The Blessing Rock

The clock is always ticking and moments come and they go.

Some are fleeting, and I forget them like a forget what I ate for dinner on my 16th birthday. Others are seared onto my brain and my heart, and I think I'll remember them for eternity. What I am about to describe is one such moment, and I will tell it just as it happenend.

I love and serve a Risen Savior, fully alive and fully in love with this daughter. He is my King, my trusted Friend and He is Who I try my earthly messed-up wayward best to point to as I walk out this journey toward my Heavenly home where my citizenship really is.

If you've followed my blog from the beginning of the wait for a baby, then you probably remember that when Miss Ava was born in Riverdale, Georgia, the clock had been ticking, ticking right past August 20th late into the night and into the wee hours of August 21st at 1:56 a.m. 2008. My grandmother, Ruthie's, was born August 21st 1926.

Ruthie was at Asbury Acres on the Alzheimers floor, with a note somewhere near her, maybe in her hand, that read something like "You're going to be a great-grandmother."

Unbeknownst to my family, one precious life was about leave this Earth to join her Heavenly family and another was about to enter this Earth to begin her life with her Earthly family. I became acutely aware as the clock ticked into August 21st that God's hand was in this and that these two lives were intertwining,if only briefly, for a reason.

There really are no words to describe how much my grandmother meant to me. There's just this big ache deep in my heart that is summoned up when I least expect it when I think about her and my 34 years with her here.

Ava is in her third year of life, and this story unfolds sometime after she turned two, August 21st 2010.

Ben and I were in the kitchen washing just Ava's hair. This night was different than most because she normally has a FULL bath! She can get dirty in two seconds flat as our adventure girl! :)

She was lying on the kitchen island counter with her head in my hands and water pouring over her hair. Wanting to "entertain" her while I washed her hair, I handed her a little rock that I keep propped up against the flower vase in the middle of the island.

After my grandmother passed and away, Mom gave me the little rock back that I had given to Ruthie some years before. On the front, it said "Blessings." On the back, in her ink script, she had written five letters that spelled my name, "Emily."

Ava was holding the rock and looking at the side that said "Blessings." I was looking at the rock as she held it in her tiny little hands.

Suddenly, and just as matter of fact as "I like chocolate", she said, "This says, Emily." The clock stopped ticking and Ben and I both stopped and looked at her. I looked at the rock, and she was looking at the side that said, "Blessings." I knew that we had never told her that this rock said "blessings" or that it said Emily. In fact, when Emily came out of her mouth it sounded so strange because she never says my name.

Trying to process this, I asked her a very simple question.

"Ava, how did you know that rock says, "Emily?"

She answered with one word.

Jesus

Ben and I were stunned and again asked her the same question, and she, again, would say, "Jesus."

My heart racing and mind thinking, I scooped her up and started to towel dry her hair and do the get ready for bed routine. I thought to ask her another question as we were putting on her clothes. I asked her something like, "Did Jesus talk to you or what did He say." The next thing that came out of her mouth was, like the first, very simple. She said, "He's the Lamb." We had never told her that.

And that was it.

This blog is something for the girls now I as journal about our daily happenings, and before anymore time went by, I wanted to record this story for Ava to read someday.

Do I believe that Ava could have heard this from Jesus? Yes. Do I believe my grandmother is with Jesus in Heaven right now? Yes. Do I believe that that August 21st, shared birthdays, are a coincidence? No. Because God knows my heart so intimately that He purposed for those dates to line up.

I believe, for a moment, that the veil was removed and Jesus revealed that little gift for me to my child, Ava, whose life would begin as another one began, just in two different places with one Heavenly King keeping watch over both.

That is the story just as it happenend. Heaven is real. Jesus is Alive! This is all temporary stuff down here. He's coming again. He loves us enough to die for us, to take our place, so that we could be rescued and have eternal life. Spring is here and eternal spring is coming!

Praise the Lord!

Happy Easter, everyone!