Free, at last!

Frances Pauline Lawrence Early Firth

1925 - 2012

Aunt Frances put on immortality late this afternoon.  

Her struggle is over.

Thank you, Lord, for her life and her love.

God's Perfect Timing

We wait. That seems so strange – waiting for a loved one to die. Aunt Frances continues to breathe and her heart continues to beat; she is here, but she is not with us ..

And God’s timing is perfect.

This waiting is not passive. It is a very active waiting.

Family members love on each other. Husband and brother and sisters and cousin talk and remember and laugh and cry, and embrace. Words of affection and caring are whispered in Aunt Frances’ ear. Funny memories spark laughing, wet eyes. Nearly empty tissue boxes sit around, waiting to be replaced with full ones. Church family provides for the needs of their own and the families gathered for the waiting. Next-steps plans and purchases are accomplished. Prayers are boldly murmured. Telephoned queries from near and far away are quietly answered, as the news of her last days gets around. Visits from local friends and relations are made.

Petitions are made earnestly to the Lord for Frances to “fly away”, as her generation and her mother’s might have breathed them.

Active, reflective, earnest – not passive.

Trusting and waiting… On God’s perfect timing for Aunt Frances. Her appointed time. When her frail, illness-ravaged body will be replaced by a healthy new one – her passive, non-responsive face replaced with a glowing, eyes-wide-open, joyful, worshipful one as she traipses down those streets of gold. In the presence of her Lord!

We can only imagine!

And we wait!

Aunt Frances

We have come to realize that no matter where on the mission field you live or what you are doing, life continues to happen at home.

Weddings, recitals, graduations, the things would cause you to celebrate and the things that would cause you to grieve with family, friends and loved ones - these things happen.  Whether you able to participate or not.

Larry's sweet Aunt Frances, his mom's only sister and the last member on his mom's side of his family in that generation, is just before leaving this world.  Words like ''hospice house", "imminent", "hour to hour", "morphine", "family gathering" pronounce it.  The emotion in the emails, the catch in the voice in the phone calls, the bittersweet reality underscore it.

This one, we couldn't experience vicariously.  The immediate family wanted Larry to speak at Aunt Frances' service.  An honor.   We have to go.  We will celebrate this life; we will mourn this loss - with her family.

Leaving tomorrow morning before dawn, for a sunrise trip across the sea to Port-au-Prince.  Then on to Atlanta where we hope to arrive, Lord willing,  around 7 pm.

Would you please pray for travel mercies, for Aunt Frances' husband and children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and for Larry as he prepares his heart and his talk?

Thanks so much!

Frances Lawrence Early Firth - 87 years old, last July