Miracle from Boulder

Praise God, I have a new hard drive and I am all set to go.

At the beginning of April my family came together for the first time in years to celebrate the life of my aunt Barbara who had passed away in late March. I returned to Colorado from Oaxaca and was greeted by an environment of incredible unity that can only be attributed to answered prayer and the work of the Spirit to unite my family. My two beautiful cousins from New York came for their mother's funeral, and I knew that barb would have been ecstatic to see us all together again after 12 long years.

My aunt had fought against schizophrenia for most of her adult life and unlike my mother and my auntie, who can separate Barb's life by the time in her life when she became "sick", I only knew my mom's older sister in this confused state. My aunt Barbara was an artist, an extraordinary artist, who expressed the way she viewed the world around her through sketches, water colors, inks, and other modes of art. After my aunt was diagnosed, she found it more difficult to artistically express herself due to the medications she took that caused her hands to shake. I never feared Barbara, but I always sensed that she felt trapped inside a world of voices unable to separate external reality from the internal.

My family had prayed for freedom for my aunt for years, however I think it was my mom's oldest sister, my aunt Carol, who had tasted the saltiness of her own tears as she mourned over Barb's imprisonment. I still remember the night I found out about my aunt's death. I went outside under the Oaxaca sky and wept, wondering if she had ever known the heart of the Savior who had given everything for her ultimate freedom. I wept because I had no idea if I would ever see Barb again. I wept because I didn't know if I would ever be able to harmonize with Barb again as she hit notes that were literally impossible to reach in her high soprano vibrato. I wept because I would miss the socks hanging from the Christmas tree, her little gifts of love. I wept because I didn't know if she would ever experience true freedom from the prison her mind had become.

And then God answered my weeping and dried the tears of my family. From the mental hospital my dear aunt had lived in for the past two years came stories of an extraordinary love. Barbara had spent her last years loving the unlovable of this world through the power of Christ. She prayed for those in pain, sang hymns to those in despair, pushed the wheel-chair bound to eat with her, and showed the love of Christ tangibly to the least-loved of our society. Even after her death, the celebration of Barb's life and the freedom she had found through Christ was a testimony to many who attended her funeral. A handful of family friends, co-workers, and even family members acknowledged a need to know the one true living God who could set Barbara free. Thank you Jesus, you are so good. And I praise you because now yours is the only voice that Barb is hearing, and I know that her voice is ringing in praise to you.