The vultures surprised me one day while walking. I’m used to seeing them in trees but they caught me off guard on this day when their dark silhouettes blended in with the branches. Not to speak poorly about the Lord’s creatures but these particular ones fill me with no awe. No delight or excitement. They repulse me by the way they hang out with the dead things and rest in only the dead trees. Have they no inner sense?

I’ve had death on my mind. The 40ish year old daughter of one of our former district presidents passed away this past weekend due to a brain tumor. It was found in the summer and was very aggressive. Where do these things even come from, it’s awful. To think that you can get that far into life and still not be done, to imagine that a trial that grievous could still be awaiting you even decades into the future is too much for me.

We’re all just one strange pain away from a terrible, awful diagnosis. I made a group chat with my two oldest kids who have phones and I’ve decided I’m just going to start shamelessly sharing. I don’t care if they don’t write anything back to me. As I feel inspired and has thoughts come to I will pass them along for them to read now or later, whenever. I never thought I’d be this lost, that I’d ever not know what to do with myself.

I was telling Josh the other day that if I was in that situation, if I was the one who was dying, according to God, a precious death in his eyes, that I think I would feel a little bit mad at him for being the one who gets to live. Would he feel that way, I asked. No, he said, almost a little incensed. That he would have the kids, their future lives, or even have another woman in life…I pray I would have the grace to truly love him unto death.

“Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry.” That’s all that would need to be said by me, and said all without malice, without envy, without shame. “I forgive you. I love you. Thank you, too.” My hand, with no strength, would be resting in his, and my breath would leave me at precisely the time when God said. The back pain over. The leg pain gone. There would still be death and mourning, but not for me. Not for the ones who see God fully.