Rennie Burrus was asked to share his Leisha story through loss to hope at Cable Road Alliance Church on Sunday, August 2. Ren asked me to share a bit of mine as well. You can listen in at the link.
Cable Road Alliance Church’s Podcast
Today I’m sitting in a booth at Panera people watching mostly. I had visions of writing- a blog, a chapter, even an email, but I’m just not into it. I’m tired! Discouraged! Weary! Yet I’m not!
Do you ever have those days? When you feel like you can’t do the next thing even though you are excited about it. You even like what you are doing!
A college team of girls and their coaches came in for dinner. I didn’t ask if it was volley ball or basketball, but immediately the space around me was filled with conversation.
As I sat watching I reflected back on my own journey.
When you are young, you don’t think about life ending. You are young! You expect to have all of life ahead of you! You live and dream and plan as if there is nothing stopping you.
When you are in your 20’s, you get a job or marriage that keeps you focused. The job wasn’t what you thought it would be- but hey, it’s a job. You marriage isn’t the fairy tale you dreamed it would be, but hey you are in love. You still have the energy and the stamina to tackle anything in your way, so you keep on with determination.
You hit your 30’s and 40’s and suddenly thing gets harder. You get the promotion you thought you wanted and the family you always dreamed of. Now you have trouble remembering what your dream is because somewhere, someone else is telling you what to do. Your boss, the needs of your kids, the bills that must be paid. You can’t imagine what it would look like to stop what you are doing- if you drop one ball the whole thing will be crashing in on you. So you keep going!
You turn 50! You either lost your passion for The job you had or you got laid off. Now you are starting over again. The kids are going to or finishing college, you are prompted to remember the dreams you had when you were their age. You long for that ability to face the future with such vibrancy and freedom.
i’m not sure about the next 60’s on up. I’m not there…yet!
But what happens if at any point along the way- life would end unexpectedly. What if you die? at 94, or 68, or 27, 15 or maybe 8? Continue reading Life’s Too Short!
Twenty-four years ago, our daughter Leisha appeared in our world. She messed up all of our plans that day.
Rennie was supposed to be leading a huge dedication service of the new worship center at our church in Pennsylvania. She was being born just as they ended the service with a dedication of the new generation that would grow up in this place. Others had to fill in for Rennie!
She messed up lots of days since then too! Just like every baby does when they grow up in our family. Days become messy and nights interrupted. Plans get changed and that is expected! You know, or at least you realize quickly when you bring a child into your life they will forever change you. All three of ours have left a mark on us so significant that we know we are better, stronger, even holier as we have spent many more hours on our knees. You have too if you are a parent. It is what we do when we come to the end of ourselves and want more for our child.
Leisha also messed up our lives the day she died. That was eight and a half years ago. Another mark on all of us that have forced us to look at all of life from a new, yet broken perspective.
It is out of that perspective that I write today and ask for your prayers.
Days after Leisha died, we gathered every picture we could find of her and discovered her tapes and journals. It was in her most recent journal that we found ‘her book’. If you flipped it over and upside down and opened the cover she had begun to write her own story.
Chapter One
Once Upon A Time…
By Leisha D. Burrus
How many stories do you know that begin with ‘once upon a time”? Well this is one of them, or so I thought. I was born April twenty-eighth, nineteen ninety one. But wait! I am getting ahead of myself. I guess I should start where it all began.
My parents met in high school. … she begins to tell the love story of her dad & I.
As I sat there reading it for the first time, I could imagine this book was to be full of adventure and relationships and truth. Such truth! Because even in the short chapter that was written, she had spoken much truth to my heart. But just as Leisha had penned these few words to begin writing her story, she died. Not only was her story unwritten, but her life unlived.
However her words “I should start where it all began” was a telling of my story and of the journey of her mother and father and all that was her heritage because she was born into this family.
I knew the moment I read her words that it was meant for me to finish. Her story started mine. It was as if she knew I would need a jump start. Earlier that morning I had picked up my Bible to continue reading where I had left off the day before. I read these words from Revelation 1:
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.
19 “Write down what you have seen—both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen.
I felt as if Leisha was writing these words to me.
“Mom! When I saw him, I fell at his feet…and He put His hand on me and said…! Now Mom you’ve got to write! Write down what you have seen- what’s happening right now and all the things are that going to happen. You can do it Mom!”
