23:30
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Who was Nattie? I knew her first through an email group for Christian journalers, and later, much better through a group called Women At Home.
Yes, I only ever knew her online, and certainly there were others who knew her so much better than I did, but I will not resort to calling her an online friend, as opposed to an IRL friend, because that takes something from what she was (and other women on w@h are) to me. She was and they are In Real Life Friends. They are REAL, they exist, and they are there for me.
I am blessed to have known Nattie. She had struggled in various areas of her life but always came up smiling, always pointing us back to the Father. Nattie, I miss you!
To finish I want to share something I wrote on W@H back in 2008. Someone had asked us to imagine what Nattie had been doing in heaven that past year. There's nothing more to add, so I'll leave you with this:
I see her dancing with THE Father.
AS a daddy dances with his daughter.
I see her laughing and playing with him, sitting in his lap, talking about all the times she had to do that without the two of them in the same room, when she had to believe he was there, holding her.
I see her watching the hard situations that some of us are facing, and watch her talking to the father about it, watch her crying WITH HIM, over their pain, and then smiling again because the father is telling her of the plans he has for them and how he is going to bring glory out of the darkness that the enemy has tried to bring to them! I see her even laughing at those plans he is sharing with her, because they are so outrageous in grace.
I also see her reading, and I see her talking with authors who have also made their way to heaven, as if she and they were old friends. And I see her, watching the keen readers amongst us, seeing what they are reading and almost at moments, leaning over their shoulders, as it were, to get a peek at the current book of the moment.
Yes, I only ever knew her online, and certainly there were others who knew her so much better than I did, but I will not resort to calling her an online friend, as opposed to an IRL friend, because that takes something from what she was (and other women on w@h are) to me. She was and they are In Real Life Friends. They are REAL, they exist, and they are there for me.
I am blessed to have known Nattie. She had struggled in various areas of her life but always came up smiling, always pointing us back to the Father. Nattie, I miss you!
To finish I want to share something I wrote on W@H back in 2008. Someone had asked us to imagine what Nattie had been doing in heaven that past year. There's nothing more to add, so I'll leave you with this:
I see her dancing with THE Father.
AS a daddy dances with his daughter.
I see her laughing and playing with him, sitting in his lap, talking about all the times she had to do that without the two of them in the same room, when she had to believe he was there, holding her.
I see her watching the hard situations that some of us are facing, and watch her talking to the father about it, watch her crying WITH HIM, over their pain, and then smiling again because the father is telling her of the plans he has for them and how he is going to bring glory out of the darkness that the enemy has tried to bring to them! I see her even laughing at those plans he is sharing with her, because they are so outrageous in grace.
I also see her reading, and I see her talking with authors who have also made their way to heaven, as if she and they were old friends. And I see her, watching the keen readers amongst us, seeing what they are reading and almost at moments, leaning over their shoulders, as it were, to get a peek at the current book of the moment.
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