is the Lamb!"
So I pray for comfort for you, Kim. I am so sorry for your grief and the grief of all those who knew and loved your friend Andy. I pray that God would use the comfort and support of others to heal your broken heart, and I will pray that His daily mercies will sustain you.
God bless you as you continue your work there and in Sudan, and I will look forward to reading your future blogs. With love, Cindy
I appreciate your post Kim and it struck me, because that is the exact verse that I have tattooed on me and it is has meant a lot to me. There is something so significant about the hope of Christ being an anchor for our soul.
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