"But faith is hopin' for something, believing what you can't see..."

"I wanna ask you something.
Is it warm?
Is it soft against your face?
Do you feel a kind of grace inside the breeze?
Will there be trees?
Is there light?
Does it hover on the ground?
Does it shine from all around?
Or just from you?

Is it endless and empty,
Can you wander on your own?
Slowly forget about the folks that you have known.
Or does rising bread fill up the air
From open kitchens everywhere?
Familiar faces as far as you can see,
Like a family.

Do we live?
Is it like a little town?
Do we get to look back down
at who we’ve known?
Are we above?
Are we everywhere?
Are we anywhere at all?
Do we hear a trumpet call us and we’re by your side?

Will I walk,
Will I whisper all the things I should have done?
Longing to finish what I’ve only just begun.
Or has a shining truth been waiting there
For all the questions everywhere?
In a world of wondering,
Suddenly you know.
And you will always know.

Will my momma be there
waiting for me?
Smiling like the way she does,
And holding out her arms
As she calls my name.
She will hold me just the same.

Only heaven knows how glory goes.
What each of us was meant to be.
In the starlight,
That is what we are.
I can see so far."

"How Glory Goes" from Floyd Collins. Don't just read it, go listen to it.

I was stirred out of my comfortable, dark, ignorant sleep this morning by the vibrating of my cell phone. I almost ignored it, preferring to remain curled in my whorl of sheets and fuzzy blanket. But I creaked out of bed and scurried over to my jeans left on the floor from yesterday, in the pocket of which lay my phone, urgently vibrating. My friend didn't sound happy, and though I knew my voice betrayed my sleeping habits, there were no apologies for waking me up. Something was wrong. Last night one of my best friends passed away. Katie Renville was in a car accident with her mom as they were driving back from Oregon.

My mind refused to absorb this new truth for a few minutes, but it eventually sunk in.

And thus began a day spent calling friends, telling them, in my turn, this unpleasant truth, and listening to their first few painful minutes of struggling to make this fact a reality in their minds and hearts.

I love Katie. With all of my heart. And so you would think I'd be a wreck. Several people have called, checking up on me, offering to do anything for me they could. And I feel guilty for not weeping all day. But I think I've been especially blessed with comfort and peace. I don't know why, but I'm grateful for it. I have no real previous experience with death except for my cats, so I can't explain it by lessons learned in the past. All I know is that though I'll miss her, and wish she could have stayed in the world longer to experience everything she dreamed of, I know that she is in a good place. She's now free of the pain she's had to live with throughout her life. She'll be as active as she ever was, serving the Lord in a different way now. She knows how much I love her.

Maybe everything will catch up to me. But today I was at peace. And I think I need this calm, grounded knowledge which has been given to me for that potential future when I'm not so peaceful.

Has something really small, seemingly insignificant, but very personal ever happened to you which makes you know that your Heavenly Father is more aware of you and your feelings than you realize? An hour after my friend called, an hour I had spent alone, calling a few people and sharing the news with them, an hour spent with tears and figuring out when the last time I saw her was, my alarm clock went off. It was set to a radio station which I never listen to; my hand reacts so quickly to turn the alarm off that I never hear what it's playing and so don't care what station it's set to. This morning it was playing the sixth movement of John Rutter's Requiem. Nothing could have been more fitting, or more comforting. It seemed like a little message from God, just for me.

The Lord gives some incredible gifts. Without the gospel, and this knowledge, life and death would be so much more difficult.

I send this out into the void: Thank you, Katie. My life has been changed because of you. Since my first semester at BYU when we did our irritating scene from Isn't It Romantic?, to being stage managed by you, to our trials as roommates, I have been so grateful to have you in my life. There is no one like you. I'll miss quoting "I could throw this table at you." etc, I'll miss recognizing your laugh whenever I'm in hearing distance, I'll miss your never-ending support of me in all aspects. I don't think I've ever known anyone as supportive as you. No one has told me that they loved me as often as you did. Your ability to live with the trials life gave you was inspiring. Your unashamed originality was always a joy in my life and I'll miss your loud self. I love you.