Strangers to Sisters
Three weeks ago, I got this text.
My mind was blown because this was so different from the very first message I received from this person on September 18th, just 6 short months ago…
I’d heard Bronson speak of her often, but we’d never met or talked before.
She was essentially a stranger, but in an instant, we were connected.
Standing in my kitchen, looking at this message, knowing what we’d been struggling to come to grips with all morning, and then realizing the person closest to Bronson didn’t know the truth yet.
Was I going to be the one to tell this poor girl the devastating news?
We’ve never spoken before.
When I called her, she was desperate to know where Bronson was because she had heard there was an accident, but not much more. She wanted to see him.
On my back deck, tears streaming down my face, I listened as she struggled to catch her breath. Struggled to comprehend as I confirmed her worst nightmare.
So many questions and I didn’t have many answers, except to the main one…
Yes.
He’s gone.
This was our introduction. Our first conversation.
I had my own grief, but it paled in comparison to hers and my heart was broken for her. She’d just lost the love of her life and the father of her soon-to-be child and she heard it from a stranger.
I won’t forget that phone call, but God has been so gracious as to not make that our last.
6 months later - with her parents and son, my kids, Justin, and Bronson’s best friend and wife, all watching and praying - she was baptized.
How beautiful is this picture?
If this picture doesn’t move you, I don’t know what will.
Watching her come up out of the water, I kept praying for the brokenness to be washed away and for her loss and grief to be lifted. For God’s redeeming love to piece her heart back together. For all the lies the enemy has whispered into her ear to be silenced.
I prayed for Holy Spirit for fill her and make her whole. For her to experience the presence of The Comforter and Healer. To experience the love and joy that comes from knowing God.
Her life is no longer hers, it’s God’s.
She handed it over yesterday.
She is just like so many of us, the prodigal son, the lost sheep, returned!
Ashlyn, thank you for letting this stranger walk alongside you during some of the darkest days, and thru it, come out as friends, or more importantly, as sisters in Christ.
What an honor to be there to watch you take this step and to see God working in your life. You may not know it, but He has His hands all over you.
We’re right here with you, praying for you and the precious baby girl that will be here in just a few short weeks.
I imagine Bronson would have made some joke or inappropriate comment about yesterday if he was still here, but since I imagine him up in Heaven, I can’t help but see him cheering you on with that big grin of his.
And so are we.