So I am!
Yes, I’m writing to finish the story Leisha started; her story and mine. I don’t know how this story will impact yours, but it is my prayer that it will give you hope. Because my primary goal is to write about the many ways this Living One who died showed up in our story. Click To Tweet
That’s the real story- in my life and yours!
So this birthday, I am asking for your prayers as I do just that! Will you pray as I finish the story! I have set my heart to finish writing, and publishing it by Leisha’s 25th birthday on April 28, 2016. I have much to process, record and learn before that time. But it is a thing I must do next.
Would you be willing to be on the prayer team for Lovely Traces of Hope! That’s her name for her book! Whether or not it is the final title, I don’t know yet. But it seems fitting.
If you will join me, please sign up here.
I will add you to the group and send out periodic emails with updates and requests.
Whether you sign up or not, will you pray right now that I see this to completion. My heart needs it done.
Thank you from a fledging author!
Kathy
Happy Birthday Leisha!
To register for groups click here!
I was challenged by my story partner friend to take Kate Motaung’s challenge to write a letter to grief. Since it ties in with my recent series on Living Open Handed, I choose to share this here also.
Dear Grief,
I don’t think I want to talk to you!
I’ve spent so many years struggling to survive your choke hold on my life!
I’ve crawled through your tunnel
Filled with muck- dark and slimy
So deep that with each step I sunk farther
O
Until it began to paralyze my legs
Then my torso and my arms
Finally my face
Silencing my voice
Blind folding my sight
Dulling my ability to hear as you filled my ears with your lies.
I could barely find my next breath
OH
let alone move.
This is the 4th and final post in the series Living Open Handed in a White Knuckle World. If you have missed the previous posts, it would be helpful to go back and read them in order to understand how we got to this post. Links are provided below.
1. Living Open Handed in a White Knuckle World
2. Living Open Handed: I have a need!
3. Living Open Handed: Express Honestly
Through these posts,
Now we are ready to open the middle finger which stands for P: PIVOT. Continue reading Living Open Handed: Pivot to See God
Today I made two visits that I knew I would make one year ago. One with Sarah’s mom and the other to Sarah’s husband.
I met Sarah when I was ‘the youth pastor’s wife’ and Sarah was one of the youth. She was quiet, but when she smiled, you felt like smiling with her.
Several
years later she became the ‘youth pastor’s wife’ and my husband was the lead. Her personality remained reserved, but her smile was now matched by an incredible passion for the Lord that oozed out of her and sweetly touched the lives of the young people of our church.
Just the day before I said to my client, “well, I’m broken, and I can’t be 
fixed. Somehow God will just have to use me broken.”
But this day a woman I barely knew sat across the table in my leaders huddle. She spoke, hesitant of sharing such an intimate story with a group of strangers. Her parents had both died in an accident when she was young. Life had been hard. But now, so many years later she heard God saying to her, “I want to make you whole again.”
In my heart I whispered, “I’ll never be whole. I’ll always live broken.” Leisha’s death left me broken- heart is too ripped, too many pieces have been lost. Some Doctors say I can’t be healed. I can’t be fixed.
But the rest of the day those words rumbled around in my brain. Continue reading Broken… to Whole
My NOTICING for this day!
The NAKED TRUTH event took place early this month- and that had been an answer to a prayer that was 20 years old. I felt a FREEDOM that I have not felt for a long time. I wasn’t afraid of what others would say because I sensed so strongly that God had not only called us to host this conference but had grabbed me by the wrist and led to the next person, or thing to do since the day I first heard his voice on this. I was focused on women I love and care for. and I was certain of God’s presence and pleasure as we built the platform for Linda and Juli to come to Lima.
Real healing came in the way women were responsive to the truths at the NAKED TRUTH event, I continue to hear from women – married or single, young or old- that God met them and is taking them to a new place
But healing came for me
Thirty days isn’t a long time! But it’s long enough!
I just went through a quick study of the last 30 days of my life. I encourage you to consider your life over the last 30 days.
You could ask questions like:
I know that style of evaluating life is popular with many. You may be one of those. Especially if you are task oriented and working hard toward a goal. I’m not saying I don’t do that at times in my life- it’s important to ask these questions.
But this time I only asked ONE Question: What did you notice? Continue reading 30 Day of……………….!
