One Year

Proverbs 10:7
A good and honest life is a blessed memorial. The Message
The memory of the righteous will be a blessing. New Living Translation

For Daymark and many people connected to Daymark today is a large day. Today marks the one year anniversary of Dewayne's death. In many ways it is a hard day - to realize we have moved through one whole year without Dewayne. Although my memories during the year have alternated between painful (I miss Dewayne and I miss who he was to his wife, parents, sister, friends and those he counseled) and warm (I remember his laughter, his kindness, his thoughtfulness) I am certaintly not at the point where I can declare only that which Proverbs 10:7 says. The memory of the righteous will be a blessing. Although that is the truth and who Dewayne was in righteousness was a glory to behold, it still hurts at times. At the wake as someone very close to Dewayne saw his body they began to sob and cry out about all the things Dewayne had left to say and do. It expressed the depth of my cries exactly. As I first got to know Dewayne years ago I was struck by his passion and heart and giftedness. Through the years as I watched him grow and then got to see him offer his gifts through Daymark it caused me to look toward the future with such hope about all he would do and say. At times the absence of his saying and doing and being has been sad. Some of that sadness has been a grace because it draws me to God and reminds me we are not home. Some is still just sad especially as I have talked and walked with those who Dewayne touched so deeply. I am genuinely more owned by the largeness and beauty of his soul and often as I remember him I smile. In his article on grief Dewayne wrote... The backwardness of the gospel finds itself at work in your sorrow and memory; it is through your grief healing is encountered. I think that has been true this past year and yet I know their is more healing to happen. Dewayne's greatest gift to me was that he helped me to trust and wait for that healing to unfold and appreciate it as it did. So I will keep aiming to rest in that as I journey on.