Love Your Guts - Sarah's diary

it’s now been just over 3 weeks since sarah beth
left for heaven. in some ways it seems like
yesterday yet sometimes it seems like she’s been
gone for years. we miss her. and that’s a
tremendous understatement.

leaving sarah’s blog at the previous entry did not
seem to me to be the way to do things. while many
of you who are reading this were able to be
present for the celebration of her life, even more
were not. so i think that time should be shared
here. as heavy as our hearts were, a celebration
is what it was – celebrating and honoring sarah
beth in a way that celebrated and honored God.
there were 388 people there. 388 different points
of view, 388 people with unique ties to sarah.
but all of us were there to honor her, to comfort
each other, to be comforted ourselves, to seek God
in all of it. God was certainly there, and He was
given glory in this time that was planned by sarah
and by the family. we sang hymns she loved and our
church’s youth praise band led us in worship with
a few songs that were some of her favorites.
there were times of scripture reading and personal
words from her brothers, jeremy and jason (she
would’ve been SO proud of them ), her uncle greg,
her poppaw keith, her best friend julie and dear
friend julia, and friends tom sharp, rich
holtzapfel, willie wilson and steve willis. we
watched hundreds of precious pictures of sarah
beth and a video of her singing – so bittersweet
to hear that sweet voice of hers. it was
difficult, heartbreaking, beautiful, priceless
time together.

at sarah’s graveside, we released pink balloons
into the air, each one with a tag that read,
“www.loveyourguts.com”...somewhere, someone will
find a tag and will be curious enough to check
into it. and sarah’s story of faith will be read
by another person. hopefully by countless people.
in her blog entry from february 19, 2006, sarah
wrote, “sometimes i wonder if i will ever see
fruit. however, i am trusting God that the seeds
being planted will not come back void. i may never
see fruit, but i have to be OK with that…i know
that i am at one of those points where God is
getting ready to do something with my life, and i
am just opening up my everything to Him so that He
can work.” she was referring at that time to her
ministry with daybreak in lincoln heights but she
did feel that way in other areas of ministry as
well. as she became less able physically to go and
“do” ministry hands-on, she frequently felt as
though she was doing nothing at all for God. i
know it frustrated her completely, but she really
couldn’t have been more wrong about that. we
heard from so many of you how her faith had
touched your lives and spurred you on toward
moving closer to God. during sarah’s visitation
time at the funeral home, we were told of a little
boy in our church family who prayed to ask Jesus
into his heart after he’d been there earlier in
the evening. he has been taught about Jesus all
his life, knew all the answers to all the sunday
school questions…and came to a point of decision
that evening. later he said, “i’ll go to heaven
just like sarah.” we are still seeing it happen.
we have friends who have started coming to church
as a result of her testimony. just examples. maybe
you’re another. maybe you’re reading this right
now because you found a pink balloon with a web
address attached.

sarah beth’s faith was mentioned many times at her
celebration. one of those who spoke pointed out
that her faith was not needed anymore – because
now her faith is sight. the One that she believed
in and trusted with all her heart, having never
seen Him…He is the One she now sees face to face.
their eyes have met. they’ve smiled at each other.
she has seen the nail prints in His hands. she is
in the arms of her Jesus. He’s told her the story
of her faith through HIS eyes. and no doubt, she’s
seen the fruit of her faith’s effort. this
loveyourguts site is more than sarah beth’s diary.
it’s a God story of how He gave us glimpses of
His love through her life. sarah’s faith was huge.
but i think we need to realize that we each are
capable of letting God cultivate such faith in us.
the key for sarah beth was that her life was a
surrendered life. that’s His desire. He won’t
make us be His. we need to choose Him. we need to
surrender. you can do it. i can do it. but will
we? what has God been showing you in this example
of living life to honor Him, no matter the
circumstances? what will we do with what we know?

as a family, we continue to grieve. we miss her so
much. please continue to pray for us in this,
especially for mark and kathleen, jeremy and
jason. her absence is felt most tangibly by the
four of them. still, we hold onto the hope we have
in Christ. the sureness that we will spend our
eternity with Him. and through that, the knowledge
that we will see sarah beth again. when she was
still with us and was having some fearful moments
toward the end, jason reminded her of 2 peter 3:8,
which says, “but do not forget this one thing,
dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years are like a
day,” and then he told her in that case, it would
only be about 17 minutes until she saw us again.
she told him he’d been studying.

on april 10, 2006, sarah beth wrote, “please know
that i firmly believe God has his hand all over
this. He does not allow anything to happen that is
not in His will. i will continue to be obedient
and will serve Him to the day that i die…no matter
what the circumstances.” ….God surely did have His
hand all over it. and sarah surely did serve Him
in obedience to her very last breath. we were so
completely blessed to be able to call her ours. we
love her guts.

leigh ann