Memorial Service for Sara
Tonight is the memorial service for our beloved Sara at St. Stephens—the church in Cedar Falls, IA where she served for so many years.
We would love to have you join us as we mourn her passing and celebrate her life—together as her community and family, each in our own corner of the world.
Just as Sara would have loved it.
The service is at 6:30 PM Central Time. Please join us if you’re able. (And help spread the word online…)
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Update: The memorial service was recorded… Watch here.
Choose Joy Ink Link
This is a space where you can share your Tribute to Sara Tattoo for all to see…
If you decided to get a Choose Joy tattoo, we would love to see it! Please link up to the tweet, blog, pic, or video you post on the Interwebz about it, so we can all celebrate Sara’s life and legacy together.
[Be sure to link to the specific post and not your blog homepage.]
If you have chosen to use any of the Choose Joy designs, please email Trevor and let him know. He worked into the wee-hours of the night doing this for Sara. Such a gift. I think it would mean a lot for him to hear and see what became of it all…
I’m grateful for my reminder. God knows I need it…
a living, breathing canvas
I don’t even know how to find words right now. I honestly don’t. I’ve left this blog abandoned because I simply don’t know how to say everything that needs to be said.
My beautiful friend Sara — known so affectionately online as Gitzen Girl — is dying. There is no easier way to say that. I wish there was…
Sara has been sick — very sick – for a very long time. And from the confines of her tiny condo in Iowa, where she’s lived completely homebound for 3 years, she has changed my life.
I can’t even begin to find words to explain THAT right now… so that will need to wait. But I’ve had the gift — the sheer treasure — of visiting with her twice. Of spending several weeks as her roommate. And that is a gift I will cherish always and always.
And now my beautiful Sara is in the final leg of her race. The finish line is in sight, and she is about to cross it. And even in dying — just as she did her whole life — she shows me Christ. She infuses me with courage and strength. And she teaches me how to love well and choose joy.
Choose joy.
It’s been her life mantra. It has defined who she is and how she lives. Despite her pain. Despite the challenges. Despite her limitations. Choose joy. She has shown me what that truly means.
She has lived well and chosen joy right up to the end…
And the mark she has left on my life? I want it visible to the world.
I am going to get “choose joy” as a tattoo on my left forearm. In Sara’s handwriting.
I want it as a visible, permanent reminder of who Sara is and how she lived. And how I want to live out the rest of my days.
Sara is known literally around the world for her beautiful painted canvases. They are works of art that reflect her steadfast faith and point our eyes Homeward.
And now her words, her art, will be painted on the canvas of ME. A living, breathing Gitzen Girl canvas…
Oh my heart…
I know many of you have been impacted by Sara, either in years of knowing her or even in just recently learning of her amazing story. Maybe you want to get inked as well.
Tam and I had my amazing friend Trevor at Cross & Crown put together some designs using Sara’s own handwriting. (So. Frickin. Amazing.) He also designed some more block-font options that aren’t as scripty… Maybe you’d like one of these as a permanent reminder to Choose Joy… Or maybe these will spark an idea in your mind of a unique design you want to run with.
I’d love to hear if you’re gonna get a Choose Joy tattoo. And when you do, take pictures and blog/tweet about it so we can all celebrate Sara’s life and legacy together.
We are also working on some other things we can do as a tribute to our Sara (like a custom line of jewelry), and I’ll share details as soon as they come together.
What an amazing community of people who Sara loved so well!
Today… as you go about your day… please pray for Sara. Pray for her family and all those who love her so dearly. And remember to…
Choose joy.
Choose Joy – Gitz’s Handwriting
choose joy
grace enough
Have you seen People of the Second Chance’s NEVER BEYOND campaign?
It is powerful.
Each week, they launch a new poster in their NEVER BEYOND series, representing a well-known historical, current, or fictional character who is believed to have harmed society. They stand as challenging and sometimes startling reminders that none of us are ever beyond a second chance.
