Eight Plates

The day wanes, the sun too low now to light the sky.  October 9th is closing.  Not a day more or less than three years of eight plates set at our dinner table.  There were nine for four and a half years.  Nine plates at our table.
We've survived.  Made it ...out of the woods.  Our load still heavy, the pain no less, the missing tugging always.  And yet ...we've learned to carry it.  Some say its our cross.  I don't like that expression.  Only One carried the Cross, our salvation means.  I don't dare approach saying I carry my own, or even part of His.  We can never know, in this life, the depth of suffering Christ bore for each of us.  But I know it was far, far heavier than the one we carry.  And that itself is beyond my capacity to understand. Because the pain is great.
The table is cleared. We've remembered together the funny stories, her great strength ...who she is. Eight plates washed and put away.
One day, that number will grow, and we'll remember still the one who's missing.
And God knows, the daily working of making this life happen.  He knows the moments of despair, the moments of missing and gratitude ...of disbelief and trust.  He knows the patterns of our heartbreak, the cracks etched, the holes open.  And He knows our great striving and effort to live a life that is well lived and full.
God knows our great missing ...our empty space of Phoebe ...and He holds that close.
Dearest Phoebe, know always you are loved ...and always you are remembered. 

Please pray tonight for a young woman, just 18 who ended her own life days ago.  Pray for her parents, in the depth of despair, the eye of a nightmare.  Pray for an end to suicide ...and an end to abortion, an end to anything that destroys and dismisses life.