the unfinished canvas

on september 24, 2011, my friend Sara went to be with Jesus. Her joy, courage, and peace continue to inspire me and many others, even in the months since she passed away.

my husband and i were married december 11, 2010, and my sweet friend was working on a canvas last february for our wedding gift.

she never got to finish it.

see, her illness took over during most of 2011, and she had to set aside much of her painting and creating...at least in the physical sense. she kept creating, kept loving, kept painting a canvas of joy with her life. she apologized several times for never finishing our wedding canvas, but i didn't mind. it didn't matter. i wonder, sometimes, about what she was painting, which part of her beauty she had splashed onto that canvas, and it keeps her memory alive to me. sara lived so well, and sometimes i can't help but picture her life like the unfinished canvas that she never got to complete. it makes me sad to wonder what else she might have done with her beautiful personality. but then i remember that someday, when the Lord takes me Home for Good, i'll get to ask her what that canvas would have been, and i know it was complete in the eyes of it's creator. 


and that's what Sara's life was like in the eyes of Jesus. it was Complete in the eyes of her Creator. 


how beautiful to think about that. The Lord has seen the whole picture. the whole canvas. it looks so empty, so not-enough to us, but to Him, to the Creator of the beauty, it's done.

Sara, i can't wait to hear about my wedding canvas. 

Happy birthday, friend. Enjoy it with your Saviour!