My Spirit Spoke

The monument company gave us the hope that they would have Ian's tombstone done before his birthday.  It was a long shot.  Marble takes 4 months to order.  A week or so ago, Keith and I went in to initial the final copy of the design and left more nervous than before.  The process of taking a drawing and making it into a sandblasting stencil is a lot more complicated than you would think.  So, when they called and said the stone came in, we both (privately) went into a sort of panic.

I said several silent prayers that day.  Amazingly they were very similar prayers to ones I offered many years ago.  I asked God to guide the hands of the sandblaster,  just like I had asked  Him to guide the hands of many surgeons.  We didn't pick a pre-made design from a book.  Keith had sketched a stripling warrior and I had simplified it to a basic line drawing for the stone.  We needed Heavenly Father to intervene and make sure it was fitting to our son's exemplary life.  It would be the last thing we could do directly for Ian.

I hadn't wanted to call and check on the progress--frankly,  I didn't want to know.  With my parents here,  I wanted to minimize my break downs.  By early afternoon today,  I couldn't stand it and I knew Keith would ask when he got home, so I called.  They said installation was scheduled for today.  They couldn't say if it was already done or would be done in the next few hours.  I called Keith--4 times with no luck and finally went to the cemetery--just left the kids with my parents and went.

When I got there,  no stone.  Nothing was any different,  but I knew the cemetery would close at 4:30, so I just found some shade and waited.   The truck came within a few minutes.  It took almost an hour.  I stayed back, out of the way.  I didn't want the man to feel pressured or hurried.  When I saw the marker,  I asked if he was the sandblaster, and he said yes.  I told him it was perfect and I thought about how God had answered my prayers.

On the way home the van was quiet.  I had a tune going through my head.  It took me a few miles to recognize it.  I wasn't humming it.  It wasn't audible.  It was my favorite hymn--All Creatures of Our God and King.    It occurred to me--glaringly--that my spirit inside me was reminding me that it was thankful too--singing  Alleluia,  Alleluia,  Alleluia,  Alle--lu--u--ia!