I’ve been forced to grapple with my tendency to be stingy with grace and to cling tightly to unforgiveness.
Because if I’m being most honest, there are some people I feel I can’t forgive.
And there are some I simply don’t want to forgive.
But maybe that’s just me…
Extending grace — to others as well as myself — doesn’t come naturally to me.
But maybe that’s just me too…
Although I have a feeling it’s true for all of us, in one way or another…
Since the NEVER BEYOND campaign started, I’ve had a nagging thought at the back of my mind. It sits there, gnawing and scratching, and I just can’t shake it. My thought?
September 11th.
Ugh.
My heart sinks even now, just writing out that date.
There are so many emotions, piling up, adding to the heavy weight in my heart…
I wish I was in New York with my family today…
I can’t help but play out the events over and over again in my mind… So awful and so horrifying…
I remember our family friend who died that day, as one of the first FDNY firemen on the scene…
I keep thinking of my friend who lost her brother-in-law in the Pentagon…
And how helpless and paralyzing it felt to be halfway around the world in Africa when it all happened…
But underneath it all, my heart is wrestling. With grace. Forgiveness. Second chances.
Because, you see, I have this unarticulated internal hierarchy of sins…
A hierarchy which says Osama bin Laden and the terrorists behind the September 11th attacks are worse than me.
They are, right?
They have to be!
But then I remember all the ways I’ve sinned just today, just since I opened my eyes this morning. And I remember that, like Paul, I’m the chief of sinners.
I am.
I have more in common with the Osamas of the world than I’d like to admit, but the truth is undeniable: I need grace no less than they do, and I deserve it no more than they do.
There is no hierarchy of sin in God’s mind. Sin is sin, plain and simple. And He paid the price for it, once and for all.
If there isn’t enough grace for Osama, there isn’t enough grace for me.
Because there are no two sides to grace.
It is never deserved, but always needed.
By all of us. No matter what.
That’s what makes it so scandalous, so amazing.
So today, on one of the hardest of days, I am choosing to be generous with grace.
Because grace was generous with me.
oregon adventures
Last month, Tam and I flew back to Oregon for a couple weeks to spend time with friends and family. We had actually planned the trip before we left for Nashville in June… to help ease the goodbyes a bit. I don’t know if that was smart, or just denial. Either way, it was great to go back for a visit.
Our dear friends Mark and Cathi had brought baby Lincoln into the world the week before we moved. Leaving the three of them was the hardest part of moving away from Oregon. So it was crazy-good to soak up time with them again. Mark and Cathi are amazing parents, and I so loved just being with them while they did their thing.
And Lincoln? That boy could not get any more adorable. He is delicious, in every possible way. Dang, I love that child.
As an expression of trust and love that made my heart swell with words I can’t find, Mark and Cathi asked me to be Lincoln’s godmother. In a way no one will ever fully understand, something that had been taken from me got restored in that moment. And my heart’s been brimming with tears just below the surface ever since. She feels tender, fragile, grateful… But she’s full. And she’s learning to trust anew…
Exhale…
My phone camera got a workout during the trip. But being the proud aunt that I am, pretty much all my pictures are of Link. So consider yourself warned… You’re about to get your weekly fill of CUTE all in one slideshow…
Share a snapshot of some recent heart-happy in your own life… I’d love to hear about something big/small/whatever that has filled your heart right up.
life isn’t fair
Life isn’t fair.
As much we might bemoan that fact, we really don’t want it to be fair, do we?
We only want fair when it would be to our benefit.
When we would stand to gain. Or get even. Or get what we think we deserve.
Until we realize that what we deserve? Is nothing.
That’s what’s fair.
What’s fair is that I get nothing.
Have nothing.
Be nothing.
Do nothing.
I. Deserve. Nothing.
So, having air to breathe? That’s not fair.
Waking up in the morning? Not fair.
Being loved? Not fair.
The cross? Grace? Second, third, and eleventy-second chances? Definitely not fair.
Life isn’t fair.
And for that I am beyond grateful.
