Marissa Alice Bundy – October 2, 1990 – March 6, 2017

Winter is leaving us.

I’m always glad for spring. The return of green and warmth, dormant things surging back to life. But for the first time in several years, I was content with winter. I was able to embrace the cold without memories overwhelming me. To enjoy brisk morning walks with the moonlight on one side of the sky and the rising sun on the other.

Strands of color, marbled gray, and a lifting of darkness.

Time has been a friend, moving me from trauma and grief and dulling its memory.

But I don’t forget.

Seven years ago on March 6, we said goodbye to Marissa. After a winter filled with the cold darkness of struggle, she was released from her suffering.

In honor of this day, I went back and reread my posts about her final months. Honestly, I had forgotten the intensity of those waves. I had forgotten how deep the water was, how often it seemed to sweep right over us.

On Sunday in church, we read Psalm 88 together. A chapter where there is just a continual crying out to God with no real answer. The sixth and seventh verses jumped out at me. “You have put me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the depths. Your wrath has rested upon me, and You have afflicted me with all your waves.”

I never doubted that God was the sender of the waves.

Amy Carmicheal said, “But God is the God of the waves and the billows, and they are still His when they come over us.” Every wave that washed over us was His appointment, His divine plan. The deliverance was His as well–Marissa to eternal healing and us to carry on as the waves calmed.

We finished reading Pilgrim’s Progress this week, where Christian and Hopeful cross the great river of death, not without wrestling. Not without struggle.

“Christian began to sink, and crying out to his good friend, Hopeful, he said, I sink in deep waters; the billows go over my head, all the waves go over me.

Then said the other, Be of good cheer, my Brother, I feel the bottom, and it is good.”

Marissa felt the bottom, and it was good. The river did not overwhelm her. She was safely kept.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. Isaiah 43:2

She crossed into Paradise that day, the river forgotten, the journey a faded remembrance.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:22-24

To Jesus, her mediator.

Who stills the wind and the waves.

Who whispers peace in all of life’s storms.

Who gives rest to weary ones.

Who delivers us from all our sorrows at last.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Revelation 21:4

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4