The weather this morning was full of promise – warm, still, and cloudless, the sky intense and blue. The magnolia buds sensed the warmth and sent forth pink feelers to test the day. They may bloom tomorrow or the day after that, but the promise is there. They will bloom.
I should have been joyful to see the petals peek through their fuzzy grey blankets, but my thoughts were with a family who recently lost their son to neuroblastoma. Little Braeden was just shy of his fourth birthday when he died early Saturday morning.
I haven’t met Braeden or his family, but my book is being published, partly because of them. When the Discovery House Publishers selection committee was considering my proposal, they asked one of their co-workers, Braeden’s dad, to read it. The editors asked him if a book like it would have been beneficial to them. Yes, he said, it would have been helpful.
The book will be released in September, but Braeden’s life was nipped in the bud. My future holds promise, sweet as magnolias in the spring, while Braeden’s family grieves though the promise of heaven is their sure hope. While their loss remains raw and wrenching, I am praying that God’s promises will be real to them, revealed to them as hope in their grief. And one day, I hope to share letters with them, letters from parents encouraged by the stories in a little book that came into being, in no small part because little Braeden lived.
