Prayer

Today is a celebration of the life on earth of Emily King Edwards, as she intended. All poems and songs were hand-selected by Emily. This is just as she wants it.

Please join me in prayer.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for this opportunity to celebrate Emily. To celebrate and give thanks for the gentle passion with which she lived, and how generously she loved, and to consider how to ensure and honor her legacy.

These are the themes chosen for today: Life, Love, Legacy, Celebration. Since this is my chance, I add a fifth theme: Hope. I am also urged to say that I am humbled and forever grateful to You and Emily for how hard she loved on my babies. I did not deserve that, but they did, and Emily knew that.

I am struck by Emily’s choice of Amazing Grace to begin her celebration. As you perfectly understand, without grace, your Amazing Grace, there is no hope. Your book of Hebrews speaks of “this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.” Bless us with grace and hope, that we may conquer loneliness, fear, despair, guilt, and yes, even death. That is grace.

Your Apostle Paul, a man with impossible hope and faith and strength, still spoke of the death of a dear friend as “sorrow upon sorrow.” In the original Greek, the phrase “sorrow upon sorrow” is a nautical term describing the relentless, yet dreadfully intermittent crashing of waves upon the shore. Many of us here today perfectly understand that metaphor. Therefore, we ask for strength, for grace, and for hope.

But even with perfect hope, we understand that hurting with hope still hurts. It hurts like hell.

Help us to understand that though this was your intent, it is the opposite of what you wanted. Help us to know that you are as aggrieved for Emily’s family and friends as we are. That you are even more aggrieved.

Let us comprehend that every physical miracle, no matter how deeply hoped or prayed for, is merely a delay of the inevitable eternal. Give us the strength and wisdom to proceed knowing that while our sadness will never fully subside, our deep sorrow only makes our triumph in honor of sweet Emily – and all others before us – even more powerful.

Emily was born and burdened with glorious purpose. You know that I stole the “burdened with glorious purpose” line from The Avengers, so I shamelessly admit it in front of those who join me today. It doesn’t matter because it is truth. Emily was created and burdened with glorious purpose, and she fulfilled it. Help us all to fulfill our own glorious purposes, which have each been shaped by Emily’s relentless warmth and kindness.

Knowing that Emily appreciates it much more than an Avengers reference, I will add a reference to the Hunger Games as well….

“Hope is the only thing more powerful than fear.”

So we ask again for hope.

We understand that for the rest of Matt and Jane’s and Wini and Wayne’s, and Matthew and Katie’s, and all the King and Edwards families’ lives on earth, that there will always be a missing place at the table, a missing face from the photo. With decimated hearts, we see Jane at dance class without her mommy. We see Jane through adolescence without her mommy. We see Jane at prom and graduation and her wedding without her mommy. We see nephews and nieces without their doting Aunt Em, and grandbabies without their grand mommy. We miss what those grandchildren will so lovingly call Emily, whether Nana, Motsy, EmEm, Grammy Em, or simply grandma. We see Matt in all those moments, without his bride. We see ourselves in those moments, without our daughter, sister, aunt or friend.

We pray that you give us all the will and depth and understanding to hold Matt and Jane up as Emily would have it. And we pray, especially for Matt and Jane and Wayne and Wini, that on those days when we feel good, on those eventual days that will surely come, when we feel the warmth of that perfect fall Colorado sunshine, that we know Emily would have it only that way. That Emily relishes those days, as we should, without guilt or hesitation or pretense.

Thank you for Emily. Thank you for her unique dedication to community, which left an indelible imprint from Lakewood to Boulder to Tempe to New York City to Westford and Boston. Literally across the country. Thank you for her devotion as a daughter, sister, mommy, and wife, and friend. Lord, fill this beautiful place that Emily so loved with an abundance of peace, love, joy, understanding, and – most of all – grace and hope. Amazing grace and hope.

Finally, we plead for perfect understanding that while the things we see now will soon be gone, the things we cannot see will last forever.

That may seem impossible for some of us, but even the brightest rocket scientist and dullest lawyer among us knows this:

Even when you can’t see the stars, they are still there.

In your name we pray, AMEN.