Remembering Anna


I lost a dear friend this week. A close friend who understood me. I will miss her.

We shared a love for Jesus and an appreciation of knowledge. We laughed and cried about many things together. We had a desire to translate books into Italian - I was going to do the translating and she would have made sure the Italian was correct and beautiful. She was an English teacher and loved my language, and I enjoyed talking to her about her lovely country over a delicious plate of pasta with home-made sauce.

She listened to people and gave good advice if you asked her for it. Praying for others was second nature - she prayed for everyone. She really tried to identify God's will so that she was sure to live according to his plan for her life. Teaching and encouraging others were both her secular job and her normal way of interacting. She lived by both the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

Anna was 56 and this was her third bout with cancer. The first two rounds had ended over a decade ago with miraculous healing, but this one was different. The miracle of this illness was the complete absence of pain. However, the current crises (plural because the world is seriously messed up right now) overshadowed her illness and besides, until about 10 days ago she was convinced that she was going to recover!

Today, I spoke at her funeral. Now I'm remembering our time together, the trips we planned that we will never get to take, the long conversations and the shopping spree for my mother-of-the-bride dress last December. I'm grieving but I believe that we will meet again one day. Until then, it's going to be hard. I am sad, but I have hope.

It's a comfort and a blessing to be convinced that, after death, we do not just cease to exist but rather we fall asleep, and if our soul belongs to Jesus we are not lost. We will live on the earth after the second coming and do whatever it is that people will do when there is no more suffering. 

Anna imagined that we would enjoy each other's company over meals, laughing and talking, and just being friends doing the Lord's work. Scripture tells us that the next world will be this one renewed and everything we love will be restored. No endless church services, no sitting on clouds playing harps. The afterlife will be more vibrant and colorful than we can imagine, and we'll spend eternity enjoying this earth in ways we cannot comprehend while no longer having to worry about illness, hardship, hunger, racism, division, and death.

God envisioned this earth as the lush garden that he originally created, which could provide everything his people need, and I have faith that we will meet again in that world. Until then, I'll cherish the memories that I have.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ken Follett in Milan

Image
This week Milan has enjoyed a series of interesting events about all sorts of topics. The magazine Panorama  (sorry, no English page here) is organizing a tour of Italy and it was our turn. I signed up to hear Ken Follett speak and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's a pic I took at the event. It's important for writers to hear other writers speak. We can learn a lot. However, that's not really the reason to go. We need to remember that we are in the world and we have to stay connected. I don't write only for myself - I write for my readers. Now, I have a very small fraction of the readership that an author like Mr. Follett has (thanks to all 5 of you), but I am interested in hearing what you would like to read. This is why I put an email list sign up on the page. You can type in your address now and be notified when I post. In the comments today, let me know what you're interested in finding when you come by to see me.
Read more

On Being Discontinuous and Busy....

Image
Sometimes it happens. You interrupt an activity that you like (blogging) just for a bit, you think. And then months pass before you get into it again. Well, I'm back. In the past year, I've become a grandmother, I've worked a lot, I've learned how to paint (sort of), and I've started working on my novel (again). I want to sound encouraging because it can be frightfully depressing to think about the things that I want to do, but never get around to. Time management is one of the keys. I've started using a site called Toggl to keep track of what I really do during the day. I'm discontinuous and distracted, almost the point of being jumpy if I hit the coffee pot too hard, and from a business angle, I'm tracking the hours I spend on projects and other important activities. I have found that I can, after all, find time to write so please check back in a week or so. I'm putting together a new reading list. Too many interests can also cause errat...
Read more

September Reading List: Wattpad and Goodreads

I like to read different types of media, and I love to try out different platforms. So I have accounts on both Wattpad and Goodreads. For those who don't know, Wattpad is a platform for writers to share what they've written and create content for their readers. I posted the Italian version of the Coma short story I wrote two years ago because it is no longer available on the Giallo Milanese website. You can find the English version here on my blog. I'm working on a new story and today I wrote 640 words. Goodreads , on the other hand, lets you write reviews about books that you've read, and you can keep track of what you are reading - and what you would like to read in the future. As usual, I'm currently reading three different books: two paper books and a digital version on my phone. I also have another ebook on my tablet that I have barely started. Here they are: The Three Battlegrounds by Francis Frangipane This year, I've read quite a bit on Chri...
Read more