It was an ordinary Sunday on 9 November 2014. After our usual Sunday night church service, I noticed a text message from my twenty-three-year-old daughter, Ashley. She sent me a picture of herself holding a trout she caught the previous weekend. We had arranged to cook dinner together the next evening, Monday 10 November, so I planned to tell her, in-person, how awesome the photo of her and her fish was. I never dreamed I would never see my daughter in this life again!
As my three adult boys, their spouses, my friend and my pastor arrived at the hospital, unintentionally, we were in a circle in a room, trying to grasp the reality of Ashley’s death and the land of trauma ahead of us. Suddenly, I became aware of a heaviness descending into the room, over us. I felt a sensation of being suffocated, and immediately I asked my friend to play worship music. She looked at me with a blank look and asked what she should play at a time like this. “Blessed Be His Name” by Matt Redman came to mind. As we began to worship, the atmosphere shifted, and The Prince of Peace (Jesus) and The Comforter (Holy Spirit) flooded the room, and the heaviness lifted. The locked-up tears began to flow as The Healer (Jesus) started His intricate work on our hearts that would take years to grasp and hold.”
Around midnight, all three boys’ phones “dinged” with a message alert. They opened their phones, and it was their sister’s message that she had sent at 7:54 pm with the picture of the fish she had caught the weekend before. Her time of death was 8:30 pm. I knew in my heart that Papa (Father God) was with us and would walk with us every step of the way through our land of trauma into our land of promise.
Just over a year later, on 14 December 2015, Papa allowed me to receive this message from my precious Ashley. Her words charted the course our family would take to go through the land of trauma and grief. This is what I wrote in my journal after she went to her heavenly home;
“Ashley is speaking to me this morning. She is saying, ‘Rejoice that I am in Heaven in my NEW LIFE. Try not to dwell on the earthly perspective of death but try to enter into the Kingdom’s perspective on death. Heaven celebrates when a soul enters in, and the Earth mourns when the soul leaves the body. God has designed the body and mind to experience pain and love, and you will walk through the pain, but Mom, keep your eyes on the Kingdom perspective, and it will not feel as painful and as dark to you. Heaven does not look back, nor does Heaven look forward. The moment in Heaven is so full and rich that it is where we live. So, don’t look back and don’t look forward. Live in the moment as God has taught you. Do not blame, try to figure out or wonder if you could have changed this course. Celebrate my New Life!
Journal entry: 14 December 2015, Lori Bottolfson
The situation with Abraham’s father, Terah, touched me.
27Now these are the records of the generations of Terah. Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran; and Haran became the father of Lot.
28 Haran died in the presence of his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
29 Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah and Iscah.
30 Sarai was barren; she had no child.
31 Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daghter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan; and they went as far as Haran, and settled there.
32 The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.
Genesis 11:27-32 (NASB 1995)
Names are important and it is interesting that the meaning of Ur is “fire”.
From the eyes and heart of a mother familiar with the grief of a child’s death, I believe that Terah could no longer bear to live in Ur. This was the birthplace of Haran and also the place of his death. Terah took his family and settled in Haran. He no longer had the strength to finish the journey to the land in which God was calling Abram. Terah chose to stay with his broken heart in the land of his son, Haran.
I have been with many mothers who have lost children, and it is a heart-wrenching process. I noticed that some chose to press on into “Canaan” while others preferred to settle in “Haran”. We all face personal dilemmas in our lives. In the difficult seasons, do we seek God for our very breath and to step into all God has for us? Or do we get sucked into the relentless eddy of grief, despair and past trauma? Sometimes we want to settle in “Haran” because “Canaan” seems like an impossible destination. But God promises He does not leave us.
“The LORD is the one who goes ahead of you; He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
Deuteronomy 31:8 (NASB 1995)
“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39 (NASB 1995)
Father God promises that nothing will ever separate us from His love, and He will be with us whether we decide to settle in “Haran” or make the challenging journey to “Canaan”. My encouragement to you is this; choose courage and breakthrough to the place of promise that God has put into your heart!
When Abram obeyed God and left his familiar surroundings with the people he loved and arrived in Canaan, God appeared to Abram and said;
The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.
Genesis 12:7 (NASB 1995)
As Abram stepped out and obeyed God it was then that God spoke. The trials and difficult circumstances we journey through and overcome are examples we leave for the next generation. We cannot afford to settle in “Haran”. We must trust God every day;
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.
Proverbs 3:5-6 (NASB 1995)
God has blessed me with three sons, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren. They are precious gifts from the Father! Very early in this journey of the loss of our precious Ashley we made a decision to celebrate our daughter’s “NEW LIFE” in Heaven and recently we celebrated her birthday by hiking in the beautiful Colorado Mountains.
I long to be with my daughter, clothed with my heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked.
4 For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
5 Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.
2 Corinthians 5:1-5 (NASB 1995)
Until then, my heart desires to let go of the places God is calling me out of and follow His leading to enter the places of His promises.
May God bless you with His love, hope, and strength as you continue your journey into the land of promises He has put into your heart.
