My Heart is Sad ....

....but it's also full of joy.

Last night a dear blog friend died.  Her name is Jill and she was listed on my blog list on the right.  Her blog was called Altered.

Jill was diagnosed with ALS in 2004.
Sometime shortly after Jim died, she found my blog.

And we instantly fell in love with each other.
We both recognized that we were each grieving.
Grieving for the future that we had planned, but would never have.

She was a constant in my life, as I tried to be in hers.
She started her blog soon after her diagnosis so that she could chronicle her illness and her life in dealing with it.

She encouraged me in my dark days of grief, as I hope as was able to encourage her.

She was, and is and will always be .... an amazing woman of God.
She, like me, was brutally honest about what she was going through.
But she always, ALWAYS, kept her eyes on Christ and knew that He was in control.
No matter how pissed off she was that day, or how crappy she felt.

She was in inspiration for me and for so many, many others.

As her time here on earth grew shorter I would e-mail her and encourage her to "fly to Jesus" when it was time.
She did that last night.
And now she's dancing with Jesus.
And hopefully, Jim (even though the man did not have a love for dance down here on earth).
I emailed her the night before she died and told her that I was so excited for her and asked her to please find Jim and tell him how much I love him and will always love him.

I think they've hit it off pretty well.

So yes my heart is sad.  Sad for her family and her friends who now have to grieve her absence, but it's also full of joy.  Because she is, without a doubt, in the best possible place, with a new, wonderful and disease-free body.

She is happier than words can convey.

Here's the song I would remind her of once in a while, but more often towards the end.  It was sung at Jim's memorial ..... and it will always touch my heart deeply.