Ann Voskamp said, “Life is full of loss and time keeps charging forward. Jesus said when your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. When your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness . . . count gifts. It keeps your eyes good. It offers you the definite gift of greater joy. It draws open the curtains of night when the sun is going down – when loss threatens to bury us.” (from Ann’s One Thousand Gifts video series, session 2).
So we count gifts . . .
6,041 days of Matthew’s life on earth
A grandson, full of life, born on this day, two years ago
Another grandson, with Matthew as his middle name
Closer to heaven’s reunions
Joy in the morning
Skittles
Today is a good, hard day. It’s a sad day. It’s a joyful day. It’s a day of beauty from the ashes. It’s a day of hope and LIFE. It’s a day we remember where we were 15 years ago when our son, Matthew Norman took his last breath here and entered the presence of Jesus. It’s a day that temporarily wrecked us and split our hearts.
How could such a dark day turn into a joyful day? When does joy in the morning return on anniverseries of this day? BUT GOD . . . God redeems days. HE alone brings beauty out of the ashes. He IS restoring the years the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25-32). God did not want us to continue to sink in that pit each year on this day. Matthew beholds Jesus. He LIVES in the presence of God and though we miss him with every part of our beings and hate how he left us, God forgave him before he even chose to try what took his life.
And He gave and gives us JOY for this day, one being the amazing gift of a precious life. Two years ago today our grandson, Dante was born, within the same hour our son left this Earth 13 years previously. ONLY GOD could plan that. I’ve wept with my daughter, questioning God how we can celebrate on such a day and yet in awe as we accept the gift of love and life He showed us on THIS day. There is life – here on Earth and in Heaven! To see the sparkle in our grandson’s life – playing with cars, snuggling his mama and eating a donut with sprinkles. His little joys are our gifts.
Tears still come . . . some did today. One daughter brought home a handful of boxes of candy and asked if I wanted one, saying, “Matthew would do this. Ohhh I miss him so much.” (Matthew loved giving out candy.) But these tears are temporary. LIFE is eternal. And we hold and love on lives here, thankful for the promises of eternity, because of Baby Jesus born to later die for us. Joy in the morning will last forever some day . . . another gift.
Yes, it’s a hard day and it’s a beautiful day. And I am thankful. Yes, even for this day. We celebrate life.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights . . . “
(James 1:17)
If you do not know Matthew’s story, please read it and talk with your children. His death may save your child’s lives.
Writing Canvas 
Thanks for sharing your story and how God has redeemed that very day by giving you such a joyful grandson. I appreciated the steady year by year spiritual growth and vision of seeing things from an eternal perspective.
I will always remember those dark days your family walked through. What a blessing to receive the gift of a grandson on the same day of Matthew’s passing. God is faithful!
I was thinking about you a few weeks ago wondering if you still have the materials to make the bracelets you used to make. My daughter lost her 4th baby to a miscarriage at 20 weeks two weeks ago, she is devastated and I was trying to think of something I could give her to bless her during these hard days and I thought about your beautiful bracelets you used to make. If you still make them please let me know, I’d love to buy one for her.