In part 3 of 4 I want to show you one more piece of my relationship with Jesus that taught me my role as His beloved this year.

But I have to give you a little bit more background –

The one area where Katy did not begin at normal milestones was walking. One morning the Holy Spirit reminded me of an interview I had seen on TV way back when I was in high school, about horse therapy. That reminder inspired me to do a little research and I found there was a horse therapy center near our home.  Katy soon began Horse therapy and within a few months her core strength improved greatly and she began to walk!

Well that was the inexpensive part.  My husband and I started taking riding lessons, buying horses and then horse property in a whole other state was a bit more costly!

Bill and I took lessons at a dude ranch about an hour out of town.  The couple that ran the dude ranch were the real deal.  They had a stallion named Commander Jack.

We were newbies to horses and so were most of the people who showed up there.  So, in order to keep us safe, they cultivated a solid level of fear about getting too close to the stallion, Jack.

Jack was to be feared and avoided.  Jack was unpredictable.

Then suddenly, a few years later, to make a long story very short, Jack came to live with us in Texas! Along with his Mare and day-old filly.

We were just developing our horse property when this suddenly happened so we put them in temporary pens.  I had to go in there with Jack and feed him and clean the pen.  Thankfully by this time I had my own horses and had spent a few years with them, but they were not the dreaded stallion I had learned to fear!

Once when we were out of town, Jack got out of his paddock and off our property too. He went to visit some neighboring horses but, in the wee morning hours didn’t see the wire fence that tore his face half off!

When I returned I had to clean his terrible wound twice per day. Our relationship blossomed little by little – I had to clean the hay from his wounds and treat him with medicine and fresh bandages.  I’m sure it was painful, but he was tough. We grew in greater trust for one another.

Jack loved to eat, but our relationship had grown so close, that he would not eat until he had his hug!

You see the thing I feared had become my friend and we both looked forward to our daily cuddle.

One day, some years after I had taken Jack home to his Mom & Dad in Colorado, I was studying my Bible and suddenly I had an image of me with my forehead pressed up against Jack’s big black forehead. This had become our normal.

But THEN, the picture changed and the black horse became a larger black lion who I immediately understood to be Jesus.  We cuddled together just as Jack and I did.  I stroked His mane and, though I was aware of His great power, that I could suddenly die in His Presence; I knew with certainty, that His power was only ever for me, not against me.

I still meet with Jesus this way sometimes.  But most of the time, since He got me past this fear, I am actually hugging Jesus, stroking His beard as we press our foreheads together the same way that I would with Katy.

All of these pieces have led me, over about 10 years to KNOW that I know, that I know, in my deepest place how I AM the Beloved of the Father.

And I’m here to tell you, it changes EVERYTHING!

It changes how I SEE events in my life. How I see my struggles.

Just consider, if I am in a place of whole lotta month and too little paycheck but I know I am loved by my Father, will my attitude and expectation look different than if I think the Father is mad at me and I must have messed up again to end up here!?

Let me tell you, over the last 10 years, I have had many opportunities, in many different areas of life to think that.

This year started off with a big opportunity for dark thoughts.

A normal Tuesday, Katy had come home from school early because she was having cramps.  It was normal for her to sleep through the first day of her cycle and then sleep through the night too.   So she came home.  Had a bite to eat and seemed happy but wanted to go to bed. Normal.

I was going to go to choir practice that night and I wanted us to eat dinner together first. I didn’t want Katy to wake up hungry in the middle of the night because she had slept through dinner, so I asked my husband to get her up and bring her in since dinner was almost ready.

Suddenly he yelled my name.  By the tone of his voice, I ran for her room!

Bill and I had prayed and believed God for Katy’s healing here on earth for 20 years.  We had publicly proclaimed His faithfulness in this area too and we lived in hope and expectation of her healing.

Then, in the last two weeks of Katy’s life, there was some kind of tangible shift in the spirit. Everyone could feel it in Katy. She was more engaged. Even more joyful than usual, and I spent minutes at a time just staring at her; expectant that she would start talking at any moment.

Two days before, at church on Sunday, Katy had made the rounds to what seemed like EVERYONE she knew at church, hugging them and gazing into their eyes with the biggest smile on her face.  Several commented about the beautiful smiles she was giving out. They were expectant too.

That Tuesday morning when Katy was leaving for school, we were running late.  I put her in the car and ran back in the house to get ready for a meeting.  I almost forgot our daily blessing prayer!  I’m so grateful that the Lord didn’t let me. I ran back out, opened her car door before they pulled out, and pressed my forehead to hers saying:

“The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.  The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”

Often when you were praying with Katy, she would look up above your head and smile at…angels?   That morning, as I prayed, she became so full of joy!  She suddenly whipped her head to look over my left shoulder.  When I wrote about it in my journal later, I wrote that she looked up at THEM.  Had they come to take her with them?

Looking back she seemed to be saying goodbye to everyone she loved at church on Sunday. “Goodbye for now, see you again soon.”

In the moment of finding her healed in a completely different way than I wanted, than I had believed for, than I expected…many things were going on at once – in an instant. Katy had already gone to Heaven.

My spirit and Bill’s were completely AWARE of Jesus’ Sweet Presence with us. There was no doubt about what had happened – Jesus took her home.

In that instant, I remember having the realization, “Oh, this is what You decided and You are Sovereign.  You are King and I am not.”

For some months before this, the King’s Peace had come to live at our house.  That’s the only way I know how to describe it.  But if I had anticipated this event, there is no way I would think Peace would be part of the picture.

Peace inhabited the room with us. I questioned if we were just in shock, because my heart wasn’t racing as it would normally if she had fallen or something.  My Dad always taught us not to panic.  “You can’t help anyone if you panic.”  So I could always help Katy in the midst of my racing heart.  But this was different.  My body was calm, my thoughts were clear.  The King’s peace was immovable.

Also, in the same moment, I felt the great honor of the King trusting us to suffer this enormous loss and still love Him.  It is, perhaps, the most honored I have ever felt.

Lastly, I witnessed in my spirit something I can only tell you about, but not explain.  I have had tastes of the dew of Heaven before, in moments of taking authority over darkness and inviting the Kingdom of Heaven to take its place.  But in this moment – though Katy had already gone on – It was as if I heard her last exhale here and felt the dewy environment with her as she took her first breath in the atmosphere of Heaven.

All those years of relationship and preparation were real.  All of the years spent with the Master was not so that I could get what I wanted, the way I wanted it. 

It was so that I would KNOW HIM. 

If I didn’t KNOW HIM in this season, I don’t know what life would have looked like this year. 

But as it stands for me today, my LIFE IN THE SPIRIT is so REAL that I truly can’t get to all the other negative possibilities.

My reality is that my God is Sovereign and that His will for me and mine is GOOD, Is RIGHT, Is KIND.  That He decided, AND that HE TRUSTS ME TO SUFFER THIS WITH HIM.

So much of what I have shared with you in the last 3 blogs has been my own spiritual experiences.

You COULD explain it away by saying that I have an active imagination or I’m crazy.  But my life has been built on spiritual experiences.

YET, when a natural experience like death takes place, my spiritual life has equipped me to deal with it in PEACE and not in CHAOS.  We will explore that more in part 4.  I invite you to complete the journey with me in part 4.